This question was asked of me this week and I decided to focus on it in this
posting. What I am going to post is implied but not overtly stated in all of
my posts and underlies much of my interest in this issue.

The history of the cosmos, summarized in a couple of hundred words, goes some-
thing like this:

The Ultimate Mystery, The Primary Force, often called God, created the cosmos.
The cosmos is created as a manifestation of its loving essence. The Ultimate did
not have to create. It did so to manifest its essence. So The Ultimate decides
to create and then as the physicists say, the “Big Bang” happened. And Divine
Manifestation has continued through out time. The universe, our universe,
continues to evolve into its present amazing, beautiful,unimaginably
complex form. Creation never stops.

And approximately a gazillion years after initial creation humans evolve.
One of the qualities of humans is their overriding desire to understand, to
know the Divine, and so they puzzle over this for many millennia. In the process
humans create numerous paths to understanding and experience. In all of these
paths humans are taking the Ultimate, The Unknowable, and reducing it to
knowable terms, to ways that can be known and experienced by human beings.

All of these paths have their strengths and weaknesses. Places where they
understand well and places that at times miss the point. But for the most part
are quite equal. And all point to the same Ultimate Creative Underlying Reality.
All of these paths have been likened to a transmission, a stepping down, the
experience in ways to make it comprehensible to us. All of these ‘step downs’
reflect ways that The Ultimate has revealed itself through the ages and in the
contemporary world. The Ultimate is always providing a series of experiences,
paths, approaches that lead to it. There is no one path and
Masculine/Feminine is not the primary path but it is A PATH TO THE DIVINE.

This is not just about gender though it all has obvious implications there. It
is not primarily about creating a more just society though this path will
lead inevitably to that if it is followed. It is about a path to the Divine, the
Ultimate.

I grew up as a child of the sixties when feminism was at its most intense point
with a powerful commitment to total equality of the sexes and one of the early
pieces of ideology was that there was no difference. Men and Women were the same.
Feminism it self began to moderate that that sense with increasing focus on
women’s way of knowing. And others pointed out that every single major spiritual
perspective throughout history from Hinduism, to Taoism, to Confucianism to
Christianity gave room for differing male and female energies.

The Ultimate in its loving manifestation chooses to show up in these forms. It
does not have to. It choses to as an expression of its loving essence. In effect
the Ultimate says, (to dramatically step down the process) “Well, they are all
either male or female, so I will show up in a form with which they have exper-
ience.” The Ultimate, which is beyond all form reveals itself in these
forms so that we who are in form can understand. And not only understand but
experience. This is all a gift, a pure, loving gift of The Ultimate to us and is
provided as a path. The Formless comes in the most basic of forms, male and
female. It comes divinizing each. It comes in forms which humans have disparaged
for thousands of years and says “I am both. We are all both.” It comes in form
bridging dualism. In the outwardly different form the Ultimate comes saying we
are one. Not only that male and female are one but that both are one with The
Ultimate. Both male and female share in the nature of the Ultimate. In this way
the false dualism of male and female is bridged and even more importantly the
false dualism of Divine and human is bridged.

The workshop is Wednesday evening September 17th from 7:00-8:30 at True North
Holistic Center. Please register at www.truenorthholisticcenter.org.