What are the sacred Masculine and sacred Feminine (Father Sky and Mother Earth)?

What do these names mean in Therapeutic Shamanism? #

Masculine and Feminine here name sacred energies, not male and female people. Mother Earth and Father Sky are “the two great creator energies that bring the universe into existence”. Yin and Yang, Goddess and God, and Shiva and Shakti are other names people may find useful.¹

Mother and Father exist independently of us, as energies far beyond the human. They also exist within us, as parts of the unconscious we are programmed to seek out, yearnings that need fulfilling. Other names for them are the sacred Feminine and Masculine, and the sacred Mother and Father.

Does Feminine mean female, and Masculine mean male? #

No. “Masculine and Feminine” and “male and female” are not the same thing. Someone who fulfils a child’s mothering role, for example, need not be the biological mother, nor even female.²

Mother is an ancient Pattern of first relationship and primary care. A child encounters nurture, love, support, comfort, safety and protection through that relationship. Their first experience of the Feminine includes being receptive, nurturing, supportive, gentle, loving, compassionate, egalitarian and cooperative.

These contrast with more Masculine qualities such as healthy detachment, assertiveness, self-reliance, protectiveness and objectivity. The idealised Pattern is also different from how well an individual mother matches it.

Why are both needed? #

Because they are different, and neither can substitute for the other. Both Upper-World and Lower-World practices are transpersonal and transcendent, take us beyond the ego’s limited concerns, and bring healing, love and compassion. Yet “Yang is not the same as yin. Feminine is not the same as masculine.”³

We cannot understand the Feminine whilst focusing our life entirely on the Masculine, or the other way round. Nor can we come to love and revere the Earth whilst ignoring her and focusing only on the Sky. Wholeness means turning to face and embrace what is other to us.

“To become truly whole and balanced, we need to embrace both the Lower-World and the Upper-World, and both our Soul and our Spirit, in equal measure.”

What does “ascend rooted” have to do with this? #

Plants teach the balance. A plant that accepted the idea that up is good and down is bad would grow shallow roots, pour its energy into reaching upwards, become top-heavy and lack water and nutrients.⁴

Plants do not accept the opposite judgement either. They thrive by keeping their connection with Mother Earth and Father Sky in balance. The practical lesson is that we need to ascend rooted, drawing nourishment from both.

How do these principles give rise to Soul? #

Mother Earth, the Feminine Principle or Yin, contains all the Stories of everything that ever was, is and could be. Everything in the Lower-World is part of her. “She is the potential for everything and yet, on her own, nothing can manifest.”⁵

For those potentials to manifest, Yin and Yang must come together. When Father Sky, described as the restless, energising Masculine Principle or Yang, finds Mother Earth, a Soul is born from her body. In the Lower-World, the Soul is what something was born to be, its truest nature and essence, both the blueprint for how it could manifest in the middle-worldMiddle-world. Ordinary physical reality together with its energetic layers: the realm of individuality, separation and mixed intentions, and the only realm where harm is possible. “If there is a hell, then it is the middle-world.” Read the full answer and the drive to try and become that thing.

How does this relate to Spirit and Soul within a person? #

Upper-World Spirit is pure consciousness, a fragment of Father Sky, like a water drop that is part of an ocean. Spirit seeks to soar and transcend, to gain a broader perspective and see the bigger picture. A healthy connection with it requires living ethically, morally, with kindness and compassion.

Lower-World Soul is described as our true Self-identity: wild and free, part of nature, part of Human and Animal, a sibling to Plant and Stone, and a child of Mother Earth. It is both who we truly are deep down and the blueprint for what we are meant to grow into. Soul needs an authentic life.

How can balance become an experience? #

Plant shows what it feels like to hold the balance between Father Sky and Mother Earth. Through journeying, someone can begin to experience this for themselves: a feeling of interconnectedness and openness, and a deep knowing of belonging and being part of the Earth.

A strong message that comes from this experience is that, to be healthy, we need to honour the Earth as much as the Sky, with the descent of roots as valuable and essential as the ascent of branches. Trees exemplify this connection in both directions. The axis mundi is often depicted as a great World Tree: roots in the Lower-World, trunk in the middle-world and branches in the Upper-World.

Why does the middle-world self still matter? #

Trying to transcend both the middle-world selfMiddle-world self. The everyday self (ego, persona, head-and-heart), made of our stories and experiences. A genuine and needed part of the Inner Tribe: of service, not in command. Read the full answer and Lower-World Soul by focusing primarily on Upper-World Spirit often results in becoming overly detached and ungrounded. Unless someone wishes to withdraw from the world, the middle-world self has a necessary and rightful place.⁶

“The ego is not ‘bad’, it just needs to be of service and not in charge.” It is the tool through which both Soul and Spirit can express themselves and be of service to the world. Reining in the ego healthily requires descending and cultivating connection with Lower-World Soul as well as ascending.