Finding Harmony

Despite the popular notion that only men can be patriarchal, the truth is that women can be patriarchal as well. In our society, patriarchy is internalized. It lives inside of us, in the psyche of both men and women.

As a young child, I had a deep devotion to God. Growing up in Milan, Italy, I was ardently devout—with all the passion of my innocent heart and the formidable power of a fantastical, unrestrained imagination. In the magnificence of the ancient Italian cathedrals, in front of their gilded altars, I prayed to Jesus and Mother Mary. I prayed to God. But I could never…

Every one of us desires to be loved, appreciated, and included. Loneliness is the feeling that comes when we do not feel loved, and/or we lack the ability to express our love and the innate brilliance of who we are. The loneliness that I am addressing here is very different from aloneness—the ability to spend time alone while feeling full, complete, and content within yourself—which is a healthy state of being. Loneliness, however, is not healthy…

PART 4 OF 4
The central function of your feminine nature is to open, receive, and travel into the inner world of feelings and emotions. When her ability to receive is impaired or distorted, the inner female becomes destructive in two different ways. One way is when the inner female becomes rigid and her receptive function closes off, leading to the rigidified shadow inner female. The other way is when…

PART 3 OF 4
Your inner female is like a blossom that opens to receive the rays of the sun. Her natural state always remains intact at the core of your being, and you can awaken her through love, just like the prince does for Sleeping Beauty—except that this prince is your own inner male who lives within you. The inner male and inner female are the two fundamental and complementary aspects of your nature…

PART 2 OF 4
The greatest gift you can give yourself, and the world, is to face and heal the fragmented shadow aspects of your inner male. Part One of this two-part article, dedicated to the shadow aspects I described as the collapsed inner male, explained how the inner male becomes fragmented and destructive when it disconnects from the healthy inner female, and how this rupture with the feminine principle is what creates the shadow inner male.

PART 1 OF 4
The Sacred Lovers Within blog is dedicated to giving you the tools necessary to become aware of and transform the parts of yourself that have been traumatized and conditioned by patriarchy. You may be aware of these aspects of yourself or you may not because they lay hidden in the depths of your psyche, but you are surely aware of the turmoil caused…

Throughout history, people have been describing the existence of two complementary, yet distinctly different principles that make up our entire universe. Some call them Yin and Yang. Some call them Mother Earth and Father Sky. Some call them left and right brain,…

Women are leading the way, but we are not alone. There are also men taking a stand for justice, equality, and transformation. In the aftermath of the tsunami of sexual assaults and general misogyny that has surfaced in the news and social media, several of my male friends have asked me directly what they can do to support me and women in general…

We’re going to get through this This is a time of reckoning. As unpleasant as it is, I am happy about it. The creepy-crawlies of sexual harassment, the monsters of sexual violence, the gargoyles of abuse of male power are creeping out of the dark shadow of patriarchy. And that is good…