The Father Wound

It has long been my generalized belief that men are more wounded then women.

I believe this has to do with the absence of dad's as healthy role models. One kind of addictive disorder or another tends to get in the way. Work, war. alcohol, sex, affairs, sports, depression or some other kind of escapism takes dads away from their sons.

At the same time most men I have known and worked with have "lost" their childhood at a very early age. Most men stopped crying at about 4 years of age.

How much of this is genetic and how much conditioning is hard to know.

Also, in this country or in all of Modernity, men tend to be raised by women. Moms and teachers teach us how to be a man. Men are too busy or detained from be present for their sons.

It seems this has been the pattern for hundreds if not thousands of years.

Joseph Weir Perry has written extensively ( Lord of the Four Quarters: The Mythology of Kingship (Jung and Spirituality Series) ) and how this has effected our very mythologies. His argument is that Feminine Goddess mythologies began to take a back seat to Storm God mythologies from 5 to 10 thousand years ago.

This was also the time of the rapid growth of City-States and expansion of territories. Kings formed armies to gain more land and slaves to increase the productivity of the State to provide for the people.
Rape, pillage and plunder abounded.

The Trail of Tears truly began thousands of years ago.

No wonder boys and men have their tears dried up. What toxic shame we are saddled with.

You may say, "Not me!" and to some degree I agree with you. However we can't not all be affected by this historical process.

This happening is "of our ancestors" and effects the very fabric of our lives, culture, recreational activities, stories, where our resources go, etc.

OUCH!

What can and does change all of this is for men to learn to process our wounded-ness, to be responsible for our own interactions. To do so means to find support for our troubled relationships and to not take on more than is our due.

In the indigenous world there were universally men's and women's lodges. In those cultures individuals could go for support and release of pent up emotions.

Increasingly individuals are finding and creating such supports in this time.

Without such support we turn to our escapes which take us from staying present with our loved ones.

The wounding carries on. The wounding is "An Accident of History." The corruption necessary for us to survive has generated a compounding of errors.

True we have gained incredible knowledge in our left-brained dominance of reality. Now, in this Age of Aquarius our feminine and masculine selves can unite, merge and women can learn to "fix" things and men to "process." This merging is, indeed the process of "The Healing Story."

Our Green Movements are all indicative that we can heal and bring about healing on a larger scale.

And, what about The Mother Wound. Tune in.