Part III, Chapter 11. ABOUT WOMEN. (11)

This chapter is about the socialization of girls/women as part of our godship/P&C world, as well as how the mechanisms of our godship socialization are passed on to our children.

it has 3 sections,

WOMEN.  (11A)

EMPOWERING WOMEN.  (11B)

FAMILY and CHILDREN.  (11C)

Women.  (11A)

Introduction.  (11.1)

Power and Control or ‘godship’ means compete and compare with ‘out there’ ie, the ‘other’. If someone has no P&C, they are most unlikely to be safe within the godship world where the powerless are deserving of exploitation, because they are ‘bad’, lazy, feckless, stupid and/or crazy. The worse things are if lacking godship, the more everyone will compete for their bit as they can get it, and be terribly afraid if they can’t; too bad for those that can’t compete. Notice that we’ve all ‘bought’ the bit about ‘competing is the way to live and be’ in our godship culture and have forgotten the bit about cooperation. As for ‘Serve’, that’s just another stupid concept some idiot dreamed up.

Under our current social conditioning women are considered inferior and that what they do is ‘nothing really’.

Women as part of our godship culture will also compete as much as they can, but it’s usually in a different degree. It will still show as competition, but generally with other women.

Women’s response to godship and potential ‘peon’ drives them into the masculine, the marketplace and into overwhelm, but this is often against their own natural abilities and they lose internal power. Children will feel more alone as the mother isn’t there and can’t be, either physically and/or emotionally. There will also be increased difficulty in relating (because competing) which leads to feeling alone.

However, women as part of the ‘weak’ are not expected to cut themselves off from their rudders, which can actually give them strength as they get older.

This UUS argues that wanting godship comes from a basic fear of being unsafe, and that this ‘answer’ to life is ultimately based on ‘might is right’, ie, power and also money. However, godship is becoming an increasing part of our society as it is supported by the media and the commercial world as we all head toward Feudalism. This UUS also argues that this godship/P&C are the opposite of Love or TISP and ignore the soul, and these attitudes are killing us and Life around us. They are unsustainable.

Fear is the great controller; it makes us clump/huddle together for safety and makes us very careful about being different or apart. Hence, we chop off the bits of ourselves that make us different from others. The trouble is that this process of ignoring or judging our differences starts to make us all look like sheep and we start behaving that way. It doesn’t really take much to herd sheep, as long as one person has the right tools, (especially a dog to nip at their heels) they can get a mob to where they want them to go.

Women are also held responsible for the man’s sexual response. This may give her some feeling that she has ‘power over’ the man, but it can backfire. Do I need to give examples here?

Feminism and godship.  (11.2)

“I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.”

— Rebecca West

The ‘feminism’ of the 60’s and 70’s has now been turned into ‘women should be like men, and men might treat you as equal if you get there’ which is not what feminism was trying to say then. ‘Being like men’ here means being the same as; following the godship model of achieving ‘out there’, ‘go-getting’, competing, ‘productivity’, and so on. There is a lot of pressure on women to be equal ‘out there’, and there is a lot of talk about women now being ‘equal’ to men. We do like to congratulate ourselves.

One of women’s ‘great achievements’ in equality is for all people to be called ‘guys’. So, of course, we can start using ‘gals’ as well (sarc).

Women chasing godship are prone to thinking that they have to do it single-handedly, although that is not quite what men actually do, even if that is what they think they do; (there’s a strong ‘mates’ network’ in there). The upshot is that women who ‘succeed’ adopt the male godship attitude toward other women. So, once again, no TISP/Love around here. The other thing that the ‘successful’ woman may find is that she is lonely, and that she is not equal at all, and simply not accepted by men. Eventually she may understand that she’ll never ‘get there’ in fact. She herself may begin to feel thoroughly exploited and/or stymied and increasingly angry (and bitter) about it.

Women as the despised.  (11.3)

In our godship society the feminine is despised and greatly feared by the masculine, and the argument here is that this despising by men leaves women stuck and unable to move, as in, ‘turned to stone’. I consider it to be actually traumatizing for many if not most women. See Chapter 5, the Medusa. By ‘stuck’, I mean unable to identify what they really want personally, because so many things that they do or think are criticized as wrong. How does one move in any direction if you don’t know which direction you want? The more women are stuck, the less they are able to question society’s programming of them. Society is telling them they will naturally want only ‘a’ or ‘b’, but there are a lot of letters left in the alphabet, but who will think about that?

Lollipops.  (11.4)

I wish to use another plant/garden metaphor here to describe how women are ‘cut back’ to what they ‘ought to be’ (the criticism endemic within society).

In a newly established institutional garden I know of, there is a wide variety of plants from small to large, including saplings of potentially large trees for shade and beauty. Included in this variety are flowering plants grown as standards. Examples of standards are roses, which most people are aware of but there are also azaleas, camellias, wattles and so on that have been grafted or trained into said standards. They are cut/clipped so that they look a bit like a ‘lollipop’ ie, a round ball of flowers on a stick, and they can be very attractive/’sweet’. It bunches the flowers together and ‘presents’ them at eye level for maximum impact.

But in this garden, the ‘gardener’ cuts almost all plants of any potential size right back and has ‘lollipopped’ the young big trees by severely clopping the growth of the young branches and the leading stem. Thus, these young big trees cannot develop their main trunk or their branches and are now permanently ruined; their potential for ‘greatness’ is lost for good, which is actually very sad.

In general, the plant’s response to being cut back is to grow lots of small twiggy growth in all directions which for flowering plants can generate more flowers. However, for the ‘bigger’ trees this response simply prevents any single one of these branches from developing the strength and structure to support its growth to a big tree. This cutting back saves the ‘gardener’ the potential effort required for bigger plants with all their leaves, and many people dislike big trees because they think they ruin all the pipes around a house or their leaves make a mess or block the view. The cutting back also keeps everything neat and tidy in the gardener’s eyes and remarkably bare in mine. It is also quite clear that this ‘gardener’ neither knows about nor loves plants or flowers. One of the problems of having camellias as standards requiring clipping is that they only flower once a year, but these plants get their flowers and buds clipped off in the name of tidiness – end of flowers. The overall effect is rather bleak and uniform instead of a cornucopia of flowers.

The perpetual despising from society cuts women back into the one shape; the metaphor here is that it cuts them hard and it ‘lollipops’ them. These thousands of small daily ‘cuts’ is discouraging and withering and never stops. To repeat, this ‘cutting back’ is by being despised and demeaned at every turn. This is all supposed to be ‘sucked up’ as this is how life is, and ‘put it behind you’. Any tiny/small man is allowed to do this anytime he wants to shore up his own self-esteem, which is, of course, all the time. The trouble is that it’s not just men doing it, women learn to do it to each other as well. This is how society views and shapes women to conform.

This might be OK – just – for some, especially for those who would correspond to the small plants that get less cut, but it is dreadful for others with the potential to become a bigger plant such as a tree. All life misses out when trees are cut back or not allowed to grow in the first place; it’s not just the tree but the life it supports.

There are many men who are like the ‘gardener’, with neither knowledge nor interest in the woman’s wellbeing, growth or potential. Keeping women cut back saves him a lot of trouble and effort (and keeps the landscape somewhat bleak and uniform).

This ‘lollipopping’ of women is how women are brought up within our Western world, so much so that when psychologists or sociologists attempt to study women or work out who they are, all they can conclude is that they are lollipops, naturally.

This ‘cutting back’ is always to the only desirable attributes of mother (saint is better) and sex object/receptacle for him, and puts more pressure on finding the goddess attributes of young and beautiful and no Soul-Keeping ie, house-work for her. Women may avoid some of this godship pressure by escaping into the ‘rational’ world of academia, science and technology, although that generates a different set of pressures.

The effect of this ‘cutting back’ or ‘clopping’ molds the outer/social growth of the woman. However, the roots are still there and the plant can still grow. Hence women can go back to their roots and develop them if they can find the time or inclination. It’s also true that some trees such as magnolias can send up a new main stem from their roots. More below.

Women’s primary issues.  (11.5)

So, in our godship and rational society, what are women’s primary issues? Well, basically it’s getting to mother and/or goddess because these are the directions allowed. But, getting to mother brings in the issues of relationship, safety and fulfillment. This is a very fraught and difficult set of issues to untangle, because ultimately, they remain tangled up for all and must be unravelled by the individual concerned if that person doesn’t want to stay programmed.

I will deal with ‘mother’ here because getting to goddess is generally reliant on society’s estimation of her, rather than her own tendencies, in that it’s not necessarily up to her. The goddess attributes are to be fashionably beautiful and young, and/or rich; the more a woman has these the less actual Soul-Keeping (aka housework) will be required.

In all of this I am talking about the normal programming that women receive although I am aware that these programs are getting a bit busted nowadays. There are possibly more alternatives for some, but in general these programs and expectations are all still intact for the majority of women.

Getting to mother.  (11.6)

Women are expected to get to ‘mother’. The moment she is born without a penis, that is what is assumed. Hence it is a program. It is only by looking at this program in detail and unravelling it that we can start to ask the questions that will bring an understanding of how to go about finding the freedom to be yourself rather than tied to that program.

Fulfillment.  (11.7)

We are taught that a woman simply can’t/won’t be happy unless…

1. she finds someone who loves her and only her (relationship – the one true love). The alternative is to be stuck in wretched (and poor and possibly homeless) old maid, if not a witch. Plus,
2. she has children, (and preferably male firstborn); and never fulfilled without.

But children need safety and a home, and a woman needs safety to have children in the first place, and this is for the next 20+ years until the children have grown up and more if they cannot get a home of their own, which is increasingly likely nowadays. So, safety and home are big issues and generally mixed up to boot.

Safety and a home.  (11.8)

It is very difficult to have children without a home and some form of safety. Women ‘belong’ with the powerless as a ‘birthright’. A very small minority (poss. 3%?) will have the nous and/or the financial background or power in whatever way, which will bring them some form of control over their own lives.  In general, the man has more physical strength, and greater earning power.

In Australia few women can afford to buy a house by themselves. They will not be able to afford a house without a man, and they will not be safe without the protection of a man. (The truth of this statement varies with the society the woman lives in.) Both of these are huge, and very difficult to fight in godship societies.

To do this, one needs to find ‘the one-and-only true love’ and they’ll find a home together and have children and everyone will be happy. The home being very important for stability and safety, especially for children.

Women are taught (and thus assume) that having children is the only source of fulfillment for them, as in, there is no possible fulfillment without children. ‘You’ll always feel that you have missed out’.

Having a home, and in the same breath, caring for the undying love are also very high in the fulfillment list. But this is mixed up with needing the security of a home for the children. What’s next on the list? A fulfilling career? What are the chances of finding one of these? But, the second income is essential for being able to buy a house in an area where one can earn said second income, hence the need for her to work.

As girls grow up through their teens it becomes increasingly clear to them (whether consciously or not) that they will not be able to be a mother (= fulfilled) with their own home unless they have a partner. Few can do this by themselves. They need someone with earning power who can continue to work and pay a mortgage over 25 years, and to not need to spend working time having children or maintaining a household.

To repeat, very few women will be able to own their own home, ie, work and earn sufficient money to finance a mortgage to do so, plus have children unless they have a partner. Exceptions could be those who inherit a home, or those who earn enough per hour to be able to finance a mortgage with less than a half-time job; perhaps a GP or some such. [Some women do go ahead and have children by themselves or are left to do so by their partner, but they are most unlikely to own their own home and even with government support, things will be tight and there is far less control over one’s life. In Australia at least, renting means far less control over one’s living arrangements.]

Therefore, for most, the pressure is on to find a partner, and with what and how? For many, it’s to offer ‘caring’ and nurturing (the mothering bit), not to mention sex; the desirable female attributes; the rest of them being undesirable of course. They are conditioned into believing that they will never be fulfilled without children.

Competing.  (11.9)

The godship model is all about competition and the media promotes competition amongst women to catch a man. This leads to bitchiness and loneliness and misery. The above also leaves men feeling that the only reason a woman wants him is for the ability to provide and there’s a lot of ghastly stuff about her spending his money. How amusing.

If you can’t get to goddess via young and beautiful or rich, then go for sex with caring.

Sex.  (11.10)

Nowadays the media encourages women to ‘compete’ for men using their sexual attractions, with sex increasingly taking on the qualities of the marketplace. Basically, the feminine is exploited to hell for all concerned. Our current ideals of ‘sexy’ don’t fit women’s bodies very well, hence few can actually achieve such ideals. However, this is a major advantage to the huge industry in cosmetics and cosmetic surgery. We are also enjoying an increased emphasis on porn.

But it’s also true that many people get confused. It leaves women feeling obliged to offer sex or caring as the only way that they will get a partner, which can leave both men and women feeling like a commodity. Certainly, there is less understanding of the need to get to know each other first, etc, etc.

Not every male is looking for sex alone and so on.

Then again, the offers of sex and caring to ‘catch’ them can and will be exploited. Is anybody happy about this? Women feel obliged to offer sex and/or caring to catch a man, whether ‘worth-full’ or not.

Caring. (11.11)

There is a lot of pressure on women to be caring/saintly, as in, there is great social pressure on women to care for others at the expense of themselves.

Women are expected to be ‘caring’ and to give to others and support them as much as they can. The implication is that to ‘love thy neighbour’ is ‘good for them’ and will help them get to ‘heaven’, in the same way as saving small amounts of money will get us lots of money in the bank (of course!).

Many women pride themselves on ‘caring’, often because there is precious little else in terms of acceptable places to put their energy. It’s actually a way to compete to be the goddess of caring. Hence enormous amounts of volunteer work, especially from mature women, promoted and exploited by religious and government/social institutions relying on it so much. Some of this pressure is from ‘caring’ women ‘shoulding/oughting’ other women to be caring also. And some of that expectation is actually inhuman, especially if the ‘caring’ person is trying to get to ‘goddess of caring’. What do I mean by that?

As a woman bases and builds her identity on being a ‘caring’ person, she is going to have a lot of trouble with the ‘uncaring’ part of her. As we pride ourselves on being caring, we have trouble with being ‘uncaring’, because we will do our best to deny and repress it, but we will end up fearing it as well, so it becomes a problem in terms of meeting an awful lot of ‘uncaring’ ‘out there’. This is Mirror Laws aka Projection showing you that you are not being caring to your InSelf. All normal humans have both ‘caring’ and ‘uncaring’ within; some of it useful and some of it not. The point being that it is useful for you to work out which is which, especially if you would like to keep your health.

In the same manner, if a woman is trying to be caring to all, a mother, not to mention alluring and sexy all at once as well as a capable focused worker, (Cor!) she’s going to have trouble on the 4 fronts of ‘uncaring’, ‘unconcerned’, ‘sexless’, and ‘unfocussed’. Thus, she is supposed to be; sexually available; support all of home, children, husband/partner, and 2nd income; and thus, terribly efficient, but must not support self. But all of this is ‘nothing really’.

In the meantime, her actual self does not count, is voiceless, undervalued and underpaid to boot because she is a woman and ‘should’ be doing all that. Is this anyone we know?

This is a ridiculous ‘program’ for any human being; no man would stand for it for a minute, and they don’t. That’s one of the ways to tell that it is ridiculous.

What’s wrong with this program?  (11.12)

• It’s a one-size fits all. This means that some will fit and most will not. In fact, few women fit at all.
• It implies women are only useful or relevant when available for sex. This is so much so that many people consider older women in society irrelevant to society’s needs, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. This also implies women have to justify their existence by ‘caring’ all the time.
• It puts the onus of failure on to the individual. This means that it’s the individual’s fault that they have not succeeded. It’s very hard to love ourselves if we think we are a failure. Hence the battle to work out how to jump/climb all these hurdles, and guilt/failure when we can’t. Women spend so much time and energy trying to jump that they have no time at all to consider that the hurdles/programs/expectations might have something wrong with them in the first place.

What we fail to consider is that these ‘oughts’ are inhuman, and demand far too much of women. This is a great recipe for exhaustion and stress. We are not looking at this at all. There will be women who ‘succeed’ in these ‘oughts’ and who will pride themselves on doing so, and be very angry at any implication that they are any sort of failure, because they then feel unlovable. However, the real test here is how their body feels about their lives/lifestyle. If they are well and happy and able to have some choice in their lives, this is a fair indication that things are OK. Illness/disease is an indicator that things are not. More about the body in the Chapter 14.

The other thing to really understand is that our current social expectations of women are guaranteed to cut women off from themselves and their birthrights and leave them wondering what on earth happened and why can’t they be happy, and trying to show everyone just how happy and successful they are.

In all of this there can be no recognition much less any acceptance of any negative emotions. It’s all sweetness and light. Thus, any uncaring and unloving etc, have nowhere to go because these are socially so unacceptable.

Feelings of ‘bad’, failure, fear, shame, guilt, anger, resentment, or frustration have to get stuffed down, buried and forgotten. Then they get denied; everyone is just so happy here. But, as I have said before, we carry these feelings with us and they stay there. They’ve been shoved down into the basement, but they start to smell as time goes by. The trouble is that victim, blame and self-pity begin to infiltrate, followed by jealousy and envy of those who seem to succeed. The media holds up ‘goddesses’ eg, entertainers, royalty, or film-stars as examples of those who’ve ‘got there’ and this is how you’re supposed to be. Not to mention, saints. They’ve got there, why can’t you? The percentage of women who actually do get to be on top of the heap is really very small, and often inherited in some manner, but their ‘success’ is used to prove that all women can do it too.

We have few to no place for any fierceness in women. Fierceness isn’t nice. There’s plenty of fierceness in nature from females as well as males, and it’s OK for women to be fierce about her children’s protection. But other things; what would they be?

These pressures on women are engendered by society’s expectations of women which act as programs for them, and we rarely question them; we just keep trying until we can’t.

Programs last a long time.  (11.13)

So, where do these programs/expectations come from? They come from our godship society and our religions. For the Western world this religion is mainly some form of Christianity, which has the Virgin Mary as the only given role model for women. This is within church institutions that have little to no active participation of women in their administrative structures; the women’s role is usually the passive reception or support of the message.

The Virgin Mary.  (11.14)

The Christian teaching of the Virgin Mary is that she had a (male) child by herself (with God) and so anyone who can’t do that is a failure and a sinner to boot – built in. We actually know very little about her except that she was a woman, and the mother of a famous baby and end of story, except for some difficulties finding somewhere to have that baby. But, in fact, for a child to have the intelligence, education, understanding and confidence of Jesus, his parents must have been very able in human terms, however ‘ordinary’ they may be perceived to be. Later on, if Jesus had a wife and children, they get written out (Mary was probably also his wife’s name) because it makes him seem weaker (and not God) if he is just ‘normal’ (so no need to take any notice of what he said).

The other thing is, why do we bother giving Jesus a virgin birth? Jesus didn’t think this, so why do we? After all, it’s his father Joseph who is of ‘David’s Line’, and being from such a line was crucial in Jewish religion. This story about the ‘virgin’ birth makes all human/normal women inadequate and ‘sinners’, and is basically unanswerable; it’s presented as fact, so what’s going on?

Men use the Virgin birth story along with the Adam and Eve story to ‘prove’ that women are the lesser gender and deserve their judgement and condemnation, and to make sure that they themselves (men) take absolutely no notice of women. Consciously or unconsciously women ‘wear’ these stories, never to question, answer or change them, but I think it’s time to do just that.

[I have included the Adam and Eve story as the 2nd Addendum to this book, partly because it is more detailed, and partly because it was the first story I really looked at and its themes became the basis for tackling this book.]

This leaves the story of the virgin Mary to look at.

There are 2 problems with having the Virgin Mary as the only role model for women in the Christian religions. The Virgin bit and the Mother bit. I will deal with the ‘mother’ bit first.

The Virgin Mary as the ‘great mother’.  (11.15)

This is where the great injunction to be caring to all is coming from. All women should love everyone and be caring to all. A saint is even better. Nowadays, this is going further into a theme called ‘unconditional love’. Women are now enjoined to give this to their children, not to mention considering them to be angels, which in fact leads to pretty ‘devilish’ behaviour.

Our current Western religions are particularly ‘hard’ on women in this respect. I call this a ‘should’ or an ‘ought’. An ‘ought’ is not a ‘want’; it’s just a way to lay guilt on you. Serving others as a method to learn to love one’s self may help but it isn’t automatic; storing up ‘pennies in Heaven’ isn’t that much fun down here either. The key here is to query whether there is TISP for InSelf going on. Remember that the axiom is ‘Love thy Neighbour as Thyself’ which means ‘Thyself’ comes first.

The crux of this great ‘should/ought’ is that this ‘caring’ is expected of all women. It leaves them with no room to move or choice. Not all women wish to be caring of all, and my argument is that there is nothing actually wrong with a woman who doesn’t. Mothering simply isn’t the be-all and end-all for women. Maybe mothering would not be quite so bad if it were only the children. My observation would be that a great many women actually resent having to look after a male partner as if he were a child, especially having to pick up and clean up after him. This is where ‘service’ that is expected and exploited turns the server into a servant, and I am quite sure that women were not meant to be servants. It is extremely difficult to love anyone who treats you like a servant day in and day out, eg, having to pick up after your supposedly adult mate, who expects to be picked up after or makes a mess all the time. Why would anyone mess up their nest; few birds or animals do if they can avoid it?

If equality is not there, proper merge cannot happen. Some women use the male’s ‘need’ to be looked after as a source of ‘power over’ for them, but my argument is that no-one’s happy here. Two people doing ‘power over’ to each other isn’t quite partnership. An Adult in terms of being properly self-sufficient picks up their own clothes, or doesn’t even drop them in the first place.

Women have no other role model except this one of the Virgin Mary (or nowadays maybe bitchy goddesses or waifs) paraded before them, and yet it is perfectly clear that women have other intrinsic abilities and interests pertaining to the feminine. But the lack of other role-models in our religions means that these abilities remain unconscious, unrecognised and unexpressed.

This UUS argues that our mainstream spirit-based religions are ‘dreamed up’ by men and promoted by men usually from the spirit’s point of view, and thus by definition exclude the soul, and this means excluding the body’s sensations of feelings and emotions.

Another major problem with our current mainstream religions is the ‘one-go at life’ bit, which makes no sense to anyone really; we’re just supposed to believe this and everything will be alright, of course.

Well, isn’t ‘mothering’ Love?

Defining Love as TISP (Time, Interest, Sustain and Protect) is useful because it makes it easier to work out what’s there and what is not. If any letter is missing, the word is incomplete and you can know that Love is/was not there, for whatever reason. One of the things that’s missing in our current marvellous society is Time, while Interest doesn’t get much of a look-in either. In particular, what woman has Time – time that she can give to her children if she wants, not to mention, time given to her?

Our society is currently running a very large experiment called ‘what happens to the children when the mother has no time for anyone or anything, and the father is not there’, with the results not yet collected, much less collated. See also below; Family and Children.

Our programs and pressures also come down through history, in that vestiges of their energy are ‘inherited’, because they’re still sitting in our unconscious and so are even less likely to be questioned.

History.  (11.16)

The Western world was basically feudal up until the rise of government and social programs to redress the endemic poverty and environmental conditions of most people. In feudal times most people had few rights, as in, they definitely belonged in ‘peon-hood’; hence, not much food or the ability to avoid rotten conditions or power-mongering by the corrupt. Not much education knocking around either. This was up until less than 120 years ago. [Women have had the vote just over 100 years ago.]

The history that we do have comes from the few people who had the freedom to have an interesting life. Poverty, disease and grind, eg, stuck down a mine from the age of 10 or less are simply not very interesting. Too many people were in that position and they had no voice.

These conditions still exist in a large proportion of the world. We forget. Not to mention our current gods are working hard to bring back feudalism because it benefits them.

The inquisition and witch-hunts. (11.17)

The inquisition and witch hunts were in operation throughout the Western world, (where the bulk of our social conditioning comes from), from the late 1400’s to the late 1700’s; that’s 300 years (and some 12 or so generations) up to just over 200 years ago. Some aspects of this thinking still operate in some countries. Throughout this time both men and women were killed, but any women who lived by herself or was unusual or intelligent or who spoke up or was different in some manner was likely to have been killed, and painfully. This included all ‘wise’ women; women who had herbal/plant knowledge or were skilled in healing or helping others, especially in birth or death. We forget. Strangely enough the bleakness and suffering of villages without their wise women was not recorded.

The wariness/fears that women had to learn in order to be safe get passed down the generations. They had to ‘behave’, and stay under the highly uneducated, fearful and superstitious public radar or else. Even in this day and age, women have plenty of reasons to watch out.

The legacy of all of this is that we have very little idea of just what women’s intrinsic abilities and skills actually are. How do we name them or list them out?

But our current mainstream religions are relatively new on Earth, so what went before? Where does this business of the Virgin Mother come from?

The Virgin and the resurrection.  (11.18)

[I use Harding (1976) for much of this thinking.]

The religious concept of the Virgin giving Life from within (read, by herself) to a son who must die and be resurrected as a man, is much older than Christianity and actually belongs to the worship of the Moon. This is across a remarkable number of countries and regions and for thousands of years before the birth of Jesus. The similarity and universality of this religious ‘story’ implies its need as an important part of the human psyche (the unconscious InSelf), especially for women. (Some religions did have gods of the Moon, but most were goddesses; so, the virgin birth etc, is common to a remarkable number of societies that did not necessarily have any contact at all.)

Our current society is highly prone to dismiss such myths and legends along with fairytales and dreams, as well as tales from the bible. But, all these ‘tales’ that last a long time have lasted because they have ‘resonated’ within our unconscious and are remembered and retold precisely because of that ‘resonation’ for so many people.

Being able to read plus our present form of this written word is quite a recent phenomenon. Most of these tales have lasted down generations via the spoken word. Hence it is wise to take notice of them, and understand them as being of importance to the unconscious.

In general (see Harding for much more detail) moon goddesses ruled all fertility as well as destruction for all life, and also the movement of water. These moon goddesses were ‘virgin’ which at the time meant that the goddess was ‘sufficient unto herself’. She gave birth to a son who died and rose again on a cyclical basis, celebrated annually.

The moon itself is changeable from its ‘bright’ face (full moon) to its ‘dark’ face (new moon) via the waxing and waning 1st and 3rd quarter crescents, which are different again. It’s symbol was often triune, or having 3 different faces. A ‘trinity’ in fact. We understand that the moon rules the tides, but all water came under the rule of the Moon, and water is the symbol for the emotions as they ebb and flow.

The ‘virgin’ goddess brings life from within.  (11.19)

Our society considers a virgin a woman/girl who has had no sexual intercourse with a man. However, this was not how the term was understood in the times of the moon goddess worship.

In those times ‘virgin’ was understood as a woman ‘sufficient unto herself’ and thus not dependent upon a man to define her or her role in life. She was not anyone’s property.

This doesn’t mean she does not ‘have sex’ or cannot be a mother or a partner. It means that she knows who she is and what’s important to her and that she can Create Life from within, which this UUS argues is the internal Merge which comes from being able to TISP InSelf. She was fertile. She brought ‘life to her feelings and brought her feelings to life’.

The son who must die and rise again.  (11.20)

This Life is the birth of a son who must die and rise again as a man.

This was a cyclic annual phenomenon – she did not do it just once. There was a celebration of the birth and a celebration/mourning of the death, knowing that the male would be reborn.

The woman gives birth to, and mothers a boy, but she must stop the mothering or the boy cannot get to be a man or manly. The boy must die to the mothering. She must stop needing to mother and he must stop expecting it or he cannot grow up to provide it for himself or others; he will become ‘castrated’ in terms of potentially ‘being a man’. He will not be able to rise as a man. We seem to have lost this piece of understanding. A high proportion of men expect to be mothered throughout their lives, and in so doing have been unable to grow up.

Stopping the mothering turns her into the terrible mother who kills/destroys all, and that is part of her role. If it is not conscious, it will be unconscious.

The moon’s constant cycle of waxing and waning.  (11.20)

There is also the tie to water and the emotions. The moon waxes and wanes as do a woman’s hormones.

Women experience life in an internal cyclical manner throughout the child-bearing years, as different hormone levels rise and fall within her physiology. Our society tends to ignore this mechanism as another ‘only this’ mechanism, as in, cogs and gears, and in our current worship of godship women try their best to hide the whole thing as they strive to prove their ‘equality’ with men, but that does not mean that it goes away. It basically provides women with a completely different experience of life from that of men, and it forces a woman’s attention onto her body and its sensations. She can certainly ignore it as much as possible as our society dictates but she ends up with nowhere for her feelings to go except to the dark, so they tend to ‘flood out’ and ‘drown the environment’; bitchiness, misery, attacking other women, blaming men, illness, etc, etc, all those things we know and love so well (sarc).

The moon’s changeable face.  (11.22)

The moon has the 3 different ‘faces’ from bright to dark via the 1st and 3rd quarter moons. These 3 different faces give it a ‘triune’ presentation. It does not stay the same, yet it is still entirely valuable in its own right. The ‘triune’ feature of the moon may also have been ‘picked up’ in the ‘trinity’ feature of Christianity.

Note also that the moon reflects the sun, but is not ‘only’ its reflection, or even its support.

In the same vein, life needs both sun and water to grow, and both are valuable and necessary in their own right.

Important information for women.  (11.23)

The above is the basis of our ideas in Christianity with the omission of information very important to women.

And this information is….?

• To understand that all women have the birthright of the moon goddess, which is the ability to Create Life from Within.
• Being ‘sufficient unto herself’ as ‘virgin’ is how she is able to do this. Virgin can become a psychological word rather than simply referring to the physical.
• Finding a way to define herself other than by men is valuable for her to do for herself.
• A life of feeling (sensations and emotions) is a valuable way to live. It’s not ‘masculine’ and especially not ‘rational’, so our society’s lack of ‘sense’ gives women almost no handle on how to be herself. Thus, her abilities to bring ‘feeling’ to Life and ‘life’ to her feelings are stymied and we head into the ‘Wasteland’ of ‘thinging’ everyone as production units.
• To understand that withdrawing mothering is entirely appropriate for any children approaching adulthood. Thus, to be aware of the need to stop the Mothering and Caring for others that is so expected of all women, especially the caring for men who have not actually grown up from expecting it. This is so much a part of so many of modern mainstream religions that this is a point that really needs to be made. Much of women’s ‘caring’ leaves men as boys and they stay that way; demanding, using and abusing Life and having a whopping snit if they can’t. Being ‘uncaring’ of others does not necessarily make you an uncaring person. Learn to care for your own InSelf first.
• A woman’s Life includes the ‘bright’ public face as well as the ‘dark’ private face turned from the world out there to within herself. Renewal comes from this ‘darkness’; remember the plant’s roots finding nutrition and providing security. Find some way to allow and maintain this private face for your own renewal. This is where some journaling can be helpful.
• The ‘triune’ is also equated with the 3 phases of a woman’s life; maiden, mother and crone. ‘Crone’ is just about a rude word nowadays, yet wisdom is/was almost invariably female in most societies, and age (and actual experience) is necessary for wisdom to accumulate. Where is wisdom in our current society?
• Life includes destruction as well as creation. How could you, indeed how could we all, celebrate this?

There is a lot to think about here, and thinking takes time, hence it is useful to give oneself that time in the first place. But how does a woman even begin to go about this business of reclaiming her birthright and empowering herself to do her own defining of herself for herself?

Empowering women.  (11B)

Reclaiming the woman’s birthright as the virgin goddess. (11.24)

The moon goddess was ‘virgin’ and was able to create from within. I consider this a very desirable goal for women, and thus it would be useful to work out what to look for to get there.

So, how do we go about getting a handle on being our own person, as in, true to ourself, as in, returning to the Virgin? The trouble is that the word ‘virgin’ has too many rigid connotations in our current society as an undesirable state, so I wish to make up a name/label which is more useful. I will use SHE as short for ‘sufficient unto herself’. Thus, the question is, how does a woman get to SHE?

Psyche and Eros.  (11.25)

Once again, we have a Greek myth to help us get a handle on how to do this. It is the less well-known story of Psyche and Eros. Another name used for Eros was Cupid, but Eros as a name is about relationship and since relationship is really the basis of this whole UUS, I will be using ‘Eros’.

Johnson (1989) uses this myth in his book “She” and I use some of his ideas here. There is a great deal more of use to women in his book. It includes a full synopsis of this myth and another one is available on Wikipedia.

A very potted version of this tale is that Psyche has lost her great love Eros, and his mother Aphrodite/Venus sets her a series of tasks if she wants to get him back. Psyche has to prove herself fit for him. The tasks themselves seem entirely impossible. She spends a lot of time collapsing in despair and/or trying to work out how to kill herself, but she is helped throughout by Nature and the natural world. She does manage to carry out these tasks, and the story has a happy ending.

There are 4 tasks.

1. Sorting.  (11.26)

Psyche must sort a great mix of seeds into their separate types within one day. The ants help her.

The seeds that Psyche must sort are symbolic of both inner and outer ‘small things’. These seeds are the endless number of possibilities, decisions, jobs, thoughts and things/objects/property that a woman faces as she carries out the ‘till and keep’ of life. The ants are also very small things that appear to have little importance and yet they are able to carry out this great sorting task.

This sorting seeds theme is also common to some fairy tales, and sorting also shows up in Astrology in the 6th house which includes analysing and sorting and is ruled by Virgo, preceding the 7th house of relationship.

The lesson here is that a woman must sort what is important and of value to her and her alone, ie, to work out what is ‘right’ for her. To do this, she must use her feelings (her body’s sensations as well as her own emotions) to identify these. The process is analyse, refine, choose, prioritize, and ditch the rest. The outcome may run counter to society, but actually, it isn’t society’s business to know.

This needs TISP (= Time, Interest, Sustain and Protect) for InSelf, because it is the InSelf (which includes the body) that feels and knows what is right for you, regardless of what you’ve been programmed by society to believe. This is an ongoing process, and takes time.

2. Collecting up. (11.27)

Collecting the Golden Wool from the rams of the Sun at dusk.

Psyche must gather golden wool from fierce rams belonging to the sun, which are kept in a field. She is advised by reeds near the field to do this in the evening when the rams are quiet, and to take the wool where it has rubbed off on briars and low-hanging branches.

She cannot just go up to the rams in daylight because she would be run over and killed. These golden rams of the Sun are symbolic of the fierce determined masculine battering its way through a problem, and meeting it head on, but leaving ‘bits of wool’ behind. These small bits of wool look like ‘the leavings’, but many women who are employed as personal assistants to the ‘great man’ need plenty of small skills and abilities to look after the detail that gets missed in the rush.

The reeds ‘telling her’ is an indicator that she is connected to the natural world which can ‘speak’ to her; ditto, the ants, and the eagle and the tower in the other tasks. She is also letting Life tell/inform her what to do.

In effect, the symbolism is for a woman to ‘collect up’ her abilities and skills in the quiet of the day. In particular she must be careful to value this wool collected in this manner, and avoid considering it ‘only that’ as in the masculine manner.

Notice that it is difficult for a woman to have a proper relationship with a man if she is unable to value herself; she will value him too much and herself too little, which makes a mess of the relationship. All of these tasks help Psyche to know herself better; that’s why Venus sets them.

This is another task that takes time. The wool that Psyche collected was enough for her to fulfill Aphrodite’s demands.

3. The water of life.  (11.28)

She must fill a crystal goblet with water from the river Styx, even though there is no access to this rushing river. An eagle helps her. The water is for her to drink; she is not taking it to Aphrodite.

The Styx is the river of Life and Death. Access to it was fraught with danger and the river itself rushes past.

The crystal goblet is precious but very easily shattered and broken. Eventually an eagle helps her and dips the goblet into the river and brings it to her.

The symbolism here is to treat life itself as precious as is your body and to be very careful of it/them. Dipping the cup in the water requires a ‘higher’ point of view – the bigger picture.

The idea here is to understand what in or out of your life ‘fills your cup’, which you then drink one cup at a time, no more and no less. This is about first identifying what you want, and then concentrating on the matter at hand, and finishing that before going on to the next thing.

4. Down to the dark. (11.29)

The visit to Persephone, Queen of Hades/’Hell’. This is the most difficult task.

She must travel to the underworld to ask Persephone for some beauty ointment, which she must bring to Venus. A tower advises her very precisely on what to do; coins for the ferryman – there and back; cakes for Cerberus, the terrible dog that guards the underworld – there and back; no ‘rescuing/helping’ anyone, no matter how much the apparent need and no socialising or receiving hospitality once there – get back out as quickly as possible. (These instructions are actually very useful for us all.)

Hades is the place of the shades, where people are shadows of themselves. This is basically another name for the unconscious (= where the shadows live).

Be prepared to travel the pathless road into the dark, by yourself, looking after yourself with your most basic needs, paying respect to the guardian denizens, and don’t get distracted by ‘rescuing/mothering’ others or socialising/being entertained while you are down there. You need all your resources for yourself. Ask for the beauty cream and get back out as fast as you can.

Go to the dark inside you and find out who/what is there in terms of what it can teach you. This means facing your fears as much as you can, of what is to you/others ‘unacceptable’, ‘mad’, ‘bad’, ‘ugly’, ‘stupid’, ‘cold-hearted bitch’ within yourself; these parts of you are living in the shadows, ie, they are your shadows, etc, etc.

This is a very difficult task and as she exited Hades, Psyche opened the pot because she wanted to use the ointment for herself. There appeared to be nothing in there and she was overcome by a deathly sleep. Eros was able to find her and take her away and all was well.

But what was in the pot? If Venus wanted it for her own beauty it must have been something that made that awful trip worthwhile. Persephone was Queen of the Night and was Hades’ consort. She ‘reigned over’ what seems to us as an extremely difficult, dark domain, ie, she knew her way around it. Her own story is also a Greek myth and instructive for some women. [See Bolen (1984).]

In tracking our way through Hades, we get to see and address our own shadows which live in the dark. These are our truths about ourselves. “Truth is beauty; beauty is truth”. Knowing ourselves internally imparts a certain beauty within any human being, with the key here being that this beauty cannot be used by another person to make them-self ‘beautiful’. As soon as Psyche wanted to make herself beautiful in another’s eyes, she became unconscious. We are always being unconscious when we try to change anyone else’s perception of us.

Collapsing and help from nature.  (11.30)

Psyche does not live in a city, so when she collapses to the ground in despair, she actually falls down to direct contact with the earth. Somehow, this sort of ‘grounding’ can bring a kind of heart or courage or an idea into one’s being. She is in contact with Nature and will be able to ‘hear’ the ‘still small voices’ that can help her.

This is good advice for anyone; Nature can and does help, but it does depend on your listening.

Notice that our current society is probably the furthest from Nature than any before.

Impossible tasks.  (11.31)

These tasks don’t appear to be possible in the ‘real’ world, in fact they look a bit like magic. But most men think that the work that women do is a kind of ‘magic’, in that all that food they eat as children simply ‘appears by magic’ and all the more reason to consider that work easy to do, as in, men/boys will have no idea what’s actually involved unless they do it themselves.

These then are Psyche’s tasks set by Aphrodite/Venus (Goddess of Love) so that she can get back to her beloved Eros (relationship). She succeeds and becomes immortal and they have a child together called ‘Pleasure’. This story then, is speaking about some of the benefits for any woman of carrying out these tasks as she herself sees fit.

Thus and so, to any woman reading this, you may wish to get back to ‘SHE’, your psychological birthright, where you are sufficient unto yourself and need no man to define you by, wife, mother, etc.

Really, it’s about a woman asking herself, ‘who am I, if I am not a mother, or not needed by others?’ There is no question that children need mothering, although time-poor women may have little time for the emotional needs of herself or her children.

The challenges for women.

Valuing yourself.  (11.32)

The challenge then is for a woman to value herself within a society that does not value her, and in fact teaches her to denigrate herself and all her natural abilities, and to be disconnected from body, Nature and Soul. Denigration and despising leave women severely stuck and unable to work out what they really want.

Remember, your ultimate goal is for your own Flowering which is your InSelf being able to Express its Self. This will bring you great satisfaction that you will treasure, and it is also of great value to Life out there, including your family.

Your potential is to Create Life from Within, as in, Create from the Heart, by bringing/giving your ‘feeling’ to Life.

Thus, you will have to learn to value yourself regardless of all social pressure to the contrary. This is definitely swimming against the tide, and as such is not easy. It is not possible to force others to value you when you yourself do not. You will not be able to perceive it or believe it even if they do.

The primary question is really ‘what do you want?’ and everyone needs to ask it of themselves. In the story of Psyche, she is perfectly clear about what she wants, which is to have her beloved Eros back, and she will basically go through hell to get there, because she wants it so much.

When asking yourself what you want, you are looking for Desire and Delight, as in, what lights you up or warms your heart, or gets you going. Avoiding guilt does not light our fires.

Concentrate on what brings Life and Love to you with Desire and Delight. Be ‘selfish’ in this regard and don’t worry about being a ‘dreadful uncaring’ person who’ll end up in hell. Your misery or unhappiness are no use to others and could be ‘flooding the floor’ anyway as far as your family are concerned. One unhappy mother can mean a lot of unhappy family.

Find ways of living a rewarding, creative and meaningful life with or without a man. Your fulfillment in Life is not solely dependent upon having children; your fulfillment can also come from your Flowering. This is how you become ‘self-sufficient’ internally or SHE, which also means that your inner masculine and feminine are getting better at partnering each other in being creative. The more you can do this the happier you can become.

The irony here is that the more you can face your own fears of lack of children/fulfillment and the need for protection by a man, the more likely you are to find the kind of relationship you really want, because you now have a ‘proper’ relationship with your internal ‘other’, which will have to be mirrored externally. (Mirror Laws ‘showing up’ as the Law of Attraction.)

Psyche’s tasks are the questions that can help women learn more about themselves and help them to sort out what’s important and what’s not. Ditching the less important may give them more time to think. This sorting as well as collecting up one’s own abilities are the beginning of working out how to care for yourself. You are giving yourself time and attention and are hopefully interested in your answers. This is the beginning of giving yourself the ‘T’ and ‘I’ part of TISP. Often the only time a woman gets for herself is at the end of the day or its early beginning. Having no time leads to a great deal of emptiness.

The questioning is an enquiry process that is ongoing.

TISPing InSelf first seems selfish and quite counter to so much that we take for granted in our society, but this UUS is talking about it is high time women stopped taking their ‘shoulds’ for granted and started to think. Giving TISP to InSelf also includes Time for the body without the motive of making it more beautiful within society’s current definitions. Remember Psyche’s beauty ointment; making yourself beautiful for others’ perceptions keeps you unconscious. The more you can Merge with your own InSelf, the more you will become satisfied with your life, which is all the beauty ointment you need.

Avoid the “giving ‘unconditional love’ to your children” trap. Human beings are not meant to be saints or god/desses. If you wish to pursue it, then attempt it only if you have fully learnt how to give it to your own InSelf first. Otherwise your intent just gets bent, and what you get is your ‘unsaintly’ bits have to get buried (you’re hiding them from yourself), except your children will know all about them, and reflect them back to you (Life acting as your mirror for you).

Are you able to have a room to yourself in your own household? Few women have a domain/retreat of their own. Teach your dependents to be less dependent, and give you time to yourself.

Attend to your own Soul. Address its needs. You can use your children to find out about your own needs, if you will let them. Setting up your own personal world that is ‘right’ for you first, enables you to Flower. This is where/how change begins, one person at a time. The more you can Flower, the more you will know how to help your children Flower, and this is a rare and valuable legacy for them.

Reject others’ devaluing.  (11.33)

In particular reject the stories of godship and P&C; the robotism, the mechanical, the ‘noble’ leader rescuing us all, science, medicine, and technology, your supposed need to be ‘caring’; all of which will ‘rescue’ you from life, maybe. Also, the poisonous/toxic Self-Pity of the peon or victim, in men as well as women, is part of those things to avoid.

Can you stop trying to be a goddess in the godship world? The real question is, ‘why do you want to be one?’ and then ‘what happens if you are not?’.

What happens if you stop competing or showing others how wonderful you are? What happens if you give up jumping those hurdles? Sometimes women have to get very sick as the only way for them to stop and look at these hurdles rather than asking ‘how high?’.

Watch out for all the godship/P&C words in our society, all of which discount Soul. (See Chapter 5.)

Give up on any form of recognition from others. For some people this is a very big issue.

It is not worth being recognized by anyone ‘out there’ if you are busy killing yourself. If your body is not well, it is telling you something along the lines of, whatever you may think, your body does not agree; wrong way – go back. Godship is killing us all. One of the most useful indicators here is the feeling of resentment. If it’s there it is a serious warning that all is not well, and it’s wise to sort out what it’s about. The most difficult concept to accept here is that you are not a ‘bad’ person for having this feeling.

You can use this UUS for a different concept of why we’re here.

You can use the methods outlined in the goal-setting chapter (See Ch.16) to address fears and distress, as well as other methods. And help to look for what you want/need for you

Doing ‘nothing’.  (11.34)

Society is increasingly discounting time, interest, sustaining and protecting; the children, the house, our bodies and ourselves. The Media doesn’t help here because all the time-consuming things are not included in the films/pictures; (they’re ‘boring’ and ‘nothing’).

These ‘nothings’ include play for no obvious reason, stopping, contemplation, just being, quiet, being in or with Nature or children. All of these are not regarded as part of the masculine world and thus do not count or are despised. All of them qualify as important under the definition of TISP and especially for the Soul. Women need to be aware of this social discounting and avoid applying this ‘measure’ to their own lives. Housework and helping children grow in a relaxed happy household is not ‘doing nothing’. Another aspect is that most women with families have to work to help with the enormous mortgage, (or rent for that matter), and there is just no time for all the things that are expected of her. There is not much choice here.

Avoid the Media as much as possible; maybe even turn it off? Who is there in the quiet?

The irony of course is in contrasting women’s work with the real/actual doing nothing of men to contribute to any Soul-Keeping or house-work and their entitlement and justification in so doing because they are gods. All that drinking and watching sport forever! Naturally they have to accuse women of doing ‘nothing’ or the contrast looks a bit large which it is. This is a major bone of contention.

What about ‘collapsing’ every now and then? The trouble is that for some women, they feel that if they started to cry, they might never stop. Help is needed here.

Empower yourself.  (11.35)

Nature.

Head out to the natural world. Women can use Nature to restore inner balance. We are made of earth, and if we connect to her and feel it down through our feet, we can learn to feel ‘good enough’ as we are. By definition, we are all good enough as far as Earth is concerned. We are so disconnected from Nature, and our fears increase that disconnection. We need to listen to the sounds of nature, but we are making ourselves deaf with all the racket we make (whether internally or externally), so we won’t be able to hear if it (Nature/Life) tries to speak/talk to us.

Practice using your own intuition and ‘vibes’ to sense when another person needs you, (not just want) rather than carrying a mobile phone all the time. No news is still generally good news; there are plenty of things we don’t need to know straight away.

Stop blaming others no matter how tempting.  (11.36)

This is not about hating or blaming men because that’s not going to be useful to you (ML).

The aim of this UUS is to explain that taking responsibility and reincarnation go hand-in-hand with life as a mirror for your InSelf. Stopping blame is empowering because it will help stop you being a victim of others and stuck in ‘poor me’, (which leaves you in Self-Pity and ‘poor’, ie, poverty).

Can you find a way to celebrate/activate the destructive and/or the fierce side of the feminine? Do we have any examples of this, but in a manner that does no harm (once again, ML)? Even just maintaining one’s own boundaries or just saying ‘no’ without feeling guilty can feel empowering.

Basically, it’s find your own strengths/skills/abilities/loves for yourself which takes a while.

Explore ways to find a vocabulary for your own internal sensing which can include the esoteric. Very few people know this. It’s under the radar of social perception so you will have to validate it for yourself and accept that there is no validation from society. But it will help you be powerful for yourself making choices that help you to lead the life you want in line with your own abilities and deepest desires.

Express/explore/learn new things.  (11.37)

The natural and the esoteric worlds are ways for women to develop the inner pyramid of the Growth Diamond (See Chapter 3B). You will be developing your roots, so to speak. And in doing so, you can develop the courage to send up new growth, and will have more courage and resilience for it not to be quite so easily ‘clopped back’ by society as before. These inner worlds are just about ‘natural’ for women and are a great help in navigating life and developing wisdom as you become older. These worlds will sustain you; the ‘S’ of TISP, and thus part of giving yourself TISP.

These alternative, esoteric or ‘hidden things’ remain under the radar of normal social awareness, particularly with respect to nature and healing. This means the need on your part to ditch worrying about whether you are being ‘rational’. It’s not that the esoteric is irrational, but that it’s much, much harder to measure, so we use different measures; mainly your own, and you learn to differentiate them out for yourself.

The ‘natural’ world would include; herbs; homoeopathy; natural nutrition, including vitamins and minerals; essential oils; iridology; many healing modalities, such as Traditional Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture, Bowen therapy, Kinesiology; and so on. NLP can help you to think and to learn about how your mind really works so it is a great modality to explore as well. (Mind you, intellectual gods really like NLP too, so, watch out for them.) The martial arts and their derivatives are also full of interesting things.

The esoteric can help women to get a handle on the sensing world of the ‘vibes’ out there as you perceive/feel them within your own body. It’s great to have a vocabulary to describe one’s own experiences in a meaningful manner, and to find that other people have had similar experiences.

The esoteric world includes Feng Shui, Reiki, Astrology, Numerology, the Tarot, the Runes, Aura-Soma, Dowsing, and so on, which are all waiting for exploration, like a smorgasbord of wonderful things.

Wicca and Shamanism are both examples of coming into proper partnership/relationship with Nature. There are others. The only proviso would be to beware of trying to get to any superiority in any of these. Many people try through wanting to be ‘special’ but it defeats the purpose. Understandable, but no good.

Allow for anger.  (11.38)

Giving TISP to your InSelf involves allowing your InSelf to talk to you and tell you about what it’s like for that person (I’ll use ‘her/she’, but it might be a ‘him’?) inside. For most, she will be cross and rightly so. There’s a lot to be cross about in spending a life being clopped into a lollipop, and then we wonder why women get depressed! Depression is anger with nowhere to go, and women are supposed to accept all this clopping. If you’re afraid of whatever you will also be cross about it, and vice versa; if you’re cross about whatever you will also be afraid of it.

Anger/fear are always telling you something and it’s valuable to find out what that is, because, once again, you will treasure what you find underneath. What I am saying is that yes, anger will be there, and no, you’re not a rotten/’bad’ person at all for having them, but you may have to accept being a normal human being after all and give up godship.

Our society’s ubiquitous ‘clopping’/despising of women turns them into stone (See the Medusa in Chapter 5C) which means that many women have no real idea of what they want other than what society programs them to want. This can make it very hard for them to goal-set; the cutting back has been traumatizing, and the woman does not know which direction to take for her own Flowering, since all she knows are the ‘acceptable’ ones, with my point being, there’s not many of them. (Almost all the ‘goals’ that have pictures are about consumption or entertainment, neither of which will enable your Flowering. See also ‘Goal-Setting Chapter.)

Another thing about anger/fear is that there is always another emotion underneath and it has its opposite too. Both can be accessed given enough time to explore and go deeper. But this is why it is worth facing this painful/horrible stuff about how society actually treats its women. Only someone who can face this crap can speak up and say what’s wrong with it and why, and what’s needed instead, and fight for that in whatever way they can, for their own sake.

Celebrating destruction.

What sort of destruction could women celebrate? It might be a good idea to find out. What sorts of destruction would be useful? I could think of a lot of waste, rubbish and mess I would like to see destroyed and/or turned into something useful. My inner arsonist always likes it every time I light a bonfire.

Allied to this would be a question about would it be possible to ‘release your inner witch’? What would she want to say? Witches are not always bitchy, or black; there are white ones too. I’m using ‘witch’ because they are powerful, and men don’t like them, which is a very good reason to find out if you’ve got one inside, and what she might like to say.

‘One-go’ at life in our mainstream religions.  (11.39)

One of the problems about believing in ‘one-go at life’ is the perception that it’s no use questioning it or querying or trying to change things; just lump it. (On the other hand, reincarnation religions ‘comfort’ you by telling you it’s your fault, and it’s all an illusion anyway.) So, if things are sort of bearable, one can just hope that it doesn’t get worse and that we can just get through this one and that’s the end of it. Well, this UUS argues that there isn’t only one life, and that it’s to our advantage, not to mention common sense, that we have more lives. Nor do I observe others’ problems ‘disappearing’ or going away as they get older.

Hence, it makes sense to learn all you can about whatever you want as a kind of investment in yourself and in your future; now and next time. Our abilities carry over. Prodigies don’t just happen; they’ve got talent, yes, but they are very likely to have ‘put in the hours’ in a previous life.

We fight for people’s rights, or need to learn to look after earth, not just for our children but ourselves. If not now, if may be another time. Your essential ‘I am’ continues on. Invest in yourself; you go on for a long time. The film ‘Groundhog Day’ has some useful lessons in it.

Now I wish to turn to the question of just what the feminine is? What are women’s natural attributes?

What is feminine energy?  (11.40)

What are the intrinsic skills, attributes and abilities of women and what is Feminine Energy?

“Our understanding of the person is severely limited without a clear grasp of the feminine in all its dimensions….

Wholeness of the human depends on understanding [both] the masculine and feminine element[s], if we lack understanding of one of these elements, we cannot have a true sense of the other, let alone mature into a whole masculine or feminine person.” Ulanov.

This is a very big topic and very difficult to answer because we have so little to see as role-models and women are so taught that they don’t count.

Our godship society only allows women to be counted if they are a goddess which leaves more normal women with almost no vocabulary or any way to understand their most valuable resources which are what?

The following are some ideas for consideration.

The magnet. (11.41)

If we come back to the magnet, we know that at one end of it, the lines of force/power are emanating, and at the other end, the lines of force collect together and are received by this other end. The lines of force are not reduced in power by either the emanation or the reception of them.

Hence, we can consider the Masculine energies as the ‘push out there’; the exhale, or thrust, or going out; the penetrate, explore, or investigative energies. In contrast the Feminine energies could be thought of as the ‘pull in here’; the attract, or come hither; the enfolding, passive, accepting energies. With the point here being that both energies are valuable/important for life and they are different.

Why then, are we so devaluing of the Feminine? I suspect that the answer is fear on the man’s part, especially with the universal thinking that a man is a man as long as he’s not a woman, which makes him afraid of being a woman. (As I have pointed out in Chapter 10b Manly.) There is also the problem of the dark, hidden and unknown (with teeth!) and all of us are taught to be wary of these. Not to mention that both the masculine and the feminine energies can have their dark sides as well as their light sides.

Notice also, that the lines of energy get much closer together as they converge to go into the magnet, but still maintain their integrity while they are within it – in the dark; they become concentrated into a closer space. I suspect this is another useful metaphor for the need for a woman to sort these energies out internally. It feels a bit like making sure your reins don’t get tangled up when you’re driving a carriage drawn by horses.

Table 11B1 of the contrasts between masculine and feminine.  (11.42)

Here is one of those tables of opposites trying to pin down some sort of essence of the Feminine by setting up contrasts with the Masculine.

Feminine	Masculine
come in	go out
the dark	the light
moon	sun
reflect	shine
stop	go
rest	exert
asleep	awake
roots (plant)	stem (plant)
hidden	visible
covered	exposed
still, calm	rush, hurry
cooperate	compete
relate	separate
accept	argue
win-win	win-lose

 

But it is still difficult to define absolutely. To me the most useful word for the feminine seems to be the ‘Attracting’ Energy, because women intrinsically have and use that energy, which however ‘passive’ it may seem to be, is certainly an energy as strong as that of the ‘Asserting’ energy of the Masculine.

Terms of approval of women include, self-possession, modesty, calm competence, consideration of others, skill and efficiency, tenderness, warmth.

Women also seem to have less regard for rules and more of a tendency to allow for individual differences and situations.

Coming from ‘within’.  (11.43)

From the Adam and Eve story (see Addendum 2) I suspect that at least for many women, they ‘come from’ ‘inside’ and are better able to ‘sense in’ to themselves and others, and may thus be more connected to ‘vibes’ and Nature, but this is still difficult to define. It is not possible to handle children properly if one has no idea of any sensitivity of the body. Hence, we could say they are more connected to the body, as long as they are not trying to be the same as men.

Physically their bodies are much softer to touch than men’s, and there is generally less muscle mass. They may also have a lower pain tolerance which is also useful when helping others.

They have inner cycles built-in. Women undergo major endocrinological changes during their life through the stages of maiden, mother and ‘crone’. This is quite different from the masculine experience.

They do seem to like ‘small’ things and may be better at the detail? They have a wider field of vision, and notice things at their side, and are not just ‘easily distracted’, viz. they actually notice things that men don’t.

They also generally have a greater manual dexterity.

They can ‘hold the space’ which is a strange thing to name and describe, but it happens.

It is wise for them to learn to sort and declutter, and it is wise for them to work out what is important and to concentrate on that one thing at a time, but this could be said for all humans.

There are many other attributes that come from simply not being disconnected or cut-off within themselves, but the search is for the things that belong to women alone.

As a gardener I notice that men’s and women’s gardens and styles are different. Women rarely ‘do’ hedges or topiary or bonsai or breeding/hybridizing. Women also seem to have more flowering plants that are allowed to flop or spread as they please; they also seem to like the very small flowers that are easily overlooked, such as trout lilies, violets or lily of the valley. I can also think of trees that I would classify as ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’, eg, silver birches or the crab apples as feminine as opposed to most of the oak trees as masculine.

Notice also, that ‘Wisdom’ is regarded as female in virtually all societies. This may come from having to adjust to the great internal changes of menstruation and menopause as women mature in life. [So many cultures give these changes negative connotations.] It may also be part of adjusting to being careful about pregnancy and having children or not. In the past, many herbalists and midwives were women; this was eliminated by the inquisition and witch-hunts, and also the medical world wanting power. We forget.

Wisdom.  (11.44)

Something that we don’t even seem to consider is that by discounting women in their maturity which I will define as the post-menopausal years and on, society entirely misses out on the wisdom and humanity of these women. This is an amazing waste which leaves many younger women without any legacy of understanding to build on, and hence she has to find things out for herself, and this is over and over again in each generation. This is called ‘reinventing the wheel’ and it sure is a waste of time.  She has been taught that gods know all the answers and that older women have nothing to say, and she believes this until she finds out differently or not. In this way, women have nothing to build on, which weakens them; peers are in the same boat. This is part of our godship world and part of our inability to grow up. Most men simply cannot cope with a mature, wise woman who knows what’s what and they shrink away with all the dislike engendered in facing the powerful with none of your own. So, this is another disadvantage for women of growing up to maturity and Adult. You will not be liked by most older men; the cost is yours to consider.

We even have ‘scientists’ saying that women are only for reproduction and that in earlier times they all died before the menopause, when we know that in archeology there are plenty of examples of older women as part of more natural societies, when that society wasn’t busy ‘exposing’ the baby girls to skew the population.

Historically, women’s skills were in…

• Understanding the natural world and the rhythms/cycles of Nature.
• The use and understanding of plants for food and medicine
• The care of children, including taking the pressure off younger women with small children.
• The collection, preparation, and keeping of food as well as the ability to anticipate what was required for the whole year, ie, management of resources,
• Manipulating textiles such as hides, hair, wool, flax, linen, woven cloth, etc, for clothing, bedding, housing and so on.
• Maintaining the hearth. ‘Hearth’ is an interesting word containing ‘heart’.
• Making things attractive, calm, restful, quiet, sustaining, restorative and healing.

And on the whole doing what had to be done so that others can eat, sleep/rest and be supported and grow in their endeavours.

This is a list that needs developing and refining. I think it is essential that women know what their skills and attributes are without having to define themselves only within the narrow (and narrowing) confines of our current society’s definitions. Women are basically denigrated in a godship society and hence treated as peons. This is increasing, not decreasing.

I would welcome more suggestions for the list.

Busting the brain-washing.  (11.45)

“This world without women is more the world of adolescents than the world of men. It is in the last analysis a world of men on their own, … hardened by their own pride, no longer aware of sin or needing grace. It is a world which has shaken off all transcendental [spiritual or symbolic – ces] ties, …. [leaving it] without God [or love or TISP – ces].” Ulanov.

Women as agents of change.  (11.46)

It seems to me that since most men in our society are caught up in the godship ‘race’/competition of taking, it is probably only women who can reverse or question this. Men are conditioned in this godship and thus it is unconscious, so that they are not really able to question it. Nor do they have the impetus to do so, because it suits them. They like it and feel perfectly entitled to it; that is the problem.

In general women, as being on the receiving end, are not so stuck in godship, but are much more stuck in peon-hood and ‘victim’, as most of their time is spent looking after others because they feel that they ‘should’. How does a woman find time to think or to question any system in any manner? Yet, if there is no time, nothing can change.

In our godship society of the worship of power and money, men use women as the peon in their need for godship, as in, any woman is useful to the man for comparison and confirmation of his godship. Hence, this is essentially about men using women to shore up their ego. (I am using ego, which is at the outself, in the lay manner as it is most known). But the problem here is that any self-esteem at the ego level is not true, so no amount of shoring it up will ever make it true.

And, of all the things that women are taught, it’s ‘don’t rock the man’s ego’, because it’s staggeringly fragile, because you will get bopped if you do, and it’s your own fault.
The only way for self-esteem to be true and hence, secure, is for it to be true to/for the InSelf, ie, not the ego, which is at the outself. Hence, it’s the ego that needs to take a hike, and this is what all teachings down the years are saying – all of them. Also, the fragility and the aggression/prickliness are always telling you that this man is actually a midget and not worth your while.

One of the huge advantages of getting to ‘sufficient unto yourself’ (SHE), is that there is far less need to shore up the male ego, not to mention having to ‘walk on eggshells’ all the time, and hence it’s much more relaxing.

And really, to get to that means turn your thinking and sensing and observation on, not off. Yes, the fears are getting worse and rightly so, because godship is getting worse. Ultimately it leaves most of us stuck, trapped, alone and exhausted which is the time to 1. ask for help from God/Life/Universe, and 2. TISP InSelf. Life is providing enormous pressure to Look at what we’re actually doing, as well as the stories we use to cover our fears, but these stories are getting a bit thin at the moment.

More women than men.  (11.47)

Population statistics show us that there are now more women than men, and some women will end up unmarried for much of their lives. This appears to be increasingly likely as time and greater chemical poisoning of the environment continues to continue.

So, the real Question is, can you set yourself up to live and enjoy your own exploring and expression without a man, because this is your key to freedom? This does not mean to either be masculine or to reject men. You will need to find some of your masculine within yourself to carry out your own tasks within our social framework, but as with all ‘wants’ the key is to provide them for yourself internally so that you have it regardless of the ‘external’. In this you learn to partner yourself. How you do that is your answer to life.

Housing.  (11.48)

However, housing is a big issue and likely to become bigger.

It is not just that affordable housing would give women far greater choice in whether they have to work or not, and I would like to see women have that real choice. It is also that single women are most unlikely to be able to afford a house by themselves at any stage in their lives. This is currently very true for older women, and this is getting worse, not better. The consequences of not being able to own your own home are simply part of the rotten-ness of our society with its gods and media that think this is OK; it’s not.

It is past time we thought about ways that women can buy affordable housing together in small groups, whether or not they have children. This is tricky because of current laws and regulations on building, not to mention costs. In general, cheaper housing is away from the cities and out in the country, which means that the jobs are not there.

There are so many ways that we dismiss these problems and try to hide them from ourselves, but it means that we all have greater fear that we ourselves are at risk of the discounting and maltreatment from the gods of government, and rightly so.

There are a lot of factors to take into consideration here, and it would take a think-tank of women to sort, but it could be done. It is society’s attitude to all this that needs to change, because this attitude ‘kills’ us all. This is an enormous social conditioning repeated down the generations that needs to change or we will kill ourselves as we kill Life and Nature.

“We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all of the power we need inside ourselves already.” J.K.Rowling.

Women by themselves.  (11.49)

If more women are likely to end up single for much of their lives, with or without children, then it’s a question of how to enjoy being so. Remember, in this UUS children (and a partner) are not required for fulfillment; nice, yes (with luck); necessary, no. Remember, it’s our own ability to express our own InSelf that will fulfill us in the same manner as having children can/may.

One way that mothers could help their daughters would be by not assuming they need to get married etc, etc, and also help them mobilize their masculine for themselves. By that I mean engaging the protect role here in terms of learning how to protect themselves within an exploiting society, but in a positive manner.

Hence, women/girls could….

• Explore the martial arts; there’s a lot in these.
• Invest in their own development and Flowering/Creativity, by giving themselves Time and Interest. Remember J.K.Rowling (who wrote the Harry Potter stories) as she is now definitely able to support herself, even though she went through a stage where that looked a bit dicey. Julia Cameron’s book “the Artist’s Way for Parents” (2013) is a lovely book for learning how to support your own and your children’s endeavours/creativity.
• Explore all or any avenues of interest in the arts and crafts.
• Explore woodwork or other supposed masculine domains as so inclined.
• Educate themselves as much as possible and keep on doing so, and in all sorts of areas, whatever takes your fancy.
• Explore the esoteric. After all, many women are able to support themselves in these fields.
• Find ways to go into business by themselves; they will almost invariably do a better job than men. (Many men give greater priority to maintaining their own status than in doing a job properly or well for its own sake. See note below.)

Also, under the protect yourself category…

• If you need to be walking around at night, wear shoes you can run in and/or give a good kick.
• Be aware that many young men consider rape as a godship right, but you get to wear it, hence,
• Another reason to investigate the martial arts.

And also avoid,

• Competition and godship values.
• Entertainment and consumption of others’ creativity, which clutters up your effectiveness for your own purposes.
• Electronic gizmos and all their EMFs, which includes mobile phones.
• One-night stands; they are a bad idea for women. Far too many men regard sex with a woman as another notch on the gun = massaging the ego. Some can even regard it as a right and be angry with women who won’t give it to them. They are not wanting relationship.

And help other women in whatever way you want to or can, after you have helped yourself first.

PS. The education of girls.  (11.50)

‘Rationality’ is also behind all that is taught throughout the secondary schooling years, and it’s built in to teaching because that’s how teachers get whatever godship they can.

Hence many intelligent and educated teenage girls come under the impression that there’s not that much discrimination within society for them, and they can get to be gods too, especially in the workforce. (And we’re all ignoring the household maintenance aka Soul-Keeping here.)

But once they get into the workforce, they will come up against the fact that it is truly more important to men to maintain godship and manhood than to do their job properly or well; sad but true, with maybe a few exceptions. Gods do not want input from peons because they (peons) are ‘stupid/irrational’ by definition and must not be listened to or they will make the god a peon. This is regardless of what the peon says.

This is so universal that I would advise women to go into business for themselves if they can, in that they can generally do a better job than men as long as they’re not chasing godship themselves and/or wanting an obscene salary, See Chapter 12 Suckerdom.

Family.  (11C)

The importance of family.  (11.51)

Humans, like God, are able to give Life consciously, but, like God, they have to learn how to do that, ie, it is not automatic. And that is what we are here for. To learn how Energy works, what our own energy is, and who we are in that. In so doing we learn to become powerful for ourselves. Life’s question to you is ‘Who are you? Who is here?’, and your answers are your own to own for you, ie, to become conscious of or to realize, ie, make real, ie, manifest Life, however you do that, ie, according to what is important to you.

The contrast with the human ability to manifest Life from within ourselves is that our wonderful godship technology etc, cannot give Life to even a small organism such as a mouse. But we humans can give Life when we have children.

Children are the product of our Merge with the external other through the male with the female in the physical world. But then they (children) are so dependent and take so long to grow up to manage in our world that they require TISP throughout some 20 years or so, as well as generally faring better if they have the resources of 2 parents rather than 1. Notice also that children tend to do much better with adults that want them around for these decades and actually enjoy being with the child.

Hopefully, giving Life to children sets up bonds of attachment, and TISPing them for these 20 or so years gives us a good grounding in loving them, ourselves, and others who learn to love us. It is in this way that the network of mutual support for the care of ‘the other’ increases (if all is well). This network is not just the family; it extends outward and makes a tribe or a community.

These attachments and love actually fill us and satisfy us properly and have happened because we have given TISP, and this is why we value family ties and generally understand how important they are. (Although some of this is lip-service on the part of the gods.) A happy family upbringing enables Flowering for the children as well as providing a network and community of like-minded-others for those children to interact with. (See Flowering and Fruit. Chapter 8.) Also, people remember and aspire to similar goals for themselves through having seen/felt these sorts of examples in their own lives. All of this comes out of a single couple of parents trying to TISP their children properly. Hard work, yes; rewards, yes; guaranteed success, hardly. Human beings have to learn this stuff; it’s not automatic, and it’s not easy, and we have plenty of examples of how to get it wrong. We are all bumbling and faffing around, which is the normal human condition, as we explore on.

As I have said before, children are the product of our Merge with the external other, but we also have our own source of Creativity from within through our internal Merge between our outself and our InSelf, our internal ‘other’. As we give Life to this internal ‘other’, we can form the bonds of attachment and fulfillment for ourselves which are as precious to us as the external form of Giving Life/Creativity. This is because our InSelf is our own version of God, Life and Self. If you are able to love your InSelf, you are loving whatever version of God or Life or your greater Self that you have. This is something that is greater/bigger than your ‘you’ – your conscious self, aka, your outself.

This Love through the effort of giving TISP to the other is showing us what the most important things in life are. These are the things/people we have given Life to. We do not get these ‘fulfillments’ from consuming nor ever will. In fact, our level of consumption is telling us that there is little fulfillment here.

God gives Life and loves it, as in, loves doing it and loves what is created because it delights Her, and at the deepest level we want to do that too. But we do have rather large reservations about doing it because it is actually effort; the effort of putting yourself out and thinking about the best way of doing it, for the other’s benefit/good. It’s also a risk because you are exposing to others what is inside you – your real you. You are also exposing your ‘baby’ to other humans, and look what we do to what God creates!

Family is what God does; She makes her own family, by merging internally and making a Unity of Her own duality of Herself plus the Mirror of Energy, and that ‘family’ is all Life. This is what can come out of the duality of the Masculine and the Feminine, within or without, (inside or outside) becoming Merged and thus becoming a Unity, which brings in Life.

Within this ‘family’ created by God, humans are the siblings of all forms of Nature/Life. And what do we do to our siblings? Is this what we want in our own families? (Mind you, I’m not sure about flies or mosquitoes.)

Materialism/Consumption is the siren song of the Media and comes out of and feeds godship which is the antithesis of what God actually does, and it is an entirely vicious cycle. It makes us in-human and stops ‘dead’ our own potential for fulfillment, and in so doing ‘deadens’ us.

Is this what we want?

Thus, your ‘family’ that comes out of you can be external and/or internal. If external, it may include your ‘children’ in fact or metaphorically – these are the ‘others’ that you give Life to in some manner by giving TISP. But the argument here is that you can also have an internal ‘family’ by giving Life to your InSelf. Writing, works of art, music and other forms of Creativity/Flowering are the maker’s ‘children’ (as you are a ‘child’ of God) and these ‘creations’ require TISP from the maker to be able to manifest them, and when the energy is correct, they themselves can give life to another and ‘live on’. The point here being to understand their importance to you and to life and to make sure that you are giving your creations/’children’ all 4 letters of TISP including Protection, as much as you can, from others who may dismiss them.

Hence, the importance of understanding that all children (internal or external) need to be wanted and they need to be TISPed.

Children.  (11.52)

Children need to be wanted and they need to be TISPed, as in, they need all four of these aspects or modalities of Love/TISP ie, Time, Interest, Sustain and Protect.

We pay lip service to these ideas as an ‘of course this is what’s needed’, but somehow it doesn’t seem to be happening. Of course, our society is made up of loving, happy, secure adults and everything in the garden is wonderful!

But we have some conflicting ideas about how this comes about and one of the largest in terms of the difference between what is said and what is done is the amount of Time adults can actually give their children. And Time is the first word of TISP (Time, Interest, Sustain and Protect), and this UUS argues that if one of the aspects of TISP is missing, Love/TISP is not able to be complete. And nowadays, who has time for their children that the children need – not what the adults have available?

Time as part of TISP.  (11.53)

The mother is supposed to work, ostensibly because it’s more fulfilling for her and more ‘productive’, but usually it’s needed to support the mortgage, if you’re lucky enough to afford a house that is. She’s also supposed to do all the Soul-Keeping (housework, plus) as well. Where do the children fit in?

The father might do the bits of Soul-Keeping that aren’t beneath his dignity, but he’s generally working full-time, and needs to be able to have time for a drink or 2 with his mates and watch the TV because he has worked so hard through the week, blah, blah, blah.

‘Only’ a mother.  (11.54)

What happens if a mother wants to stay home to look after her child until it goes to school? Heaven forfend even longer. She ends up apologising to all about ‘only’ being a mother, with an implied self-estimation of not being enough. Any woman is supposed to be able to have a fulfilling career but the actuality is most women have part-time, mind-numbing jobs where they are treated in an unpleasant manner (ie, as a peon) and spend a lot of time commuting. And child-care is perceived as a kind of baby-sitting or child-minding that anyone else (generally female) can do, as long as they don’t mind the rotten pay. There’s a fair dose of underestimation here.

This is mixed in with the Mother as saint. Society has very high expectations of mothering/caring which is that it’s basically all sweetness and light. Women aspire to be ever-loving and kind and have the house perfect and the meals cooked and everything under control, more blah, blah, blah, just like all those happy films of happy family life. This is also mixed in with the perception that a woman can’t be fulfilled if she doesn’t have children which comes out in people having children as part of ‘having everything’, ie, another commodity in a consumer society. And nobody gets exhausted or overwhelmed?!

To repeat, these expectations are inhuman, and something’s got to give here, and that is Time, so what happens to TISP?

Another time eater taken for granted.  (11.55)

‘Once upon a time, a long time ago’, children could walk to school in safety. They could also faff around on their way home, talk to the old lady/man working in the front garden, learn about and notice any changes in the normal environment, and generally take their time. Now, it’s not safe; the only people at home during the day are less likely to be happy or stable adults and they may not have your child’s welfare at heart. This says a lot about our current society.

Hence the children have to be escorted or carted around, not just to school but sports or anything else they’re involved in. That’s a lot of time for the ‘carter’ every day – even worse in the country. It increases children’s dependence and there’s certainly no time for any kind of faffing around anymore.

‘Quality’ time.  (11.56)

In Hamilton’s introduction to her book “What’s Happening to Our Girls?” (2008), she talks about interviewing about 100 or so teenage girls and finding that these children consider that their parents do not care about them, so they turn to their peers. This seems abundantly plain to anyone watching the amazing dependence on mobile phones, and their culture in general.

There is a difference here between the parents’ perception of the time they give to their children, and the children’s perceptions of the amount of time they get from their parents. Naming this time ‘Quality Time’ doesn’t seem to be working very well.

Sometimes, if the children are lucky, the grandparents have time, as long as they don’t have to work and/or can support themselves. So, who does have the time? Well, normally it’s the Media that has the time with your children.

The Media has the time.  (11.57)

Most women end up using the media as the baby-sitter while they’re trying to get it all done. By Media I include all forms of commercial influence within the household; TV, DVDs, as well as brand names on anything in the child’s environment. It keeps the child entertained and hence, ‘quiet’ and undemanding. Later on, although more used by adults, there are also the radio, newspapers, magazines and the Internet via PC or especially, the mobile phone.

Imprinting.  (11.58)

Infants from approximately 6 months to 2 years old tend to spend a longer time gazing at anything within the child’s environment. [Six months is about the time it takes for children to grow/develop the neuronal ability to carry out this gazing and absorption of the surrounding world.] They also sort of ‘vacuum or sponge up’ sounds, smells and tastes, all the things that a baby can sense. This ‘absorption’ period goes on for a good 18 months, ie, a year and a half, which is quite a bit of time, and we don’t take any real notice.

The marketing world has worked out that whatever the infant is gazing at becomes fixed internally for life in that the child learns to turn in this direction and seek it out. To repeat, this is for life. It’s a type of ‘imprinting’ of the child onto the environment, even though psychologists consider humans as unsusceptible to imprinting. But the effect is the same. What your child has imprinted on is what your child will want and will ‘worship’, for the rest of its life, primarily because it becomes directly associated with being nurtured. (It’s virtually impossible to ‘unravel’ or be conscious of anything that’s gone into your unconscious at that baby age. Possibly something remarkable, but rarely such an environmental thing over that timescale.)

The Media presents bright, colourful, sparkly, noisy things to grab our attention because it does, and it looks like it’s alive but it isn’t. But it does seem that humans are built to be attracted to Life itself which does move and make noises – and the sun makes things bright and sparkly, especially water.

Modelling.  (11.59)

Humans model what they worship and we worship what is ‘imprinted’ on us in those infant years. This is so built-in that it is unconscious, hence we are not aware of it and we don’t notice it, but it is what humans do. Modelling seems so built-in to humans that it looks as though we need to have someone or something to worship.

We model ourselves on those who have what we want, and generally these are/were our parents, but we also use those people who are in our environment, in particular modelling those whom we worship. If society is modelling godship, so will our children, ie, if the parents do it, so will the kids follow them, as well as following the media, because they concur; ie, this is what you do to be a success in life.

These behaviours, values and mores of those we worship are copied very closely because we humans are very good at this modelling. And they are copied for life, because all of this is unconscious. We learn how to be, do and have, those aspects of others that we worship and we think that this is what we are meant to be doing, and we don’t query it; this is what humans do and this is how to do it. Thus, as long as we ourselves want to be gods we’ll think that the Media and all the advertising is OK, because that’s how to get to be a god.

Worship – again.  (11.60)

Worship is quite a strange word. It looks as though whatever an infant is ‘imprinted’ upon in its environment during the age of 6-24 months is what it will worship for life. So, what do we do when we worship things?

Worship carries some interesting expectations; it’s not just something we do or give; we’re expecting something in return. This is automatic or built-in, and hence, we don’t query it.

We automatically assume that what we worship will care about us, and in particular we use what we worship as role-models to copy/model how to live and how to be. The symbols of these things we worship also get imprinted. This means logos and brands. We are attracted to these things and look to them for succour and comfort; they will fix us up, and put us ‘right’ when we feel ‘wrong’. So, we expect that what we worship will ‘succour’ us, ie, feed us somehow and give us solace.

This ‘imprinting’ makes sense in a natural (and not too impoverished) world, in that humans learn to seek out the natural world of their parents and any siblings or extended family along with the environment/nature for comfort, familiarity, and solace, but it’s a disaster if it becomes keyed in to the ‘cutesy’ commercial world of all those ‘comic’ or smiling characters of the world of brands for children; all man-made and animated, but not alive. And children love all those dressed up characters, when they see them ‘live’.

It’s very hard for us to understand this imprinting ‘for life’ bit, but it does come out in the nagging and pestering that is part of the joy of having children. The child seems heart-broken without this imprinted thing that it wants, and thus it seems so mean to resist. Marketers know this even if you don’t believe that these things that children are exposed to so early in life have such an affect later on. And parents get to wear this. Added to the mother’s guilt of not being able to give the child enough time, it’s pretty hard to resist and the commercial world knows that if it’s ‘got’ the child early on, it’s got the child for life.

There are some educators and psychologists attempting to warn parents about this, but few people seem to know about this phenomenon and it’s hard to find much in the literature and there’s certainly nothing much about such ‘imprinting’, because it is not seen as such.

As Linn (2004, a USA writer who protests the exposure of infants to logos, which is more common in the USA) writes: “Marketing to children undermines democratic values by encouraging passivity, conformity and selfishness, threatens the quality of public education, inhibits free expression, and contributes to public health problems such as childhood obesity, tobacco addiction, and underage drinking.”

So, if children find that their parents are not there ie, too busy, they put their worship onto whatever is there, environment as well as people. And they get their values from whom or whatever they are worshipping. And all this goes in at a very early age, and stays there.

Hence, we are seeing that the assumption that children automatically get their values from their parents is incorrect, as in, it’s more about the Time that children get from what or whomever and the imprinting.

The Media.  (11.61)

The onslaught of marketing.

The Media with its advertising is so much a part of our environment that we don’t question its presence in our homes.

The commercial world is entirely about selling you a product that you will consume. The seller assumes you will consume, and expects and feels entitled to tell you to consume what they are selling.

It’s as if we let them into our homes because we agree that they have to make a living and it’s OK to tell us all these stories so that we will buy, because that’s the way to make a living – and get rich and be a god too. This is just about in the genetics of the USA. It’s the seller as a god, ie, the one who wins, (and exploits) and can tell you how to win. And one of the things about the seller is the implication that the buyer is a ‘sucker’, because that buyer has ‘bought’/believed all these stories of selling. It’s as if we want the stories; the better the story, the more we buy; we are entertained and distracted by the story. The stories include that they ‘care about us’ in some manner or other, or that ‘they need us’ and ‘we count to them’ and we like these stories a lot.

Hence, having the commercial media as part of our home environment is a bit like having a salesman in the house the whole time, and we’re using him to keep the infant entertained while we are busy. And now we are surprised that children consider these salesmen as their gods who care about them and provide them succour. But these salesmen/gods consider them (the children) as ‘suckers’ who are bound to them for life.

The Media makes ‘suckers’ of us all. This shows up in the general disrespect for any peons, so we certainly want to be gods and are very afraid and cross when we can’t ‘make it’. Then we become ‘victims’ and very full of Self-Pity and Blame.

We are also tacitly agreeing that we want to consume our gods’ products. They promise satisfaction, fun, entertainment and distraction. It’s ‘eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die’. And they succeed because we don’t understand that no single thing/object ‘out there’ can ‘fill’ us in terms of lasting satisfaction if we can’t fill ourselves. This is what everyone is busy finding out in this era.

Our consuming keeps us dependent on ‘out there’ to fill us, and as we are dependent, so we have little control, and remain as a child. We hope for the glitter and the glamour, and so on and on, waiting and wanting forever. We are simply hoping for satisfaction and become very cross and afraid when we can’t find it. This leads us into being a Victim and huge Self-Pity. And it’s all still a comparison and judging.

The distortions of marketing affect us on very deep levels.  (11.62)

A single example amongst many possible examples is the effect on women of having Barbie dolls during childhood. These dolls have a somewhat masculine figure except for the boobs, and are quite unrelated to the reality of most women’s shapes. Yet this depiction sets up a deep expectation and consequent judgement of themselves as failures when girls/women cannot conform to this peculiar image. Later on, women as adults seem themselves quite unable to depict women in any other way, so these images experienced as children are lasting for quite some time. And we wonder why girls have so much trouble with self-esteem. And that’s only one of the pressures.

The Media’s values.  (11.63)

The values of our gods osmose through media, because it’s gods who own the media, and our children watch enormous amounts of said media. What about our values with respect to the violence in so many boys’ games of robotic, mechanical men killing and destroying ‘the baddies’ which then fixes everything and of course he’s now a hero – destruction is so exciting? And it’s always the same answers to the same question.

What about all those things that neither look good nor are visually entertaining; eg, notice that the processes of building, developing or growing anything or maintaining it look pretty boring for TV, as is housework, so you don’t see it and it doesn’t rate, but it is somewhat necessary for life. So here you have depicted what looks like life with no effort; it’s just there, hey presto! And no idea of how it got there either; somebody else did that bit.

These values…

• Narrow our alternatives down to the restrictive tracks of a god or a peon and consequently miss the enormous breadth of possibilities of human beings Flowering in their own way. Neither can they allow for any differences.
• In fact, they narrow us down so much that we do not even consider that there could be different ways to be; neither do we question anything; most of us accept the whole setup as an edict from God or dropped on us by fate or whatever.
• Present only godship answers which are never answers suitable for human life, and hence distort life.
• Are also the values of not having to do anything to look after anything or to ‘Till or Keep’ – that’s for peons, which leaves us more afraid of being a peon.

And we swallow the lot, largely because these are such a part of our environment. But, is this what we want?

The Media as hypnosis.  (11.64)

Something else we don’t look at or take into account is that the Media has an hypnotic effect. ‘What I say 3 times must be true’ does have an effect on us, and we hear it much more than 3 times a day. Humans do tend to believe the things that they hear multiple times. So, for us, the Media has the brain-washing effect of programming us, and we won’t query this unless it’s too painful not to, because it means abandoning the relative safety of the herd. And this has been going on for more than one generation now, so the effect increases, because our parents have these values too, and yet the media just did not rule the roost that many years ago.

The upshot.  (11.65)

We are allowing our children to be brought up by the commercial Media in whatever format, and since it is part of our background and used by time-poor women to help with the children, we don’t notice what is happening and we don’t really notice the consequences either.

We don’t understand that humans do actually have a type of imprinting going on when they are very little, and that little children worship what is imprinted on them, and that humans model what they worship, and it is the Media that is worshipped because that is what has given them the time, because the parents are too busy, as in, they are not there, nor do they feel able to be there, because our godship society does not value the time that children actually need from another human being who cares about them and wants them, and is able to be simply there.

It is the Media, owned by the gods, that is inculcating children in godship expectations, not the parents, but most parents agree with the Media. And so did their parents, although not that far back. And that’s how we’ve got stuck in these expectations that we do not query.

The big question then is, how does society give women time for their children, if that’s what a woman wants, with the point being that our godship society does not value the time that children need from them (women). In fact, society does not value such things at all; it’s all lumped in with the feminine world which is intrinsically devalued in every way, and women are taught to devalue the feminine and all that it encompasses. That’s the problem.

Most women are considered a bit dopey if they actually want to be with their children; the few women who do stay home with their children tend to apologise or be defensive about it; anything else is better – mothering doesn’t ‘count’. Up until some relatively few generations ago, women had the time to be with their small children, and not too exhausted, and until how long ago, there was likely to be another woman around to help?

The argument here is that our social godship expectations mean that few women have complete or real choice in what they want and what they would like about how much time they can give to their children at any age. Where is any help here or any drop in these expectations or any social structures that would allow women (and fathers) more time for their children?

And because of these social expectations allied with how humans actually ‘work/tick’ outlined above, nothing can or will change; we are programmed as children, and we become locked in to them, and these expectations are becoming more rigid as we head into Feudalism – how wonderful! To rephrase, our godship expectations are absorbed when we are very small, and become part of our background, and we automatically ‘send them on’ to the next generation. Rather like a virus really, in that it almost feels ‘genetic’, and we tell ourselves that this is what life is about.

But, these programmings run completely counter to actual human needs (according to this UUS) and we have got stuck, and we can’t address these issues or get ourselves unstuck until we understand how we got stuck in the first place. And we cannot understand unless we look at these expectations/assumptions/stories sitting in our unconscious, but we don’t know that they’re there! These godship expectations are the root causes of rather a lot of our problems. And looking at them is not nice; in fact, it is most unpleasant! Who on earth would want to know about all this? So, let’s just go on as we are, but that’s getting a bit unpleasant as well! Darn.

Also, if no-one has Time for us, do they want us?

Feeling wanted.  (11.66)

Feeling wanted is a big issue for many of us. If someone has little time and less interest in us, do they want us? Well, it feels like no, they don’t, and the question we are looking at is how much time do parents have in our godship society?

All children need to be wanted for their own sake, which means not just having them because everybody has them, or as the only means of fulfillment for the woman, or as part of ‘having it all’, etc.

One of the consequences of this is that the woman should have the sole choice of whether she has children or not, and that involves having the means to abort the foetus, as long as it is safe for her to do so. This attitude gives priority to the adult and not the potential child, as in, the adult is given greater value and precedence here, because this adult is likely to be the primary carer wearing the consequences of her choice for the next 20 years or so. Hence, don’t force women to bear children if they don’t want to, otherwise who will be happy here? (The men who don’t want to spend the money on the abortion for a woman who can’t control herself? She must have become pregnant all by herself! How clever! – but no-one says these things.)

Society’s expectations on women.  (11.67)

So, how much do women’s lives resemble those cosy films of family life that we have all absorbed from the Media? All those happy films where everything the woman does to run this household is taken for granted. Well, that will depend on how much money is around because the mother’s time will depend on how much she can pay for help; money and time having a rather intimate relationship. But of course, she can do all this with one hand behind her back – oh dear, and failure and guilt if she cannot come up to these inhuman expectations. And this is what is expected of women, not to mention having to be ‘all sweetness and light’.

Mother as all sweetness and light.  (11.68)

The problem with focusing on only sweetness and light is that the bitterness and the dark have to be repressed and hidden. But anything that’s repressed just ends up seeping out all over the floor, while we try hard to stuff it all under the carpet, so to speak, with a few mixed metaphors or so.

And as I have said before a few times, it’s still a judgement and a competition/comparing with overtones of ‘if I get to saint, I won’t have to come back down to earth again’.

But you’re not here to be a saint or get off earth as fast as possible. Not to mention your InSelf won’t like it, which is what your family gets to live with anyway. There will be sourness and bitterness in the dark. Remember, your family do know inside them what’s happening even if no-one dares to say anything (which is the give-away).

‘Unconditional love’.  (11.69)

Another outcome of all this sweetness and light is the ”unconditional love’ for the children’ which is another aspiration for ‘perfect mother’ or saint or godship on the mother’s part which is not correct for humans. I see very few fathers aspiring to this at all.

It’s much more important for children to learn to take the other into account (including Mum), as they themselves wish to be taken into account. (Mirror Laws)

Children will model how the parents’ value and TISP their own InSelves which will show up in how they TISP their children. And it is very hard to TISP children if you didn’t really want them in the first place. Not all parents want their children; they’re ‘supposed to’ because ‘everyone loves children’, another ‘blah blah blah’, but maybe not.

This UUS is arguing that everyone should be able to choose and pursue what they want at their hearts, and children are an ‘outer’ answer while Creativity is the ‘inner’ answer, (See Chapter 1.)

All this ‘unconditional love’ bit usually means that a. the mother is most unlikely to be giving it to her InSelf, and b. it is a challenge to anybody else to love the children and few feel like rising to the challenge. If nobody else wants your children it becomes difficult to get any respite from them without paying a lot for it, and in the end many people will not want to employ these children who think that they can do anything they please whenever they want, no matter how big they have grown.

Giving ‘unconditional love’.

I wish to reiterate that ‘giving unconditional love’ cannot happen unless you are giving it to your InSelf first because of the way that Energy works. If you give it to your InSelf first, giving it to others will happen automatically, as in, you won’t be worried about whether you give it or not.  It is not that women are a failure if they cannot do it – it’s the expectations and the judgement that go with it. Giving ‘unconditional love’ to others first is an ‘ought’ and this level of expectation on women belongs to saints not humans, and while it may seem to be a ‘good thing’ in theory, we’re not that hot about understanding what it is and how to ‘get there’ without killing ourselves.

The problem with thinking that you ‘ought’ to be doing something is that you will ‘bury’/forget/discount the times that you cannot do it (ie, you’re being human and normal), because you are judging yourself and others. If you can’t give it to your InSelf first, it just doesn’t work; the motives get ‘bent’. You will also be expecting others to do the same, and love your children, and blow me down, they don’t and won’t, which will make you cross, which is something else you will have to bury, ”cos you’re ‘sposed to be a nice person’.

And a primary problem with ‘giving unconditional love’ is what to do about controlling/disciplining the children especially in terms of learning to take ‘the other’ into account, and in particular not hurting others, physically, mentally or emotionally. (Because ultimately you would like others to take your child into account, and in fact it’s to your advantage if other people actually like and want your children in their lives. To repeat, you cannot expect others to take your child into account if your child does not take them into account. Mirror Laws. Few people live on an island.)

The slap.  (11.70)

Which brings me to the ‘slap’ word which has assumed gigantic proportions, in that any single slap from a parent is supposed to damage the child for life; it’s an abuse and illegal, etc, etc.

So, we need to look at the word ‘slap’ or smack and see what’s actually there.

So, what is it? Any definition includes what, where, when and why, with a ‘but’, ie, an exception, often thrown in.

These are….

• What? A single, quick, short action with an open hand; maybe 2 or 3 if it is an aggravated transgression. (More than that and the parent needs to look at themselves.)
• Where? On the bottom, which is the most padded area of the child and injures its self-esteem, not the body.
• When? As close in time to the misdemeanour as possible. And relatively rarely, to boot. Making the father do it when he gets home is pretty horrible all round because he won’t want to, or threatening that the police or the orphanage or whatever is fashionable will take them away is also pretty bad/useless too.
• Why? If the child is endangering, hitting or harassing another, whether untoward or not. Or not following what you value, ie, looking after itself properly, endangering itself, causing damage or making extra untoward work and so on.

Thus, its use is as a limit or a boundary to behaviour within the household/family. Parents are entitled to have rules for what is important to them, and need to be able to follow through what they say. Children also need to learn about the physical world, as well as about others, in that it doesn’t come naturally, and all humans need to learn these things.  This includes learning about Energy, which looks very like “Do as You Would Be Done By”.

• And the ‘But‘. Small children under 2 years old should not be slapped at all; the parents need to look at themselves and control the situation in the first place.

The horror word.  (11.71)

But ‘slap’ has reached horror status, so where does this come from?

Different societies have different concepts of punishment, but there are and have been societies/countries that consider it essential to beat their children or they would be ‘spoiled’; they were very worried about ‘spare the rod and spoil the child‘. This ‘beating’ used instruments, canes, rods, etc, to hurt more, otherwise the beater’s hands got tired or sore, because it was multiple times. It was on the body, back, shoulders, torso, arms, legs, hands and even the head, for the Lord’s sake.

It could also be daily, with no real relevance to any particular misdemeanour; it was more about just ‘disciplining’ the child. This really is abuse and all to do with instilling fear and authority; it has nothing whatsoever to do with loving children. It is/was also ‘under the radar’, as just/only ‘this is what’s needed to bring up a child’. But, this ‘beating’ is/was referred to or translated as slapping or smacking, maybe to save the countries the embarrassment of calling it out for what it was, or perhaps the translators thought they were similar things; hence the confusion.

Alice Miller (1984) was a writer who protested this abuse, arguing that it was highly damaging to the child, and rightly so. (She also implies that children are able to bring themselves up, which may be true for some types of children, and is definitely not true for others, as in, it’s not a ‘rule’. See also Chapter 15 MBTI.)

A slap as correctly used is meant to be a prompt form of negative feedback. One of the problems in general for humans is the difficulty in realizing the connection between cause and effect when there is a time delay. Children vary immensely in their need for negative feedback, all the way through from mortified at any disapproval, so they don’t need much, to excited and rebellious at the same, so parents have to sort out what to do about this. (See MBTI Chapter.)

But negative feedback is as necessary as the positive. We all need both, and Life gives us both. The donkey needs both sticks and carrots to make it move in the correct direction. Energy will and does give us anything from a tap on the shoulder to literally or figuratively being ‘hit by a truck’ if necessary, to make a point. These are all sticks that make the donkey move. Thinking that life is only ‘sweetness and light’ is not useful for anyone; Energy encompasses all of it, whatever you may think of this. A slap as defined above is not going to damage any child at all in any way and thus can be a useful form of negative feedback. After all, mother animals cuff or clout their offspring when they transgress, but they certainly don’t go on doing it. It’s basically just the once and straight away, as in, ‘stop doing what you just did’.

But women as ‘caring’ are allowed virtually no form of negative feedback in their bringing up of children. Few will come at ‘no dinner’, or ‘time out’ has to be very carefully thought through, eg, it’s no good if there’s a TV or a PC/mobile phone in the bedroom. But there is very little in the form of tools for the immediate control of misbehaviours, especially in public (and your child will make whatever you do public). Hence many women do the ‘explaining’ thing which is basically useless to children under 7, and/or boisterous small boys. Most mothers give up and do no control at all which leads to frustration all round really; unwanted, unlovely children, irritated passersby, or shopkeepers who get sick of clearing up, as well as frazzled mothers. As in, no-one wants your children, and everyone just rolls their eyes and gets away if they can.

The need for protection.  (11.72)

So, why talk about this issue of ‘the slap’ at all?

If I had a dollar for the number of times I have seen the larger and often male child allowed to hit, tease or generally harass or shred the smaller child or children I would be quite well off. It means that those smaller children remain completely unprotected within their own home; they have nowhere safe to be, nowhere. It can happen to them anytime or anywhere in this ‘loving’ home. And we wonder how girls end up marrying ‘loving’ men who hit them, or children who grow up with no self-esteem. (I am also aware that growing up in a household with a despising father is no help either.)

Time and again, if I comment on this, the mother says ‘oh, my older brother hit me too, and my mother told me I just had to learn to protect myself’. (And on down the generations!) Sometimes the child does manage this, and sometimes not, because it will depend on how big or how nasty the older child is. However, to have to put up with this at any age is not love, and the household is not loving; another reason to define Love as TISP with P for protection being a bit necessary here. All children need to be able to be safe in their own home; well, everyone really.

The mother’s inability to protect the smaller children traumatizes those children, and that indeed does last for life unless it gets cleared out, but in general no-one seems to be noticing this one at all. It is not ‘all right’, or the children ‘just playing’ while the child is screaming in fear or anger, and it does matter. Mothers who have themselves been hit, traumatized or shredded in whatever form/way are unable to hear the fear in others who have been or are being so treated; that’s how the problem goes down the generations. And that’s the problem with any trauma; if you’re busy burying it which you will be, you won’t be able to recognize it in others, and won’t want to either. (See Trauma, Chapter 16.) This means that the mother can’t or won’t protect her children properly, which means her children are highly likely to also have these issues, and on it goes….

Hence, society is in a situation where a short sharp ‘slap’ could be used as a form of negative feedback by a mother, but it just gives everybody the screaming heebie-jeebies the same way many think ‘hemp’ automatically means marihuana and drugs, etc, when in fact it depends on the kind of hemp. (Hemp of the non-marihuana type is actually a very good source of rope, oil and material/textiles, and generally has no THC in it at all, so it just about needs another name/label.)

I am not sure what the answers are here. We probably need separate labels for these sorts of differences in effect, hence we need a new name for a slap as I have defined it above; a name that women can use in a world full of others busting to judge them. Maybe you need to make up your own as part of a private family code.

In the same vein, referring to children as ‘angels’ is not useful to them or to anyone else, and it’s a way of failing to see the ‘devilish’ which may also be tied in to having to ignore bad behaviour because the women have no arsenal of ‘sticks’. A Human Being is actually quite a worthwhile thing to become; we can all be angels when we’re dead.

This chapter has touched on quite a few issues, so how do we go about addressing these issues?

Addressing these issues.

Who gives life?  (11.73)

We need to understand that these gods that we worship cannot and do not give Life, (use this observation to spot them) and in fact human beings are better at that than gods iff (if and only if) they can get away from this type of worship of gods. To repeat, it is humans that can give life, not gods, so all the more reason to understand that chasing godship is not the way to give life to children or anyone. The difference between gods and God is that God does care by definition. She gives Life by giving Her InSelf life for Her own sake, and giving Life is a powerful thing that is already built-in to us humans.  But because it is built-in, we are unconscious of it, and the idea of being part of life on Earth is for us to work out how to do it consciously. Giving life belongs to living things. (And logically, if gods are not giving life, which they can’t, are they actually alive? And, the answer is, probably not – beware.)

The question then becomes how do we give life to and care about children; what do children actually require?

Stable, long-term caring.  (11.74)

Children need a stable, peaceful, cheerful routine background that they can take entirely for granted as they venture out and retreat to recuperate. This takes management – good management. No stress, strain, hurry, worry, upset, or tension, as in, a proper allowance for all the time it takes to encompass the needs of the children as well as the adults. This includes the time for the cooking and the Soul-Keeping which is necessary for all members of the household. This also includes time for the adult to enjoy it as well. Notice how boring all this is as far as portraying it on film is concerned. It takes quite a lot of effort, planning, good management and the experience to be able to look ahead and avoid problems before they arise, to run this kind of household, and yet it is relegated to boring and of little to no value, as in, ‘nothing really’ or resentment at the unacknowledged work involved. (Notice that we love the idea of ‘angels watching over us’, but just imagine the time that takes! – and is it boring for them?) But we’re putting the values of the Media and our gods ahead of the family. I doubt this is good for families.

And time.  (11.75)

The primary need is Time, and it’s a measure of our society as to how little time most people have.

In general, children need Time and Interest, and in particular from their mothers as long as the mothers want that, so hopefully the mothers are not thinking they’re not good enough if they are at home with the children. Not to mention, it would be nice if we had a society where other people actually enjoyed having the children for part of the day and the mother was not forced to be with them the whole time because there is no-one else around, and/or nobody else wants your little angels because they’re a right pill.

We need to set up systems that allow women to have more time with their babies/children as they wish, especially the first 2.5 years (of the child’s life) or longer if wanted. Another alternative is to have more people in the household who welcome the child and have time for it. This was not uncommon in days of yore. This would involve changing our ideas about housing which I look at in Chapter 13.

In fact, a lot of the need for Time is about the need to look after women and to value the feminine and to stop the enormous expectations placed on women which include sainthood and endless caring. Contributing to the household Soul-Keeping contributes to looking after yourself. All members of the family should contribute as they can.

What do you value?  (11.76)

The argument here and throughout this book is that the primary source of godship aspirations is the commercial Media in all its forms simply because these Media are owned by gods. Changing any of this pattern of social influence requires a lot more awareness of its effects on us and the repercussions of this. Your decisions will depend on how aware you are of this influence; most will not be.

In the end, it’s about what kind of values and norms do you wish your children to model. The argument within this UUS is that the values of godship are in fact the opposite of Love/TISP and lead to that ‘big hole at the end of the road’. But these values have become endemic and we don’t notice them. Hence, noticing them in the first place is necessary for any change to occur.

Ditching the Media is a way of breaking its influence, but then the question is back to who has time for the children? Not to mention, who has time to help the mother have time and energy for the children, and will we ever value such things? Also, not to mention, it takes much more time and effort to bring up a child to be a different person from the ‘norm’ and to support them as they struggle with these differences, but we need different people because they will be some of the few not ‘under the spell’, ie, the hypnosis of the Media.

Can you ditch the media?  (11.77)

None of us actually needs the commercial Media at any stage of our lives. Like, yes, need, no. Nor do we need to be gods or peons. And yet, the idea of ditching the media would be impossible for most people, so there you go.

Ditching the electronic games for boys with wars and killing ‘baddies’ would be a very good thing all round as well. Boys need contact with nature as much as possible and mature Adult males as role-models. The challenge is to find them.

And…

• Time with your children as much as you can, and it is important, hopefully, to you.
• Find ways for the whole family to be together in Nature and/or Create and/or make your own entertainment, especially from the ground up or from scratch. There is great value in making things yourself, providing your own entertainment, and generally not simply just consuming others’ ideas or values or efforts.
• Self-education about whatever you are interested in is a valuable thing that is very empowering, and that empowering can accumulate over time.
• Teach children the Mirror Laws which mostly look like ‘Do as you would be done by’. The idea is to take the other into account, in that ‘special’ does not mean only them, and neither does it mean that they will get to godship.
• Work at reducing judgement and expectations.

In the next Chapter I wish to look more closely at how we handle our godship issues within our current society. But before I do so, there are a couple of PSs.

PS. Some topics that have nothing to do with sweetness and light.

‘Cutting’.  (11.78)

Security and protection are enormous issues for women because it is very difficult to have children without this. But what is the price of this ‘security’ if the husband/partner is sexually abusing the step/daughter(s)? If there is/are teenage girl(s) in the family ‘cutting’ themselves, sexual abuse is the first suspect that must be ruled out; it is indeed bad news. What then do you do if that is what is happening? Apparently, 1 in 3 girls experience sexual abuse within the family. A great statistic for a modern society, but it’s probably endemic. Freud ‘fell over’ this in his own practice but couldn’t cope with it and came up with ‘penis envy’, which men love and women know is stupid.

The problem is that there may be a history of this type of abuse running down the family but not obviously so. In one generation it may be an uncle abusing a niece, while in the next generation the niece may marry a man who abuses his stepdaughter or it can skip a generation and turn up in the daughter/son being abused by an outsider or a priest who is ‘part of the family’. The daughter may then find that between her own children, the brother may be ‘exploring sex’ with the sister. The upshot may be a history that is not straightforward, but it is there if anyone wants to look, and most people don’t. It is not only unconscious; it is terribly painful as well. However, sweeping all this under the carpet simply sends it on for the next generation to sort out. It also tends to get worse as it goes on – not a good legacy.

Women who hate men.  (11.79)

A ‘funny’/strange/odd thing is that women who hate men often ‘end up’ with men who hate women. When this is bad a woman can be perfectly unconscious about how she treats a boy baby, especially his penis, and that can be quite cruelly and hurtful many times a day, for many months to years, and at a time when a baby is nothing but its feelings. He will be powerless to do anything about it, and enraged at the pain he is forced to endure. I suspect that this is some of the mechanism behind the severe to murderous anger and violence against women inflicted by some men. It is so early in life that it will be a very long way down in the unconscious, and hence, entirely unconscious, as will also be his mother’s hatred of men.

Society just assumes that all women love their children, but that’s another assumption busy tripping us up.