How do we father ourselves?
How does a grown womban father herself? Many of us have done the work, or at least pondered the work, of what it means to mother ourselves. It is easy enough in that gendered way to imagine our adult female self mothering our child female self. I have never imagined how my adult female self could father my child self.
First we must identify what the balanced father energy looks and feels like. Kim Krans, in the archetype deck, talks about the duality of the father archetype. The guardian AND he who leaves us to the wolves. In this version, I think of the guardian as the one who locks the princess away in the strong castle walls never to experience her wildness, her sensuality, unless it is under the auspices of the sanctioned arrangement that he has created. If she does not abide, then she is thrown to the wolves.
Can we write a new story about this? What if this particular expression of the duality is actually the shadow of the father archetype? What if he is actually the guardian who prepares her to brave the wilderness, within and without. What if the healthy father archetype actually wants the liberation of their precious seed. What if their purpose is to foster that perfect seedling to its fullest bloom of beauty and power?
What if we wombyn grew up with this guardian energy? If we did not, how can we now give it to ourselves while the patriarchy continues to tug at our shirt sleeves? I wish I had the answer to this question. What I know intrinsically is that when we feel the divine masculine drive to support our empowerment in this way, we can move mountains effortlessly. We would radiate love and magic into every moment. We would heal the fucking planet with our love, grace and generosity.
It is a two way street of growth here. We must take responsibility for fathering ourselves, and tending those tender wounds, somehow. And our men must grow into their capacity to hold guardian through empowerment.
The mother archetype teaches us to LISTEN to our intuitions. The father archetype encourages us to TRUST our intuition. This is counterintuitive to the aspect of masculinity (that is not necessarily related to being a man) who is ruled and rules through reason and rationality. He knows that within the realm of reason, intuition plays a vital role.
My prayer for us as we learn to father ourselves, is that when have those moments like falling and scraping a knee, or having our hearts shattered into a million pieces, that when we look back over our shoulders, we see and feel the divine masculine shining the warmth of the smiling sun upon us.
