Waxing Philosophical on the Struggle for Social Balance Between Man and Woman -Part 1

This is just a small introduction to what I plan on being an ongoing philosophical, spiritual, and sociological pondering on the struggle for social equity between men and women, both historical and current. Many of my theories and suppositions come from my own understanding of various sources within the social sciences, religion, and history as it relates. I don't pretend to be seeking or discovering ground breaking enlightenment here. I'm just getting these thoughts, these ramblings in my head, into some cohesive text. I've been trying since I was a child to solve the cognitive dissonance created by the combination of a Catholic upbringing (of which I was a devout practitioner until 16), a conservative father, and a very strong sense of independence that told me women were equal to men. After 40 years these musings are crowded and need air. 
If anyone has suggestions for my further reading and study, please feel free to share them in the comments. I would also like to hear male points of view. I may be very familiar with male thinking and have many male friends, but I can't possible put myself entirely in their shoes. I lack the proper equipment. 
All comments must remain respectful. If I read a comment and find I am consumed with the overwhelming urge to back hand or otherwise do violence to the author, it is likely that the post was offensive and will be removed (for the protection of the author or course). I have no problem with differences of opinion, but I won't put up with small minded fundamentalist ravings. 

Why Do Men Seek to Dominate Women and Why Do Women Allow It?

Introduction:

This is a question or set of questions which I continually come back to. When I become outraged I try to understand. In the end I always come to the same conclusion. I feel sorry for the man that seeks to dominate. I feel badly that the mother in his life did not take her sacred duty seriously or was ignorant of the power she was entrusted with. Some may feel that thinking is harsh, but there is great and sacred power that women hold and so often neglect or are ignorant of. We can teach our sons to respect all women, the vessel of life. We can help them understand the relationship between life and death. We can teach them to be better, without emasculating them. 

There are many instances where subjugation of women is so complete within the familial, religious, or social structure that women do not have any right to teach their sons after they leave the breast. This is a tragedy. These social units are often marked by brutal and constant struggle. However, there are many women with no such restrictions that have not taken hold of the power they possess to shape the men of our society and to teach them about life and death and their relationship to it. That too is a great tragedy. 

When I had a son I knew a sacred trust had been bestowed upon me. I was responsible for shaping the man he would become and what he would contribute to society. My job was to teach him about the balance of nature. His father taught him what it meant to be a good man and I taught him what it meant to be a good human being. 

The social condition and natural order:

I have studied anthropology, religion, psychology, and philosophy and it all points to one ultimate unifying truth. Women create life. All those who seek to control women, seek to control life and somehow cheat death. It all comes down to the struggle between life and death. Death is to some a terrifying mystery; an inevitable end.  For others death is the same as birth; two sides to the same miracle. They occupy the same space.

A dysfunctional social dominance between men and women is the result of a social or religious structure that has a dysfunctional relationship with death.

~That's a teaser.  I will post more as soon as I have finished deciphering more of my stream of conscience scrawling. Please share your thoughts on this first snippet.

Primeval Home

More often than seems reasonable, life becomes terribly unsorted. Time is at once compressed and drawn out. Difficulties take on a sense of permanence as if turned to stone monuments in homage of chaos and suffering. At these times I am thin and taught as overstretched twine on verge of breaking and I must retreat. There is no great dramatic tantrum, just a quite slipping away unnoticed, a getaway. I take to the woods.

On my Zen adventures to the forest I favor the longer, less traveled path. It is there I most often find solace and healing. This day I travel slow and quite in a walking meditation down the gentle slope to the forest floor, which is now covered with the varied colors of the dieing and fallen foliage. The crisp air is filled with the fragrance of their decay mixed with the sent of pine and the damp sweet smell of sugar maples. The walkway is littered with the discarded remains of acorns and walnuts, and crimson colored berry seed droppings. The thick fallen cover is a flurry of playful activity.

When I have reached a place where I no longer hear the sound of 50 mile and hour tires on pavement, where all I can hear is bird song and the chirp and whistle of chipmunks and squirrels, I stop. Standing very still in perfect patience while all of nature becomes used to my presence and eventually decides I belong, this world opens up to me. As I become lost in observation the forest takes me in. The chipmunks rustle through the leaves and chase one another, tumbling and rolling together and darting away. Birds hop through bottoms of bushes whose branches still shelter fruit, devouring a dwindling harvest.

Something just at the corner of my eye, grabs my attention and I become aware that the observer is being observed. A stag with an impressive head, boasting a rack of about eight points, stands in the path and takes a full assessment of me as we look straight on at one another. Deciding I’m neither friend nor foe and of no consequence, he turns and makes his way down the ravine, and in a single graceful stride jumps the stream and disappears into the forest on the other side.

The chipmunks have begun to play what I call dodge the human; chasing each other across the path closer and closer. Certain brave little ones stop and look at me, then scurry off and dive into the leaves with a triumphant whistle. I feel I have become part of their happy little game.

Already the day, the walk, has proved to be a worthwhile venture. Lost in contemplation of the chipmunk games and the higher meaning of the encounter with the buck, I'm pulled from thought by a red tail hawk that soars past so close the displaced air hits my face and ruffles wisps of hair. I am startled for an instant, then awestruck and honored as I watch it land less than 10 yards away. The pull of the forest deepens and I sit down on the hard leaf covered ground so that I might be taken further in. I track the hawk as it moves on to it’s next lofty seat. The new vantage allows it to face me and it watches me as intently as I watch it. Am I so fascinating to the wild master of the air? No. It is more likely eying the chipmunk that has planted himself barely two feet in front of me. While I watch the hawk another creature watches me. He is chirping a low sweet musical tone that is answered rhythmically from all over the forest floor. This music circles and moves through me. I feel I know it and could sing along as I try to find the sound in my throat. The connection seems almost within reach and then is lost. The little one scurries off and down inside a hollowed tree branch; the hawk is on the move.

Spontaneous waves of joy and laughter take me. I know I have found myself a treasure, a perfect moment. I have touched, rejoined for an instant, some primal origin. The sense of comfort is warm and inviting as a soft favorite blanket. The desire to curl up and lay down overtakes me and I do lay down as if in someone’s arms, on a lap, ear against a beating heart. The cold earth warms me, takes me in to protect and nurture me. I am in the bosom of the forest where I wish to stay and sleep in peace without dreams.

Someone is coming. I hear them through the earth before I hear them through the air. The rustling and thudding steal the moment; break the spell. The forest falls quiet except for the sound of human foot fall coming up the path. I pull myself out of my deep meditative state and up off the ground to stand on the path. I have barely regained myself when the hiker comes trampling through. He looks alien and out of place to me. I yield the way and he sports a startled expression when he looks at me while passing. I am not sure what about me is so startling. Looking up through the trees, I decide to head back now that the reverie is broken. I think on the experiences while continuing a sense of meditation as I find my return path.

When I reach the trailhead, the welcome sight of the lovely convenience of a restroom distracts me entirely. The further convenience of a mirror gives me the answer to a previous question. I am struck by shock and wonder as I see in the mirror what the hiker saw. My hair has come partially loose from its ponytail in unruly tendrils, my cheek smudged, earthy needles and leaves are attached to my clothing and hair. I am an unholy mess. I think of the look on the hikers face and erupt with laughter.

I look like the wild forest herself. I am she and she is I. The forest, the earth, is my origin, my true being, and my primeval home. One day she will take me to her perfectly and completely. She will pull me into the beautiful darkness, the soundless, dreamless sleep, into the place from which I came and gladly must return, into the bosom of all life.

Until then, I am the forest on feet.
I am playful and daring as the chipmunk.
I am strong and stoic as the stag.
I am watchful and quick as the hawk, the master of the air.
I am as wild, as hard, as yielding, as giving, as nurturing, and as sacred as the earth.

Blessed Be

Undertow

A leaf floats calmly by on the surface of a lazy river. The carefree drifter moves without seeming purpose, directed only by the river’s tranquil flow. Little bugs dance undisturbed by it’s passing. The dark brown water gives the red green leaf more importance than it may deserve and so one cannot help but be captivated by the elegant movement. Anticipation and curiosity build. What will become of it? Where does the river go? Who will watch the elegant dance next?

Without a hint of impending danger, the little arbor discard is yanked from sight into the brown void. The vanishing act being a product of the fickle current, shallow to deep, the water swirls far below and what it snatches from the top side world is now descending and rolling without end, held in captivity, in furious limbo. The underworld has taken hold and there is no reasonable reckoning of when the prisoner, the plaything, will be liberated. With no certainty that it shall ever be seen again, thoughts of it are cast aside. The viewer is resigned. It is gone, taken by the undertow.

Sad Farewell

The light was murky and the air heavy as I carried him out one last time. There was a strong smell of lilac that seemed inappropriate for the occasion. The strange light made the world look foreign and so it felt unreal as I placed my friend in the front passenger side of the car and shut the door. The geese on the lake made accusatory sounds. My feet on the pavement as I walked to the driver’s side did not feel like my feet and the hand that grabbed the driver's door handle was not my own. I got in, started the car, and put it in gear with the slowness of moving through water. In a soft voice I told him it would be okay, knowing it was a lie, and my spit was like sand that caught in my throat as we pulled out. This was never his favorite part, but his lids were heavy and he was unnaturally quiet as we moved closer and closer to the end of our friendship.

After he was gone and I had returned to the car, the tears finally flowed. The drive home with the empty seat beside me was sad and yet somehow less burdened. The time of decision done, only the finality of the deed was left to weight on the heart. Windows down and radio loud, tears dried and crusted on checks and nose. I let the wind pass over and sooth the guilt and sadness. The car sat outside the house. I became more present within it as the smell of lilacs, sounds of the lake, roughness of the upholstery against my arms, brought me back. As I walked back into the house empty handed, I felt hollow and spent. I knew that a hug and a glass of wine awaited my return. As I opened the door, I wondered what awaited my friend.

Grey Summer's Morn

Such a grey summer’s morning, it leaves the mind to wander. There is no desire to venture out or accomplish anything that would give a sense of reality to the day. I am happily perched upon my balcony looking out, taking in the foggy, dream like lake. The monochrome landscape may reduce the mind to sleep or ignite the imagination. In the absence of color the mind paints its’ own scenes and lovely words, songs, begin to form, but fail to materialize beyond their implied birth.
Ideas dance in my head, sometimes elegant, sometimes wild. As they take shape, if I tried to take hold of any one of them, they would all flutter away like monarchs on an August afternoon, and so I simply let them dance. I admire each one and let them work their spell on me. The sublime, the fanciful, and the brilliant are born from stuff of nothingness leaked out from some unknown crevice in my head, and mingled with the mystery of lake fog. Surely all great thought and thinkers were born this way. I am on the brink of something, an original thought so magnificent that the world will rejoice at its’ coming. Careful. Pull back. Do not try to touch that thought or you will loose them all.
There is an annoyance, an agitation at my nape like a stinging insect. Its’ buzzing, “Get up. There is work to do.” I swipe at it. Buzz. Buzz. “Don’t while your day away with useless day dreams you fool.” That last sting so irritates me that I am snapped from my perfect state. How dare the sensible mind interrupt my perfect reverie!
Refocused, I find there is no recapturing the dream like quality. The spell is broken. Reality has taken shape and it is just a grey rainy day with work to be done. I leave the balcony and take up the task of the laundry.