It is a real challenge to step into this matrix of the feminine, to honor something so sacred and simple as the real wisdom of life.  But as we stand at the edge of our present global abyss we need this wisdom more than we realize.  How many times has this world been brought to the edge of extinction, how many times in its millions of years has it faced disaster?  Now we have created our own disaster with our ignorance and greed, and the first step is to ask for the help of our mother and to listen to her wisdom.  Then we will find ourselves in a very different environment than that which we presently imagine.  We will discover that there are changes happening in the depths of creation of which we are a part, and that the pollution and pain we have caused are part of a cycle of life that involves its own apparent destruction.  We are not isolated, even in our mistakes.  We are part of the whole of creation even as we have denied the whole.  In our hubris we have separated ourselves from life, and yet we can never be separate.  That is just an illusion of masculine thinking.  There is no such thing as separation.  It is just a myth created by the ego.

 

Everything is part of the whole, even in its mistakes and disasters.  Once we return to this simple awareness we will discover that there are changes taking place that demand our participation, that need us to be present.  We will see that the axis of creation is shifting and something is coming alive in a new way.  We are being reborn, not in any separate sense but as a complete whole.  We do not have images in our masculine consciousness to think what this could be like, but this does not mean it is not happening.  Something within us knows that the present era is over, that our time of separation is coming to an end.  At present we sense it most apparently in the negative, knowing that the images of life no longer sustain us, that consumerism is killing our soul as well as the planet.  And yet there is also something just beyond the horizon, like a dawn that we can sense even if we cannot see.

 

And this dawn carries a light, and this light is calling to us, calling to our souls if not yet to our minds.  And it is asking for us to welcome it, to bring it into being.  And if we dare to do this, to say “yes” to this dawn, we will discover that this light is within us, and that something within each of us is being brought into being.  We are part of a shared mystery: we are the light hidden within matter that is being awakened.

 

For too many centuries we have been caught in the myth of separation, until we have become isolated from each other and from the energies of creation that sustain us.  But now there is a growing light that carries the knowing of oneness, the oneness that is alive with the imprint of the divine.  This is what is being given back to us.  This is the light that is awakening.  The light of oneness is a reflection of the divine oneness of life, and we are each a direct expression of this oneness.  And this oneness is not a metaphysical idea but something so simple and ordinary.  It is in every breath, in the wing beat of every butterfly, in every piece of garbage left on city streets.  This oneness is life, life no longer experienced solely through the fragmented vision of the ego, but known within the heart, felt in the soul.  This oneness is the heartbeat of life.  It is creation’s recognition of its Creator.  In this oneness life celebrates itself and its divine origin.

 

The feminine knows this oneness.  She feels it in her body, in her instinctual wisdom.  She knows its interconnectedness just as she knows how to nourish her own children.  And yet until now this knowing has not carried the bright light of masculine consciousness.  It has remained hidden within her, in the darkness of her instinctual self.  And part of her pain has been that she has not known how to use her knowing in the rational and scientific world we inhabit.  Instead of valuing her own knowledge she has played the games of the masculine, imitating his thinking, putting aside her knowledge of relationships and her sense of the patterns that belong to creation.

 

Now it is time for this wisdom of the feminine to be combined with masculine consciousness, so that a new understanding of the wholeness of life can be used to help us to heal our world.  Our present scientific solutions come from the masculine tools of analysis, the very mind set of separation that has caused the problems.  We cannot afford to isolate ourself from the whole any more, and the fact that our problems are global illustrate this.  Global warming is not just a scientific image but a dramatic reality.  Combining masculine and feminine wisdom we can come to understand the relationships between the parts and the whole, and if we listen we can hear life telling us how to redress this imbalance.

 

There is a light within life, known to the alchemists as the lumen naturae, that can speak to us, speak to the light of our own awareness.  There is a primal dialogue of light to light, which is known to every healer as she listens to the body of her patient and allows it to communicate with her, allows its light to speak to the light within her.  Through this dialogue of light she comes to know where to place her hands, the herbs that are needed, the pressure points to be touched.  This direct communication is combined with the knowledge of healing she has learned, allowing an alchemy to take place that can reawaken energy within the patient, realign the body and soul.  This is how real healing happens, and what is true for the individual is also true for the world, except that we are both the patient and the healer.  The world’s wounds and imbalance are our wounds and imbalance, and we have within us the knowledge and understanding to realign ourselves and the world.  This is part of the mystery of life’s wholeness.

 

The feminine can give us an understanding of how all the diverse parts of life relate together, their patterns of relationship, the interconnections that nourish life.  She can help us to see consciously what she knows instinctively, that all is part of a living, organic whole, in which all the parts of creation communicate together, and how each cell of creation expresses the whole in a unique way.  An understanding of the organic wholeness of life belongs to the instinctual knowing of the feminine, but combined with masculine consciousness this can be communicated in words, not just feelings.  We can combine the science of the mind and the senses with inner knowing.  We can be given a blueprint of the planet that will enable us to live in creative harmony with all of life.

 

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Ph.D., is a Sufi teacher and the author of several books on Sufism, including "Sufism, The Transformation of the Heart," "The Face Before I was Born," "Sufism," "Dreamwork" and "Jungian Psychology." Sounds True has also published sets of his audio tapes, "Love is a Fire," "I am Wood," and "The Sufi Path of Love." He was born in London in 1953 and has followed the Naqshbandi Sufi path since he was nineteen.

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