And why it means so much more
A wash of dark blue all over the sky; a shadow of a woman rising from the sea underneath. Her hair flowing and majestic, while she caresses her womb holding the earth in as a foetus — an image that a few spiritualists reading the title of this article would associate it with.
A goddess staring right into your soul, her gaze full of warmth and conviction. The sun, creating a luminous background with specks of gold and red spread all over — an image most religious people will visualise whilst reading the title of this article.
I am not going to be talking about either.
Although my inspiration does come from the former, this is not a full blown spiritual-awakening sort of a write-up.
On one sleep deprived late night my YouTube’s algorithm decided to feature a spiritualist’s video talking about ‘The divine feminine energy’, and because I was running out of things to watch (+ the title is so attention grabbing, I mean come on!) I ended up watching it. Needless to say, I was hooked. Not because I believe in the crystal healing or sage burning powers that spiritualists usually talk about, (I would want to try out the crystals though, if anything, they are extremely pretty), but simply because it made a lot of sense.
A concept rooted in spirituality, the divine feminine energy is known to exist since eons. Our consciousness is divided in two, masculine energy and feminine energy. While most of us have a dominant side, we need both in order to achieve our truest and highest potential. Now, masculine energy is your rational, practical, motivated side. An energy that drives you to hustle harder and achieve your goals. Feminine energy on the other hand, focuses on being creative, being in tune with nature, our bodies and our mind. An energy that nurtures you just like a woman.
As fancy as this sounds, let me back it all up with psychology. Carl Jung, a known psychologist, explores and explains this concept beautifully through Anima and Animus. We all contain within us a plethora of layers. According to Carl Jung, Anima and Animus are two primary anthropomorphic archetypes of the unconscious mind. Anima explores the unconscious feminine aspect of a male, while Animus explores the unconscious masculine aspect of a female. The concepts falling perfectly in tune with the aforementioned spiritual theories.
But why am I talking about all of this? Let me elaborate.
Intriguing as all of this was, I really couldn’t help but wonder if by living in a patriarchal society that only rewards the masculine energy, have we all discarded our femininity?
Women have borne the brunt of fighting for equality for ages. It has been rather very difficult for multitude of women to achieve their dreams in a man’s world. The joke, “Whatever women do, they must do it twice as well as men to be thought of half as good”, well, ain’t a lie. But as most men reading this would go, “Men don’t have it easy either!”, and as much as I would disregard some of your claims, with some I shall agree.
Men don’t have it easy either. If you don’t fall in the conventional societal standards of success as a man, you are deemed to not be one. If you display any emotions that present you as anything but strong, confident and macho, you’re effeminate, a sissy, a faggot, a wimp — words that are nothing but derogatory. The pressure to earn higher than your woman, if not, to be the sole bread winner of the family (all I can think of is Akshay Jakhete from Indian Matchmaking right now and I can’t help myself but cringe), be the man of the house are all conditioned learnings that have maliciously shaped our lives. Not to mention the sheer number of women dismissing and demeaning femininity in general: “I’m not like other girls”, “Makeup is vain”, “I have far better things to focus on than what I wear”. I say this for I have noticed so many of us saying this only to be perceived as smart and intellectual or even competent in front of other men. We can embrace all of this and still excel. We don’t need to embrace any of it and still not think of others who do, as any less.
Devoid of gender classifications, we have all repudiated our feminine traits, our other half of the yin and yang.
In the wake of this pandemic that wreaked havoc in the per diem lives of almost everybody, we all got stuck at home. Forced to spend our extra free time with no one but ourselves. We all got in tune with our inner selves. We tried new things or went back to some. All of it in a dire attempt to prevent us from dwelling into the abyss of uncertainty that is the future. Let’s be honest here, how many shout outs did we end up giving on our personal Instagram pages? Personally, too many to not qualify it as a shout out account. Everyone we know is now opening up a YouTube channel, writing blogs, starting Instagram pages. Men, women and everybody else, are dancing more, cooking more, doing makeup, creating music, painting, making jewellery, doing yoga, and the list never ends.
All of this a result of a pandemic? A pandemic that obligated us to slow down, yes.
Now that we have tapped in a little to our feminine sides, let’s keep that going, shall we? Let’s change the way we perceive femininity, a word reserved only for the homophobic to use to demean men and for women to insult their inherent biology. Femininity is bewitching, it’s being creative and imaginative, it's tranquil and full of kindness. So let’s make it stand for all this instead. Let’s make it stand for art and beauty, peace and warmth and let’s all embrace the feminine within us.