a lover and a fighter...

***Often masculinity and femininity are defined against each other. This results in little to no overlap and forcing masculinity and femininity to be opposites instead of being freely defined. Hence, certain characteristics when seen in men are negatively degraded as being “like a girl” thus simultaneously degrading the characteristic and women altogether as less valuable in one assertion.  These posts are an exploration of masculinity which I think are valuable to both sexes based off a book about men titled Iron John by Robert Bly with quotes in italics. I recommend this book and posts to men and women alike.***

Simplistically, masculinity has often been defined as “liking football, being aggressive, never crying always providing.”  This male “doesn’t see women’s souls well, but appreciates their bodies.” It is also often void of a “receptive space or intimate space.”  This is where we begin to divide men into two categories. Either they are a man’s man as described above of or they are a “soft man.”  The soft male is more aware of what we may call his feminine side and is often “thoughtful, gentle and nurturing.” We often split men into lovers or fighters with both sides void of the characteristics of the other.

This narrow definition of masculinity along with its’ maligning of certain characteristics as either macho or soft has resulted in many men being “life-preserving but not exactly life-giving.”  And so we search for the “deep masculine” that “does not reside in [either] the feminine realm or the macho/John Wayne realm.”  Again, it is deeper than those two narrowly defined categories and in this richer understanding of masculinity we will find a man who is both”life-preserving and life-giving.”

Bly warns however that a weekend of meditation or drugs won’t get you there. Getting to this deeper place of masculinity requires what he calls “bucket work.” This is disciplined, bit by bit, over long periods of time labor. Many men aren’t willing nor do they see the need to do this.

Iron John is an ancient story probably thousands of years old first recorded in 1820 by the Grimm Brothers. Bly uses this story and a central character Iron John or the Wild Man to explore the deeper masculine. In order to avoid certain reactionary connotations to the term “Wild Man”, seeing as I don’t have the room a book provides for expounding on it, I will use the term “Radiant Man”. This isn’t perfect, but it displays a masculine energy that glows from within a man.  It isn’t tame energy and it isn’t macho energy. The radiant man “is not opposed to civilization, but he isn’t completely contained by it.” That thought of not being contained resonates deeply in my masculine soul. Corporate America works against this Radiant Man and often popular Christianity seeks to tame it although I don’t believe Jesus does at all.  With that, a “woman also can be judgmental about certain masculine traits that are merely different or unexpected.”   The Radiant Man “is aware of how abundant, various and many-sided manhood is.”

In a way, the Radiant Man is a lover and a fighter. Bly quotes an old Celtic motto: “Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.”  The Radiant Man is full of soul, and not only the outer warrior, but the interior one as well. And so we begin a series of hopefully weekly posts doing “soul work” that so many men deeply need as do their wives and children.