Spiritual Cowgirl

Check out this video

Although I often recoil at calling myself any “ist”, I like this simple video (and check out the Ms Magazine Kali cover!).

For many, being a feminist isn’t just about changing laws, fighting against patriarchy, and demanding equality in the outside world, it’s also, importantly, about venturing inside ourselves and acknowledging the patriarchy we have internalized - a powerful archetype both women and men have that is sometimes called the Inner Patriarch, Negative Animus, or Shadow King. Our Shadow King can be a patriarchal force far more powerful than the external version only because for most of us, he’s unconscious, yet ruling our daily lives. No matter how well educated we are or how progressive or sexually empowered, chances are our Shadow King is influencing our decisions, relationships, careers, clothing, health, sexuality, and even our spirituality. Bottom line: most of us are unconsciously living in reaction to this Inner Patriarch and allowing it to define and create our reality.

As we all know, when we start doing serious inner work and dive into the unconscious realms and intend to reintegrate what we find, we stop projecting as much of our dark or our light onto others or the world. So, in my red universe, if we don’t take the necessary time to explore and integrate our personal Shadow King (or whatever term/phrase, symbol that works for you), we will continue to live in a patriarchal world. There’s much more to say about this subject, stay tuned for my own special meeting with this inner Mac Daddy. It wasn’t pretty. Pissed off Daddies are never fun.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 2:42 pm and is filed under divine musings, funky spiritual stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.