There are many concepts that exist to represent the natural and spiritual balance we see in the world: yin and yang, right brain and left brain, the sun and moon, Simon and Garfunkel. Today I want to talk to you about another: the Divine Feminine.

The Divine Feminine, along with its partner the Divine Masculine, are concepts that are grounded in the idea of spiritual balance. Though using words “feminine” and “masculine,” the concepts themselves are at once devoid of and encompass all genders. Ideally, someone would cultivate a balance of both divinities, regardless of gender, within themselves. Traits associated with the Divine Feminine include intuition, creation, nurturing, healing, gentleness, expression, wisdom, patience, and flexibility. Divine Masculine traits include logic, reason, action, firmness, survival, loyalty, and strength.

Hopefully as you read through both lists, you noted a few nouns within each that describe you. But are both lists equally represented in your life? Chances are, probably not. I can only speak to growing up as a woman in the US, but it was very clear which list our society valued. We have been conditioned to see competition rather than community. We have certain ideas of what a leader looks like, that He is aggressive, always gets His way, is called ‘tough’, utterly devoid of emotion and sentimentality. Hyper-Divine Masculine, if you will. However, our perception of a leader still does not change if it’s a woman. She would embody all of these traits, but our society at large would just subscribe her different adjectives (read: what a bitch).

Just because we can now envision women being leaders does not mean that there has been a radical reimagining of what it means to be a leader. Like I said before, the Divine Feminine and Devine Masculine are gender transcendent. For a moment, imagine what schools would look like if we prioritized nurturing and creation, what your job would look like if we cultivated expression and flexibility. In a lot of ways, we have culled nuance and intuition from our brain function. We have simplified over and over, to the point it seems we only understand numbers: which ones are good, which ones are bad, usually denoted by which is larger and is smaller. Every value is quantified, and every decision has an integer to point to. Sales are numbers are quantified are up are good, basically. Even in writing, part of me feels so silly to even bring up intuition now. Because compared to cold hard numbers, intuition feels so flimsy.

But is it really? I have absolutely made decisions based on my gut, that pull that says something is right or wrong. As if my body has a memory much stronger than my mind, and remembers the last time we made a similar decision. So what keeps us from cultivating intuition specifically, or the Divine Feminine as a whole? Is it because it’s harder to explain our decision making? Or because growing up in a patriarchal society that equates the Divine Masculine with being a man, and being a man ideal, that we have decided to forgo the Divine Feminine altogether? To be sure, there are myriad reasons with a bunch of people smarter than me who could attempt an answer.

How, though, does one even begin to cultivate that balance? As author Suzanne Kingsburry says, “Ask the body, not the mind.”

And as it was just daylight savings, I am a much happier person when there’s just as much sun as moon.  

A sure way to cultivate community, though, head to our Facebook page The Cookie Jar or @yonicookiejar