Women are of the World, Men are in it.

As someone who has lived experience of both genders and continues to choose to live as a man, I've had the biological reality of both estrogen and testosterone running through my body. From that place, I can say this with conviction:

Women are of the world. Men are in it.

Women have provided for us even when we've taken from them without consent. Dear men, this must end.

My teacher Ryan Morrisby White asks a question I keep returning to: “What will it take for men to stand in their A-frame not extracting from the feminine, not needing a relationship to soothe or validate us and go to the deepest depths of their grief, our wounds, our unfelt feeling- so that we can actually hold the ocean of the feminine?”

Here is my theory after witnessing a women in my life in the depth of her magic: Men became envious of women's prayers. Envious of how deeply women are woven into the world - how connected, how attuned, how rooted. And instead of trusting that those prayers would obviously eventually feed us, we suppressed them. We oppressed their power. Their magic. We called it weakness when it was the very thing sustaining all of us.

Look at the world we have today.

I'm done. I'm sick of it, all of it - my own shadows included.

I hear so many women in my life sharing the same grief and anger - I have had no less then 8 conversations on the subject this week alone: the emotional unavailability of men, the inability to be present, accountable, or mature, attuned, consensual, respectful, not manipulative or coercive, vulnerable, honest.

So to the men on this mother’s day, I speak to you directly - no more shying away from the shadows that have transgressed the world. You are invited to turn to the women in your life. Ask first if they are in a place to receive it - apologize, be accountable, don’t ask them how you can be better, they’ve done enough emotional labor, seek resources to touch the depth of yourself and grieve your past so we can collectively build a better future. We are essential in building  the world that the feminine will birth.

Thank you women have mothered this world even when we didn't deserve it.