YINYANGDUALITYCONSCIOUSNESS...

On Monday evening, I hosted at my apartment a committee meeting for Romemu, a planning for the Chanukah bash on December 4th. I shopped. Cleaned. Prepared. Displayed and Presented. Fed. Poured. Nurtured. Hosted. In the way that a woman would...well, at least some. I have been invited to homes of women where there was bupkis to eat...nada...not a something. My point is not to be critical of (those particular) women. Or about typical men's consciousness, way too often, about stuff like this, even among some men who I would think would know better. So this is not about female or male...and it's certainly not about needing a "queer eye", because as anyone who knows me, or has been fed at my house, or seen me cluster pictures on a wall, or light hundreds of tea candles to illuminate a party, understands how the societal stereotypes played out in that show TOTALLY piss me off....as if you (a straight man) needs a gay guy to tell you anything about style, or creativity...or connecting with a woman and knowing what is sexy???? REALLY??? Anyway, I digress....

My point IS that it's not just a female trait, this nurturing, hosting thing...yes, it is more typical, for sure...it doesn't HAVE TO be...and, whether it has to do how one's mother "raised" him, or something else, I feel it is so essential for these qualities that are deemed to be traditionally "female" - sensitivity, compassion, kindness (Man.Kind), nurturing, sensual (and on..) - be simply encouraged as part of who we are as humans...not have them be so limiting in ways that keeps all of us from experiencing all of who we are. And want to encourage and experience in others...it is natural for me to nurture and feed and inspire...I love being, at times, a male muse. And, it can get confusing for others, particularly as a father of a male. About 3 or 4 years ago, Cooper and I were walking to school, and he was pissed off at Maia bout something, that had to do with a sense of entitlement. I told Coop that I was writing an essay about that (it was shocking enough for a then middle schooler to hear that his father was choosing to write an essay...about ANYTHING), about how that plays out often in relationships. In his still-pissed-at-Maia state, he looked up at me and in a tone that I can only describe as dazedandexasperated, he said, "Why are you SO interested in the things that women are???!!!" And in the short moment that it took to have a grin responsively appear on my face, and to understand and get deeply what he was asking below the surface, I responded, "Because I'm smart. And wise." That didn't end the conversation with him, and it surely opened my eyes to what I perceive to be the way that a father like me (whatever that means) might be somewhat confusing to my son, as he is starting to figure out (or already has/had), what it means to "be a man". Or simply a male. A straight male. Or whatever it all means. It can be confusing to males when the words that represent qualities that we seem to crave in men (and lament that they too often lack) are more feminine in perception, demeanor and sensibility. We are yin and yang. Earth, wind and fire. All of us. And we all need - male AND female - to embrace the qualities that reflect our favorite parts of ourselves. So that we can learn to nurture. And be nurtured. To give. And to be able to receive (that one took me awhile to learn, and as with everything, it's an ongoing process). I was thinking recently that while I have always been a man who embraced my "female" side from an early age, it wasn't until I FULLY took and and celebrated my testosterone - in MY powerful way, not as a reflection of the typical male imagery and (lack of) consciousness that prompted me to feel, way too often, so ashamed of being a MAN - that I could really step into my own power and feel the congruence and deep interplay of not only our two sides, but everything in between.

What makes someone seem sexy to another? Obviously there are many things, and it's a subjective answer...at it's core, I believe strongly that it has SO MUCH to do with sensing how comfy someone is in their skin...with who they are. From the inside-out, not as a piece of clothing to be worn for a night out. That's hot. To me. And that emanates from congruence within. From accessing all those parts of us, Ladies and Gentle Men...