Matriarchy is not women exercising the kind of power that men have in patriarchy. Matriarchy enacts another kind of power entirely, one that the modern mind cannot easily recognize.
I’d like to offer some thoughts about the word “matriarchy”, which in my humble estimation, is an example, itself, of how patriarchy insidiously usurps our consciousness. The suffix “-archy” relates it to "hierarchy," a fully patriarchal construct based on a vertical path to power, competition, separation and the win/lose paradigm, and which is antithetical to the essential Feminine. So for some decades now I have preferred the term “matrifocal”, which, I feel, rotates the vertical axis of hierarchy to a horizontal axis of a feminine inclusivity which places compromise over competition, appreciation over analysis, nurturance over criticism and nature over technology.
And for what its worth, from my perspective, the very loud screams we are now hearing from the toxic patriarchy are not victory cries, but death throes. The pendulum has begun its return.
So beautifully said and so necessarily observed. This one brought tears. To be in service to the feminine is to be in service to life itself. May I, and my brother kings, commit to living in sacred service to worthy and powerful queens... whatever form that may take in this life. Feels just right. With gratitude. 🙏.
“women join the system that has oppressed them and adopt its values and its blindness”
Ummm, yes. It took me a while to see this as I was one of these. It was necessary to breach the barricades - let’s not forget how recently whole swathes of endeavor were closed to us - but now we must examine where that has brought us. It isn’t a feminine ways of being that are celebrated in the present era. Rewards come to those in female bodies who perform masculine roles. Furthermore, It seems to me that those in power who reject the divine feminine are driven to control her - Mother Nature herself as the ultimate prize.
Major problems have erupted in our culture because men have lost their place and their role as head of the family, as fathers, as the main provider to their family. Women have been forced into, or adopted, roles that are not entirely comfortable for them. By doing so they have neglected, or denied, their biological role as mothers and nurturers.
In the end, the children suffer and the culture dies.
You say mothers who stay home and raise their children need to be financially compensated. You believe this will give them status and self respect and satisfaction. I seriously doubt this. It is not money, but the overall society who no longer values children, or the family. Children are no longer an economic benefit to a family and have become an economic drain. They are more like untrained pets than the future inheritors of the culture. This has been going on since the late 1950's and has accelerated.
This was so refreshing to read--not least of all bc you wove in Fukuoka with childbirth. As someone who’s immersed in holistic birth and mothering, and also studied permaculture, I def see the parallels.
I also feel frustration, sometimes, that it seems in order to honor my femininity and approach the world from that perspective, there’s often little recognition (in the typical sense) for my contributions.
Also--in the last two years, there’s been something of a mass exodus from medical-model birth.
Homebirth stats (women seeking non-systemic birth) have risen from 1-2% to upwards of 10%. Unassisted birth, freebirth, is also growing in awareness and favor.
Women are awakening to our power and agency more than ever-- in part because of the appalling failures of the medical system regarding the mother/baby dyad, and undisturbed birth vs. intervention.
I believe we need a different kind of childbirth education, now--one that’s not centered on what to expect at the hospital, and also, not focused on “natural pain management”.
That’s why I teach from a feminine, intuitive perspective. I’ve been doing this for years, but it feels like the world is finally ripe and ready ❤️
Beautiful Charles. Thank you. This essay really comes into its own towards the end when you speak about the dynamic relationship between intact matriarchy and patriarchy. I wonder what you think about the shaman/artist/poet/witch archetype where a man or woman has internalised and sublimated both male and female archetypes. This leads to a process of internal cross pollination rather than sexed monopolies on, for example, the ethic of justice and the ethic care (the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ respectively. The artist or shaman can utilise the dual force of masculine and feminine to access divine truth and, in turn, create divine ideas, art, wisdom etc.
I have always longed for a society where individuals were allowed to gravitate towards becoming who they felt like being, instead of twisting ourselves in knots to conform or rebel against notions of femininity of masculinity, which seem inevitably to be boxes people get forced into in various times and geographies. If an individual man or woman *likes* the box (a woman wants to be a mother/caretaker, or a man wants to be a firefighter or military leader), then it seems "natural" to them. Otherwise, it's humiliating to be herded towards the boxes and shamed away from the "wrong box"
Even if interests or traits can be statistically demonstrated to be more common in males or females, the whole concept of gender is so obviously constructed by the culture and the time.
We can't get around the biological reality that men tend to be larger, stronger, and more aggressive. This means, to me, that men will always have more power unless they are constrained culturally from taking it. Other than that obvious biological reality, I would love it if we just kicked the whole "femininity/masculinity" discussion to the curb and respected everyone as a human being, let them choose their own interests, and fill whatever roles needed filling, without shame or so much status assigned, and went on our way.
Where does woke culture fit into all this? The militant insistence on “safe spaces” where people are protected from so much as even hearing opinions that differ from their own? At first glance it appears to be compassionate, but as things have evolved it’s become clear that it’s infantilizing and promotes (perhaps even celebrates) mental illness, by which I mean an increasing emotional and mental fragility and an increasing need to attempt to control the external environment because of a lack of resilience in the internal environment. I see this reaching authoritarian levels now, where legitimate dissent on issues is no longer allowed (sometimes even by law, as in Canada). I have had this explained to me as “excess feminization” of society, but that doesn’t seem right to me at all, particularly because the policing of these boundaries can be so aggressive. How does this fit into the patriarchy/matriarchy discussion?
Dear dear Charles, I’d like to hug you! Please reassure your partner that I ‘m not trying here to « run off with you » but just to say hallelujah, you ‘get it!’ A man gets it!!! 😄
Seriously, thank you for your writings.🙏🏻 They’re inspirational in these dark times. And the latest Tolkien adaptation is a fitting and timely subject.
I do resonate so much with what you write, as a 70 year-old woman, a yoga teacher/meditator, and a partaker of indigenous ceremonies.
I live in Nice, France and if you ever were to come to France/Europe I would do my utmost to help fill a space for your talks. In fact, I’m to pass on a message from some French women friends to you. “Please June, ask him to translate all of his books and writings into French!”
Just in case you don’t have enough to do huh😄
Keep on keeping on Charles. You can’t know it but you’re helping me turn an important corner.
Charles, I love how you have this uncanny ability to take what I (and I suspect many of your readers) feel innately, and put it so eloquently into words. Having mentioned my farming endeavours on previous articles, I can certainly confirm that things go far better here when I'm in tune with my feminine powers...I've always felt that the term "Mother Nature" is somewhat misunderstood or taken for granted. Many lessons to be learned here....
With respect to films and strong matriarch characters/archetypes - I immediately thought of the character of "The Oracle" from the Matrix series...while just about every other female character (lead or supporting) in the series is of the masculine/warrior type - The Oracle stands alone embodying all of the wonderful matriarchal characteristics you have described - and is the counter balance for the patriarchal "Architect" in the very design of the Matrix itself.
Good arrticle. the medical profession is entirely arrogant, belligerent. mervcenary and contolled by corrupt forces. Avoid the medical profession altogetuer whereer possible; they are complicit in the bioweapon Covid Srars and no longer a health profession. Paul Scott new zealand
I often wonder whether what we call deranged patriarchy is some other force entirely, perhaps not of this world, inhuman. What you describe here as the healthy, life-centered union of masculine and feminine might require rejecting entirely the militaristic, unfeeling, “goal-oriented”, and life-denying behavior we now call patriarchy and see as comfortable to men. Perhaps it is truly only comfortable to a force based on separation and domination that has created the reality we have accepted.
"Who is to know when they are to be used, how are they to know?"
Similar to the manhandling in ecology efforts where doing more causes more damage, the OB meddles where he should sit on his hands. The obstetrician feels useless without the tools of his trade though. When truly the skill is in watching and observing with a consciousness of trust and absolute faith in the process, but this is not taught in obstetrics.
Then Covid moved in, and even the crunchiest of home birth midwives abandon their trust of women's bodies and recommend (even push) the shot. I have yet to reconcile this and find it utterly troubling to find this in communities that seems to on one hand treasure health; the processes of the body and our rights of passage; and on the other hand advocate that the immune system cannot deal with a virus on it's own and illness should be escaped at all costs.
Feminine Power
Absolutely stunning, thank you, Charles!
I’d like to offer some thoughts about the word “matriarchy”, which in my humble estimation, is an example, itself, of how patriarchy insidiously usurps our consciousness. The suffix “-archy” relates it to "hierarchy," a fully patriarchal construct based on a vertical path to power, competition, separation and the win/lose paradigm, and which is antithetical to the essential Feminine. So for some decades now I have preferred the term “matrifocal”, which, I feel, rotates the vertical axis of hierarchy to a horizontal axis of a feminine inclusivity which places compromise over competition, appreciation over analysis, nurturance over criticism and nature over technology.
And for what its worth, from my perspective, the very loud screams we are now hearing from the toxic patriarchy are not victory cries, but death throes. The pendulum has begun its return.
So beautifully said and so necessarily observed. This one brought tears. To be in service to the feminine is to be in service to life itself. May I, and my brother kings, commit to living in sacred service to worthy and powerful queens... whatever form that may take in this life. Feels just right. With gratitude. 🙏.
“women join the system that has oppressed them and adopt its values and its blindness”
Ummm, yes. It took me a while to see this as I was one of these. It was necessary to breach the barricades - let’s not forget how recently whole swathes of endeavor were closed to us - but now we must examine where that has brought us. It isn’t a feminine ways of being that are celebrated in the present era. Rewards come to those in female bodies who perform masculine roles. Furthermore, It seems to me that those in power who reject the divine feminine are driven to control her - Mother Nature herself as the ultimate prize.
I agree with much of what you wrote.
Major problems have erupted in our culture because men have lost their place and their role as head of the family, as fathers, as the main provider to their family. Women have been forced into, or adopted, roles that are not entirely comfortable for them. By doing so they have neglected, or denied, their biological role as mothers and nurturers.
In the end, the children suffer and the culture dies.
You say mothers who stay home and raise their children need to be financially compensated. You believe this will give them status and self respect and satisfaction. I seriously doubt this. It is not money, but the overall society who no longer values children, or the family. Children are no longer an economic benefit to a family and have become an economic drain. They are more like untrained pets than the future inheritors of the culture. This has been going on since the late 1950's and has accelerated.
This was so refreshing to read--not least of all bc you wove in Fukuoka with childbirth. As someone who’s immersed in holistic birth and mothering, and also studied permaculture, I def see the parallels.
I also feel frustration, sometimes, that it seems in order to honor my femininity and approach the world from that perspective, there’s often little recognition (in the typical sense) for my contributions.
Also--in the last two years, there’s been something of a mass exodus from medical-model birth.
Homebirth stats (women seeking non-systemic birth) have risen from 1-2% to upwards of 10%. Unassisted birth, freebirth, is also growing in awareness and favor.
Women are awakening to our power and agency more than ever-- in part because of the appalling failures of the medical system regarding the mother/baby dyad, and undisturbed birth vs. intervention.
I believe we need a different kind of childbirth education, now--one that’s not centered on what to expect at the hospital, and also, not focused on “natural pain management”.
That’s why I teach from a feminine, intuitive perspective. I’ve been doing this for years, but it feels like the world is finally ripe and ready ❤️
I found this in my inbox just as I was struggling to articulate to a friend why Galadriel in Rings of Power rubs me the wrong way. Perfectly put.
It's not even that I can't appreciate a badass woman fighter, a la Ripley in Alien. But THAT'S NOT WHO GALADRIEL IS.
More than ever, we need the archetype of the wise, strong matriarch-grandmother-goddess-queen.
Beautiful Charles. Thank you. This essay really comes into its own towards the end when you speak about the dynamic relationship between intact matriarchy and patriarchy. I wonder what you think about the shaman/artist/poet/witch archetype where a man or woman has internalised and sublimated both male and female archetypes. This leads to a process of internal cross pollination rather than sexed monopolies on, for example, the ethic of justice and the ethic care (the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ respectively. The artist or shaman can utilise the dual force of masculine and feminine to access divine truth and, in turn, create divine ideas, art, wisdom etc.
I have always longed for a society where individuals were allowed to gravitate towards becoming who they felt like being, instead of twisting ourselves in knots to conform or rebel against notions of femininity of masculinity, which seem inevitably to be boxes people get forced into in various times and geographies. If an individual man or woman *likes* the box (a woman wants to be a mother/caretaker, or a man wants to be a firefighter or military leader), then it seems "natural" to them. Otherwise, it's humiliating to be herded towards the boxes and shamed away from the "wrong box"
Even if interests or traits can be statistically demonstrated to be more common in males or females, the whole concept of gender is so obviously constructed by the culture and the time.
We can't get around the biological reality that men tend to be larger, stronger, and more aggressive. This means, to me, that men will always have more power unless they are constrained culturally from taking it. Other than that obvious biological reality, I would love it if we just kicked the whole "femininity/masculinity" discussion to the curb and respected everyone as a human being, let them choose their own interests, and fill whatever roles needed filling, without shame or so much status assigned, and went on our way.
Where does woke culture fit into all this? The militant insistence on “safe spaces” where people are protected from so much as even hearing opinions that differ from their own? At first glance it appears to be compassionate, but as things have evolved it’s become clear that it’s infantilizing and promotes (perhaps even celebrates) mental illness, by which I mean an increasing emotional and mental fragility and an increasing need to attempt to control the external environment because of a lack of resilience in the internal environment. I see this reaching authoritarian levels now, where legitimate dissent on issues is no longer allowed (sometimes even by law, as in Canada). I have had this explained to me as “excess feminization” of society, but that doesn’t seem right to me at all, particularly because the policing of these boundaries can be so aggressive. How does this fit into the patriarchy/matriarchy discussion?
Dear dear Charles, I’d like to hug you! Please reassure your partner that I ‘m not trying here to « run off with you » but just to say hallelujah, you ‘get it!’ A man gets it!!! 😄
Seriously, thank you for your writings.🙏🏻 They’re inspirational in these dark times. And the latest Tolkien adaptation is a fitting and timely subject.
I do resonate so much with what you write, as a 70 year-old woman, a yoga teacher/meditator, and a partaker of indigenous ceremonies.
I live in Nice, France and if you ever were to come to France/Europe I would do my utmost to help fill a space for your talks. In fact, I’m to pass on a message from some French women friends to you. “Please June, ask him to translate all of his books and writings into French!”
Just in case you don’t have enough to do huh😄
Keep on keeping on Charles. You can’t know it but you’re helping me turn an important corner.
Gratitude is flowing brother 🙏🏻 ❣️
Charles, I love how you have this uncanny ability to take what I (and I suspect many of your readers) feel innately, and put it so eloquently into words. Having mentioned my farming endeavours on previous articles, I can certainly confirm that things go far better here when I'm in tune with my feminine powers...I've always felt that the term "Mother Nature" is somewhat misunderstood or taken for granted. Many lessons to be learned here....
With respect to films and strong matriarch characters/archetypes - I immediately thought of the character of "The Oracle" from the Matrix series...while just about every other female character (lead or supporting) in the series is of the masculine/warrior type - The Oracle stands alone embodying all of the wonderful matriarchal characteristics you have described - and is the counter balance for the patriarchal "Architect" in the very design of the Matrix itself.
Good arrticle. the medical profession is entirely arrogant, belligerent. mervcenary and contolled by corrupt forces. Avoid the medical profession altogetuer whereer possible; they are complicit in the bioweapon Covid Srars and no longer a health profession. Paul Scott new zealand
This clarifies why I didn't really like Galadriel. She's icy steel, cutting through obstacles.
Matriarchy forms circles and webs of connections, like Grandmother Spider. It's about care more than power.
I often wonder whether what we call deranged patriarchy is some other force entirely, perhaps not of this world, inhuman. What you describe here as the healthy, life-centered union of masculine and feminine might require rejecting entirely the militaristic, unfeeling, “goal-oriented”, and life-denying behavior we now call patriarchy and see as comfortable to men. Perhaps it is truly only comfortable to a force based on separation and domination that has created the reality we have accepted.
What a breath of fresh air. You put words to my experience as a woman.
"Who is to know when they are to be used, how are they to know?"
Similar to the manhandling in ecology efforts where doing more causes more damage, the OB meddles where he should sit on his hands. The obstetrician feels useless without the tools of his trade though. When truly the skill is in watching and observing with a consciousness of trust and absolute faith in the process, but this is not taught in obstetrics.
Then Covid moved in, and even the crunchiest of home birth midwives abandon their trust of women's bodies and recommend (even push) the shot. I have yet to reconcile this and find it utterly troubling to find this in communities that seems to on one hand treasure health; the processes of the body and our rights of passage; and on the other hand advocate that the immune system cannot deal with a virus on it's own and illness should be escaped at all costs.