Radiant Joy Brilliant Love

by Clinton Callahan

  7. Being the Gardener

  In addition to holding space for the Garden of Woman, Archetypal Man also is responsible for being the gardener. (This is not how it is supposed to be, but how it is in modern Western culture. We explore how it is supposed to be in Chapter 10, The Pirate Sorceress Warrioress Queen Goddess Woman.) For modern men, being the gardener for the Archetypal Feminine looks more like walking into a spinning propeller blade. Modern men have been civilized. We are nice, polite, sensitive new-age guys. Our mother still has our balls. Being the gardner requires something very different from the masculine qualities given to us by modern culture. Being the gardener requires ongoing use of anger for the precise “sword work” of distinguishing clarifications, and indefatigably setting and holding boundaries. A Garden needs to be trimmed. Left untrimmed, a well-nurtured Garden takes little time to grow all over itself and become a tangled mess. The grass needs mowing. Hedges and trees need pruning. Old structures need to be destroyed and taken away. The earth needs to be turned over, and new things planted. The ground must be raked up fresh, with old leaves and dead branches removed for burning or composting. This is rough work, serious work, sometimes abrupt and painful work. Things look different after a gardener has been there.

  When the gardener shows up with shears, cutters, saw, wheelbarrow, shovel and lawn-mower, it naturally raises the fearful wrath of the Archetypal Feminine. She has worked so hard to grow into and fill up the space that she forgets how good it feels when a Garden grows back fresh and even more beautifully, after skilled pruning. If the gardener cannot face Archetypal Feminine wrath with a professional, unhookable demeanor, he will not be able to keep his job.

  Stay brave, Men. When you open the closet door and thirty shoeboxes fall on your head, it is time to “trim the Garden.” When there is no more room for coats, do not build new hangers. Get rid of coats. When every shelf and flat open space is filled with knick-knacks, it is not time to build more shelves; it is time to rent a dumpster. When the monthly bills exceed your paycheck, immediate serious gardening is in order. Serious gardening sustains the health of the Garden. It is up to Archetypal Man to do a good job.

  8. About Big and Little Things

  Men like one big thing. Women like a lot of little things. The examples that follow are gross generalizations, but they indicate an underlying pattern: Men can find complete satisfaction with a mobile phone, a nice computer and their Mercedes. Women might find those items completely unfulfilling, and are far more satisfied shopping for cupboards full of kitchen appliances, a house decorated with curtains and wallpaper, and vacations to interesting parts of the world. The point is that these preferences are Archetypal, not neurotic, and can be relied on as a rich source of pleasure, sharing and appreciation. To make Archetypal use of the contrast in preferences, learn a different way to relate to them. Men like one big thing and it is not a problem, because men can learn to wait a long time before they get their one big thing. (In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this “one big thing – many little things” metaphor relates especially well to sexuality and foreplay. Now read the last sentence again.) In the meantime, a man can dearly long for his one big thing, and that longing can itself become physically ecstatic. If a man gets his one big thing, his ecstasy of longing is instantly replaced by a deadness. (In fact, a French phrase for orgasm is la petite mort or “the little death.”) In contrast to men, women like a lot of little things. Ordinary woman focuses on hoping to receive a lot of little things. When she does not get them, she generates the viewpoint that she is a victim, with a good excuse to feed her hungry Gremlin with revenge against that one she expected should have given her the many little things. Archetypal Woman focuses on giving a lot of little things instead of receiving a lot of little things. In the course of delivering a lot of little things (caresses, truths, kisses, sounds, giggles, jokes, nips), there are still a lot of little things happening for the delight of the woman. Giving can be even better than receiving, especially if the man’s experience of the many little things is ecstatically intensified by his longing for his one big thing. Rather than trying to solve the apparent conflicts between men and women, consider learning French: Vive la différence!

  9. Shit Blocks the Archetypal

  In ordinary human relationships there are two kinds of shit, a masculine form of shit that men do, called “bullshit,” and a feminine form of shit that women do, called “cowshit.” Bullshit is saying things that are very, very relevant, like, “Honey, I’ll be home at seven. I will take out the garbage tonight. I will fix that leak this weekend. I will help Johnny improve his algebra grades. I will spend less time at my computer.” The problem with bullshit is that even though the things that are said are very, very relevant, they are just not true. A persistent bullshit habit can effectively block man from accessing Archetypal domains with his Woman.

  Cowshit is saying things that are very, very true. For example, when it is nine-thirty on Saturday night and the husband and wife walk up the stairs to be together in their bedroom and the wife says, “I noticed that you walked right by the laundry basket on your way up the stairs. You didn’t even see it. That laundry is all washed, dried, folded and ironed. I did that already. All you had to do was carry the basket up the stairs. Couldn’t you do even that one little thing to help me around the house…?” The problem with cow-shit is that even though the things that are said are very, very, very true, they are completely irrelevant. A persistent cowshit habit can effectively block woman from accessing Archetypal domains with her Man. We will have more to say about cowshit in number 11, below.

  10. Being Bigger

  Archetypal Man lives in the question, “What is bigger? Nothing? Or Everything?” This is a strange question, seeming to be theoretical, almost philosophical – not a question for which you would expect to have much of a provable answer. But for Archetypal Man the answer is precise and immediate; the answer is experiential and not an idea. And the answer is of the utmost importance. For the question, “What is bigger? Nothing or Everything?” it is tacitly and continuously obvious that Nothing is bigger. If Nothing were not bigger, there would be no place for Everything! This is why Archetypal Man can hold space for Archetypal Woman. No matter what concoction Woman comes up with, Archetypal Man can relax and look her straight in the eyes, knowing, “I am bigger than that.” Sometimes the most challenging thing that Woman comes up with is praise, admiration, love, respect, joy, happiness, hope, and wanting to be only nearer. Man can receive even a holy flood of joyous love when he realizes, “That too. I am bigger than that. I can be annihilated in Love and still function.” We will discuss this at greater length in the Magician sub-section of Chapter 11.

  11. Getting Killed, But Not Dying

  Because the feminine is aware of everything not working and everything not done, it can be that a woman comes to bed with a quiver full of very sharp arrows. She may be unable to sleep until her quiver is empty. She looks around for what to do with the arrows. There, in the bedroom, is a handy target: you, the man. Twang-thunk! the first arrow flies and finds its mark in your heart: “The car needs new tires, the phone bill is due, Mary needs new shoes, and we don’t even have enough money in the bank to cover the rent. Why can’t you get a job that brings us more money?” Twang-thunk! the next arrow flies: “You spend so much time working and when you come home you still think about work. You even go on the computer late at night to do emails! You call this a relationship?” Twang-thunk! “Your mother keeps calling and complaining about not being able to sleep because her neighbor’s dog barks all night long. Her legs keep hurting. Don’t you have the kindness to do something about that?” Twang-thunk! “Jane Smith stole my recipe for brownies and made them for the whole exercise club, and then she took all the credit! She flirts outright with the teacher and it is so disgusting. She has her hands all over his body. When I ask the teacher a question, Jane comes right over and interrupts with something totally meaningless, and he helps her instead of me!” Twa
ng-thunk! “Your kids were fighting this afternoon – again! I can’t stand it! I don’t know what to do anymore. I am ready to give up. You are not here to help me, and sometimes I just start screaming at them.” Twang-thunk! “How many times do I need to tell you that I do not like you to touch me there until I am ready? You never listen to me!”

  By the time her quiver is empty, she is feeling quite fine. If you are an ordinary man, then by the time her quiver is half empty you are feeling quite dead. Cowshit is like that. Undeniably true. Razor sharp. Totally accurate. And, if you listen to it, you get killed. On the other hand, if you don’t listen to it, if you harden your defenses, argue back, give reasons and excuses, dodge the issue, and try to change the subject to, say, “What a fine evening it is,” or, “My dear, your eyes are sparkling tonight,” or, “What about a little back massage, hmmm?” she refills the quiver and keeps going. She wants you to listen, to be soft and tenderized, and to still be alive and ready for action. But if you listen in your usual way, thinking that you have to do something about what she says, then the thing in you that was interested in action dies. We have come to an interesting question: How can you be killed and not die? The answer comes from the Archetypal.

  Archetypal Man is Nothing. This means there is Nothing to be killed. Nothing to get offended. Nothing to react. Nothing to figure out. If the Man listens as “a space,” he can make contact, feel compassion and still not be hooked. Then, when the woman stops speaking, it only takes about three seconds for every echo of her voice to fade out of the room. All that was said has gone into the past – true, it is only three seconds in the past – but it is still in the past, and therefore it has become completely powerless, because something in the past has no power in the present. Nothing of what was spoken remains, unless the Man holds the words in his mind as reactive conclusions, or in his heart as emotional resentments. Don’t do that. If the Man lets only the Nothing remain, then he has just discovered how to be killed and not die. This is your homework assignment. Practice being killed and not dying. Listen to more than can be listened to. Listen to more than you can understand. Complete the communication, and let your Nothingness hold space for Everything, so that no matter what an arrow hits, you are not that. As Nothing, you then remain alive and well for doing Edgework experiments in intimacy.

  13. The 10% and 90% Solutions

  Women enter Archetypal domains through becoming 10% Masculine, such as through learning to simply take action rather than discussing all the details first, answering questions with clear yes or no decisions, making boundaries easefully and without hesitation, asking for what she needs, not giving her center away and being adaptively nice, staying unhookable, and so on. Men enter Archetypal domains through becoming 90% Feminine, such as through setting aside fear-based domination and instead seeking understanding and relationship, learning to be open and receptive instead of automatically competitive, enrobing communications in acceptance, appreciation, flexibility, and sensuality instead of the cold, hard facts, being in contact when an internal struggle arises instead of withdrawing, and so on. Of the two prerequisites, it is more difficult for a woman to become 10% Man than it is for a man to become 90% Woman.

  14. Vigilance Furthers

  A woman can easily misunderstand that her expanded masculinity gives her power over men. The most difficult thing for the woman in becoming 10% Masculine is to be vigilant about what comes out of her mouth. The feminine mind has access to too many loopholes in reality. The loopholes make it easy to ignore the fact that everything that is said has a purpose, a design for what it intends to create. She does not comprehend the real and immediate consequences of what she says. To make a shift with this, you can rigorously focus on the purpose of what you say. Be rigorous about whom you speak with, and especially for what reason. Be rigorous that your purpose is not unconscious evil. The experiment is to be over-vigilant at first. Start off by not saying most things. This is a good way to develop your vigilance. After a couple of months you can start to say a few things that you are sure serve responsible purposes. Without realizing it, one woman in a training was making her husband wrong. The trainer said, “Lady, you are making your husband wrong.” She said, “I am not making my husband wrong. He is wrong. I am just pointing it out to him.” Proving that someone is wrong is not a responsible purpose; it is low drama. Learn the difference.

  15. Same Time and Same Place

  Archetypal Relationship is the commitment to intimacy. Intimacy has two dimensions: to be in the same time together, and to be in the same place together. Being in the same time as your partner implies a mutual, although perhaps unspoken, agreement as to how “big” the time of now is. Does intimacy include stories from years past, days past, or only seconds past? Does intimacy include fantasies of possible futures? Does intimacy include television, newspaper, gossip, or alcohol? Being in the same place together means presence. When you are together, who or what is present there? Does intimacy include other friends, relatives, work colleagues, old partners? None of these qualifiers about time and place are right or wrong. But, if there is conscious or unconscious disagreement about the time or place aspects of intimacy, then probably intimacy itself will be seldom experienced.

  MAP OF TRADITIONAL MASCULINE FEMININE RELATIONSHIP DIAGRAM

  Archetypal Masculine and Feminine Relationship has been symbolically represented in many ways, such as the masculine sun and the feminine moon. In this diagram an equilateral triangle with its point upwards represents the masculine penis, action, force, fighting, focus, and typical masculine one-pointedness – the sword and the knight who carries it, fire. An equilateral triangle with its point facing down represents the feminine vagina, receptivity, acceptance, passivity, and beingness – the sacred chalice, the Holy Grail, the fair maiden, water. The ultimate dynamic flow of life is established through mature relationship between the Archetypal Masculine and the Archetypal Feminine – clear action balanced by sensitive wisdom. Archetypal Relationship can be symbolized by the six pointed star that results from overlaying the masculine and feminine triangles one on top the other in the interpenetrating oneness of sexual union.

  The ancient hexagram also represents a mirroring between the Archetypal and the human realms, captured in the two phrases: “As above, so below. As below, so above.” This is holding the space through which Archetypal Principles do their work in the world (point down) and at the same time holding the space through which gratitude and praise is passed back up to the Archetypal Principles (point up). The diagram shows a reciprocal exchange where the Archetypal needs the human realm in which it can do its work, and the human realm needs the Archetypal for the clarity and power of Principles, the model of Archetypal Love and the possibility of transformation.

  Being in the same time also means being in the same speed through time together. The Masculine and Feminine have different relationships to the speed of time, for example, how long is a “while” in the hardware store vs. how long is a “while” in bed together on Sunday morning. The ratio between doing and being influences how fast time goes by in a particular space.

  Being in the same place together means contact. Contact means seeing into the other person. Seeing into one another means caring enough to perceive the inner workings of the other with acceptance (without judgment, without being offended), and having the courage to honestly reveal yourself to your partner, so they can see into you, without you being afraid of attack or betrayal. It tends to be far more difficult for the Man to let himself be seen, because he is Nothing. Imagine in our culture what it must be like for a Man to be Nothing, compared to the Feminine – who could share forever and never scratch the surface of all there is to share about – because she is Everything. When the Masculine and Feminine are sharing, Archetypal Woman takes care to avoid filling up all the time and space with her sharing. Otherwise, she will think that her Man does not share, when in fact it is only a result of her filling up all the available sharing space. There is no room for th
e Man to share!

  Woman learns to wait silently for her Man to share, and appreciates what he does share, knowing that in sharing he takes a huge risk.

  16. Being and Doing

  Human men are focused on fixing problems, and want to know what to do in order to be in Archetypal Relationship. Archetypal Woman knows that there is nothing to do in order to be in Archetypal Relationship. Being requires no doing. Archetypal Woman demonstrates to her Man that he already has the Nothing required to be in Archetypal Relationship. He does not have to do anything or go anywhere to come up with Nothing. This can be extremely difficult for men to understand and come to trust. If a woman finds it difficult to believe how troublesome it is for a man to understand that there is “nothing to do to be,” she is no longer in the Archetypal. She is hooked into ordinary.

  ALWAYS REMEMBER

  Always remember what you paid

  to get into the new game

  or you will fall asleep

  and get shanghaied

  by unconsciousness

  back into the old game.

  Along with death and taxes,