The Male-Female Balance in Ritual

Only recently have I experienced a true male-female balance in ritual, even though I’ve been practicing magick since the 1990’s.  First as a solitary in 1997, then initiated into Wicca in 2000,  “thirded” in 2003, and then coming up with my own special blend for my own circle  by 2008, I’ve always tried to look for more, go deeper,  go farther in my spiritual practice.  I grew up praying to a male God, came to love the female Goddess, and later incorporated the God back into my Goddess practice, as do many former Southern Baptists.  I’m now more than my first-century Christianity preferences and my Wiccan teachings.   That’s part of why I call myself a Spiritual Eclectic.  It’s not a matter of not having enough of some area of spirituality to classify myself but of having too much of too many areas so that I defy classification.  That means I don’t hit the limits of structured spirituality, and I’m always learning, and therefore always teaching.

But working with a male spiritual partner is something new to me, and something that’s taken my practice up not a notch but to the roof.  I’ve always wanted that opportunity, and if I’d known earlier what it would do for my personal manifestation results, I would have pushed a lot sooner to find such a partner.   I’ve had men in circles I’ve participated in, but never one who could play High Priest to my High Priestess.   I ventured once into sex magick with a non-spiritual lover, and that was disastrous, mainly because he didn’t complete the ritual and left early–he was done with his part, and it was disrespectful of the process and of me to cut out early.  I’ve ventured a couple of times into a little sex magick with a lover who was a First Degree Wiccan, but he was a pup and certainly not my equal in ritual.  I had to haul him along, and while that manifested good results for him, it defeated the purpose of a male partner for me.  I’ve conducted initiations and elevations with men, but never as a partner.  For the most part, I keep my non-solitary rituals as non-sexual as possible, ever since a Priestess rammed her tongue down my throat in a public ritual years ago. Working with a spiritual partner of the opposite sex does not mean sex magick, though I’m not adverse to experimenting with that someday as well and seeing what results come to fruition.  I don’t see that happening right now, though, and I’m way too picky about either a sexual partner or a spiritual partner to combine both without a lot of consideration.

I’ve now participated twice in rituals with a male spiritual partner of a similar level of power and learning, and I’m wowed by the results. I can’t speak for my partner or what he wanted out of the rituals, but for me, it’s been astounding.   Whereas I expected the results of the first ritual to be an ascension as a single  step or maybe a couple of steps upward, I got an express elevator to the top or near top.  My intention had been to become shiny enough in one particular sector of my life to make it through a difficult situation, but instead, I became extraordinarily shiny in every aspect of that sector of my life.  Goals I’ve sought for the last decade came to fruition overnight…okay, not overnight but within the week. Some successes beyond my dreams and what I knew existed were served up to me within the month.

So what was different about having a male-female balance in working with a spiritual partner of the opposite sex?   Not what I would have thought.

For most people, it’s probably that they can balance their male-female aspects by pulling in the energy of the opposite sex in ritual, but not for me.  For me, it meant I could let go of the energy of the opposite sex and power-drill down into my own feminine energy in a way I had not been privileged to attempt before.

With people who are close to me, I can be a mother hen.   Always nurturing, doting.  That’s what’s facing the internal.  What faces the external, for me, is the masculine part of my personality.

I learned as a small child to bear pain and not cry or it would only get me worse beatings.   By time I was 11, I was taking a protective role toward my mom against my dad.  As I grew to adulthood, I knew that if I wanted to get anywhere, I had to let the masculine side of my personality lead me there.   I’m still to this day disgusted with women who play the victim or the damsel in distress to get what she wants, and disgusted with men who fall prey to that.  I tend to think that being open and honest is the way to go, rather than playing coy and playing little games with potential romantic partners, but my openness has seldom served me well.   When life goes amiss for the loved ones around me, I’m the pillar of stone, their rock, to help them through the situation, even though I have to wait until they’re all soothed and absent before I let myself melt down because I’m hurting no less than they are.   Only…I’ve always had to be the strong one, and very rarely with anyone stepping in to be the shoulder for me to cry on or be my rock.   I’ve had to be my own rock, and that’s more of a protective, defensive, male trait–and hard and brittle–while nurturing those around me after protecting those around me.

It’s always been the same in ritual.  I never realized it but I found the more dominant masculine traits coming out in any ritual designed to affect a particular result.  With a strong and powerful male partner, I didn’t have to focus on the power of the male aspect but could relax into–dive into–the power of the female aspect.  I’ve never been able to do this before.   It wasn’t a matter of incorporating male energy with my female energy but allowing him to carry that side of the ritual, to be the spiritual badass while I cloaked myself in the power of nurturer, guide, transformer, creator.  I didn’t have to be both to have the balance and therefore be out of balance with who I am. He held up his end of the ritual, and I could be free to be what I wanted to be.

That’s a different take on the male-female balance in rituals, I know, but it’s one worth exploring.