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'Feminine' and 'Female'

To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.pagan
From: tyagI@houseofkaos.Abyss.coM (tyagi mordred nagasiva)
Subject: 'Feminine' and 'Female' (Was Re: Claims of Attainment)
Date: Kali Yuga 49941002
Quoting: |kchap@ripco.com (Karen Chapdelaine) and |: tyagi

|: [conditioning] is part of what inspires me to dedicate my life to women 
|: and to the feminine (if there really is a 'cause').  

|I encourage you, as a woman, to see the "female" and not the "feminine". 

Why?  What is the difference in seeing each?  Isn't 'female' just a formal
quantification where 'feminine' is, as you say, a social construct?


|...each individual woman or each individual man may in fact find that 
|there are ideas that if we were to box them in "appropriate for male" 
|and "appropriate for female" are in the wrong damned box.  

I agree completely, which is why I do not say 'female' but 'feminine' 
when describing that to which I am dedicated.  If I were to say 'female' 
then I would only be describing a certain sex of the human species, rather 
than a principle which I currently (in my bias) associate to a greater 
degree with women.

I understand that if everyone did as I do then I might need to change my
dedication, yet I don't see this happening within my lifetime. ;>
  

|Not only that, but if we step back we find that the "average experience" 
|of women of my generation is different than the average experience of 
|those younger and those older, and then my "sexual preferences" factor 
|into the equation (I have the darndest time empathizing with/understanding 
|the issues/perspectives some times on some things of those who do not 
|"have a choice" it seems)---there are a lot of factors in comprehending 
|the appropriate for an individual.  

There are some things which are commonly associated with women in my
culture that I don't mean to hard-wire and yet I notice their accuracy.
One of these is nurturance (mothering), and another is emotional sensitivity.
This doesn't seem to factor into 'generation issues' too much, though I agree
that it does sometimes apply to some women more than others (of differing
backgrounds, ages, etc.) as well as to some (fewer in my experience) men.


|Knowledge is fine, cookbooks are not, and sometimes just listening to 
|what someone says is very, very important.  What we need is cookbooks 
|with more recipes, and more of a choice.  One of the hardest things 
|more me to "get" at one point was that SOME women were NOT motivated 
|the same as I was, i.e., they did not wish to improve understanding, 
|they were very, very busy hating.   They get to do that.  

Got that right.  Thus my dedication to Kali.  She is the 'Mad Mother'
and I feel that anger is an emotion which is very healthy for women
in particular and for people in general, especially when related to
ecology and 'feminist' issues, tempered with the Sword of Discernment.


|I needed to comprehend their uniqueness, not obliterate them into my 
|picture of what "women" were like.  Treat them like stars.   Acknowledge 
|them.  And then, of course, for me, stop being blind to our basic lack 
|of agreement, stop being blinded by the cultural stereotype of the 
|"feminine" and misassociating that with "female."  And yet, I don't fit 
|the stereotype either, I had just picked a small part of it and 
|misapplied it to all women in my fantasy.  

This is very interesting to me.  I don't think I use the term 'feminine'
in this way, especially when it comes to worship (and this may have been
what you referred to earlier about worship).  I cannot say that I am
dedicated to all females (in exclusion of males) and I gather that you
didn't assume this.

What you write here makes a lot of sense to me and reminds me of my trouble
with some 'tantriks' who generalize that all women are 'Faces of the Goddess'
and thereafter, as you say 'obliterate them'.  Part of what attracts me to
Kali is Her *personality*.  I am inspired by Her particularity of person,
not some ambiguous blob-god, Son of No-Quality and the like (I think of
Allah and Yahweh here for some reason).  Her symbols, Her visage, Her
dance; much like the orishas of the African tradition with their stories
and living personae, are powerful reminders that personality (with which I
associate EGO btw) is as much divine as nondual 'egolessness'.

Cultural stereotypes are what I'm keying into when I put my dedication
into *practice* and attempt to express something of how I see my path
unfolding.  Perhaps in another culture (likely matriarchal?) I would
feel more drawn to worship the Lord of the Animals more strenuously
(of whom I'm said to be a direct reflection - Rudra-Siva/Cernunnos).
And in fact this says as much about me as it does about my culture.  My
dedication is a reflection of my need (perhaps psychologists would say
that I felt denied by my mother or something) within the context I find
myself.

In this way I find the individual woman (female) and the stereotype
associated with her (feminine) each valuable, while I attempt to keep a 
close eye on seeing each for its own important characteristics.  They 
sometimes overlap, sometimes not, for as you say the one is a 
generalization of the other particular.

tyagi nagasiva
tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com

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