In the modern world, women often shame or blame themselves for what they feel is their “lack of femininity”, or the dissatisfaction with how distant they feel from their feminine power. The difficulty with this is that “femininity” in the sense of the word that women tend to imply (a blissful form of openness, passivity or receptivity) is not obtained through striving. Like the quick and elusive deer that symbolizes today’s Moon nakshatra (Mrigashira, the birth of sexual polarity) the more action you take to move towards it, the further and faster it tends to flee. This is because there are different faces and functions of femininity, and what women often crave to experience is femininity in its state of reward & celebration. That mode of femininity, however, is not something she can calculate; it’s something that must be awoken in her. The femininity in a state of reward is a form of reaction, not action. The feminine in its destructive & testing function is its active and willed state. This is why the active feminine spirituality practices that I explore frequently seem dark or “evil” to new readers; most actions to consciously take as a woman are aligned with the fierce and testing form of the feminine that is feared and hated by those who wish to artificially control or own feminine beings. These harsh measures are actually the first steps on the path that leads to eventually experiencing the Lunar receptivity that many women crave to align with. This active state is to embody the “tests” explored in myth & fairytale, where the male and female paths cross. The woman is the path itself and its many challenges along the way, and the male function is his journey walking across this path. “Masculinity” is built along this walk, or proven; it’s beaten at and chipped away at mercilessly. While he is unproven, she— his potential consort— is also in a state of dissatisfaction. She is that long stretch of shadow, a forest of thorns; she is a lie she doesn’t even know she’s telling, waiting for the truth she embodies but hasn’t yet heard. She’s running and seeing if she outruns or confuses him. She’s cosmically “lying” or casting illusions, and seeing if he believes her. She’s pushing and prodding for weakness, and seeing where he caves in. Passive femininity is such a product of reacting to powerful force & domination, that the concept of being emasculated for men is this same experience in another form. Many men will deeply fear & hold anxiety about having his femininity unwillingly awoken in him, as, by its nature, the unraveling of femininity is involuntary (and that’s what makes it pleasurable). When men complain that “women are not feminine anymore”, the glaring truth is that they are not producing a feminine response in women (as this form of femininity is, by definition, the ability to respond to male energy). Just as he could not emasculate another man, they can’t hope to bring out loving or natural femininity in a woman. Blissful femininity is a form of anti-ego that is thrust upon a person as they yield to energetic penetration on the deepest emotional, intellectual, and spiritual level.
In India, the “ideal wife” is Rohini nakshatra, the very fertile Earth that grows influences through devotion. Rohini is the state of the cosmic daughter merged with her Solar Sun creator, and thus represents the way femininity, and whether and how easily it is awoken, begins in the masculinity she experiences through her Father. In Islam, women are also symbolically correlated to the garden. “Your women are like a tilth (tilled soil) for you, where you plant seed to obtain produce, so come to your tilth as you wish, and send ahead (good issue) for (the future of) your souls.” There are two important tasks for keeping a garden. The first task is the removal of weeds that drain its life and beauty. The second task is the planting of worthy seeds. The garden, the sacred space for potential waiting to be tilled and fertilized yet empty, is the feminine in its initial state. She worships the eternal force of beauty quite naturally, and is attuned to its importance; she calls it to possess her, and welcomes and cultivates it. This is why, for example, Ashlesha nakshatra represents the foundation of untilled, frozen, coiled sexual feminine energy. The results that are traditionally outlined to come from offerings to the ancestors in each of the 27 nakshatras, cite Ashlesha as the one that grants beauty. Then, with uprooted weeds at her feet, browning and shriveling, is the feminine in its active & harsh state (that “scared art of rejection”). Finally, with orderly flowers and fruits blossoming, is the feminine in her state of bounty. The reward then is not just for her but for her gardener-consort; her celebratory expression, obtained with patience and love, is his reward to behold & enjoy, and her reward to embody. There is no sign of success on the male path as large as the beauty and happiness of his garden, the powerful fragrance of its flowers and the juiciness of its rare fruits.