Mushin Schilling - Woman - or a man’s apocalypse

This is an interesting post from Mushin J. Schilling at Love, Truth, Beauty, Pluralistic Spirituality. Here he deals in various and intriguing ways with his relationship to woman, as archetype and as a person, and what that means for him as a man.

In the end, many men define themselves (rightly or wrongly, and I think wrongly) by their relationships with women. Still, for those of us who partner with women, this is HUGE part of our existence. We often feel ourselves at a disadvantage with women because they tend (this is a generalization, to be sure) to be more adept at navigating the emotional terrain than are men. We need to change this - and here Mushin talks about his efforts in changing this role, and the struggle of doing so.

Woman - or a man’s apocalypse

Woman is a masculine apocalypse, or can be - actually, she really is.

Once I started to open up to the area of feeling into the world as it is - which obviously means, as I feel it to be - I find that women, and my beloved is the closest woman nearby, know this ‘terrain’ much better. Actually it is almost their home ground. From the very beginning they’re into the games of relationship and seem, in my eyes, much smarter at playing that game: and if it is playing that game to win, woman wins, hands down.

“Anima” - the term C.G. Jung used to designate what I would call soul, or the innermost being - is a female word, it is what animates us, makes us move and be the way we are in the rivers of life.

The first woman a man meets, the first woman I met was Mother, the source of all life - but as a baby I didn’t care about life, I cared about food and kisses and stroking and cuddling and all that. Mother was the source. That is a broken relationship for most of us, because as all women, my mother was limited by, well, her own limits.

Woman is the giver of all good feelings. No, not all - the blessing for a man is to find a whole realm that is not really women’s territory; it’s a man’s world. And I don’t mean soccer, beer and lusting. I mean measuring up occasions, accessing one’s own strengths and courage, and deciding: “I will conquer this.”

I know, conquering is really “out” these days, laying a claim to this, that and the other is really spiritually or philosophically incorrect, using one’s power and might to get what you want is totally out of whack, but it is part of being a man, as is pulling things apart and putting them back together, and being proud of being able to do so.

Crossing over in women’s terrain is dangerous, and really, I wouldn’t advise anyone to do so unless his “anima” forces him, and there is really no choice. It is dangerous because, since winning and losing is an important happening for a man, you’re going to lose most of the time. If a man’s mastery is playing the game of heroics in some form or another good enough to be proud of himself, than a woman’s mastery is playing the relationship game in such a way that she ends up in the center of a relational vortex, where being close to her is the prize.

To put it rather bluntly (a masculine ‘thing’ I guess), a women’s game is for closeness to her, and a man’s game is to being the top of the heap. Both places offer a sense of great security.

Ooops. I’m sorry, if I tread on some toes here. Being paradoxical, crying out of nowhere, almost dying because of the feeling’s strength that one encounters, being shaken by a scene on the street, endlessly mulling over how this relates to that… that’s become a major “new” part of me and all of these seem ‘female’. And I’m just beginning to study this first hand (including the f…ing feelings). Doing so I find that the women around me are expertly wielding the little knives and chisels, are in possession of all the tricks and arts that are so very necessary when conflicts arise - and arise they must. So, again, why is it dangerous ‘here’? That’s easy: woman has all the weapons in a conflict, and you don’t (if you don’t want to take back on your male armour etc.)

Well, why I write all this?

I just lost another battle - and in the end got an honorable settlement in which I could put out some claims and be heard. It’s not that women fight better or worse than men, it’s that they fight using different means. And if you have started to develop opening up on feeling levels, which means you cannot really hit the table with a fist any more and play the conflict in the way you know best (loudness, restrained violence, mental fitness, maybe)… you lose.Which means that it’s now up to her to ‘make up’, because that’s what the winner does; eitrher ‘take the cup’ and shit on the loser or draw the loser in and make him/her part of the reconciliation.

Apocalypse means revelation. The revelation is, woman is expert in feeling-field, or the feeling connection to relationship and life. Woman is expert in ‘being the womb’, in ‘holding the space’ in

So, being a man, this is what I do: I turn a lost battle into a great lesson that then I write about. There is, of course, an interesting feeling dimension to this - a dimension that is typically overrated by woman and underestimated by man. The soul is an apocalyptic teacher, to a man like me…

I hope Mushin doesn't me posting this whole entry, but I think it's important that more men think about they relate to the women they love, and how the old ways of being silent and secretly hurt do not work anymore. We need to be as in touch with our feelings as most women are with theirs.

Tags: masculinity, women, relationships, emotions, Woman, a man’s apocalypse, Mushin Schilling, intimacy