I dream. I’m in a country setting. Three female figures stand facing each other at three cardinal points, each with a tombstone in front of them with the same inscribed message: RECEPTIVE. There is no sense of death associated with the stones; it is not a cemetery. The dream message is emphatic: BE RECEPTIVE!
The receptive is the archetype of the feminine, hexagram #2 in the I Ching. Six yin lines piled upon each other to form the image of the earth, matter, manifestation.
The receptive is the completion of hexagram #1, the masculine creative, spirit, six yang lines piled to form the image of heaven. The creative and the receptive are completely equal and complimentary. Spirit finds a home in matter, matter finds its purpose in spirit.
Intent is spirit. We set intent and must allow for its manifestation. Manifestation is the receptive. The receptive is primal energy that acts of its own volition; we cannot control it, but we can get in its way, though only partially.
How often the ego gets impatient, or doubts the receptive and engages the mind to implement intent. “Oh yes, I must exercise, follow this regimen—this will allow me to reach my goal.” Then perhaps we fail or fall off course and become embroiled in self-hate or self-discipline with promises of better behavior in the future.
Such drama provides a major distraction, taking the focus away from the energetic manifestation of intent through the magical power of the receptive. The ego, doubting the receptive—the completer—actually opposes the manifestation of intent by contradicting the process through its interference. The ego identifies with the masculine creative—spirit—and barks orders at the body for change. This is slavery. The manifested body—the creation of the receptive—shuts down and refuses to budge. Its message to the ego: “Get out of the way and allow the receptive to complete its creation.”
Indeed, the receptive may require the ego to accept the role of subcontractor in the project, for the receptive is the contractor, the one that directs and manifests the concrete, substantial, actual physical realization of the intent.
The receptive is an extremely active energy. How deceiving it is to conceive of the feminine as inert or passive! The power of the receptive is so intense that the world ego shudders as we are now poised for the symbolic feminine in human form, woman, to assume the position of world leadership. Perhaps that woman will be Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren, or maybe a ticket of both.
The world is prepared now for the ascension of the feminine. The raising of Mary in the Catholic Church to Godly status with the Assumption in 1950 was the first modern Western sign of the ascension of the feminine, the valuing of the feminine on equal par with the masculine trinity of heavenly status, which Jung predicted, at the time, to be inevitable. He foresaw that it was going to happen; we are there now. Even in the midst of the power of war and mass confusion, change is on the horizon; the feminine is rising.
The manifestation of the power of the feminine receptive marched 300,000+ strong through New York City this past Sunday in support of protecting the planet, Mother Earth. This is feminine energy, a flowing river of energy gathering power, manifesting a new intent. This intent will be realized completely now as the world is reshaped to continue to live. That is the intent of spirit, life, and the receptive is manifesting the changes needed to complete that intent, the feminine working hand in hand with the masculine.
The issue has little to do with man or woman per se. All beings are composed of the creative and the receptive, the masculine and the feminine energies of spirit and matter. The challenge now is to realign the ego to support the receptive’s manifestation of needed change. Only the receptive can manifest, and boy is there manifesting going on! By all accounts that means we are in for real change. Intent is spirit, and it is powerful, but the receptive is the active energy that is bringing needed change to our world and to the self.
It is time for the ego to step back and allow the receptive to manifest the needed change. We can all participate by following the dictates of the manifested body, as it guides, nourishes, and heals in accordance with the true purpose and intent of spirit: Life!
Being receptive,
Chuck