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A Call to Men

Consider this a calling to all men.

It’s time to RISE.

One of the most powerful men and badass healers I know recently anchored that term into my consciousness in a way that lit a fire in my being.

That feeling only grew when I read this intense post by a friend of mine, shared here with her permission:

On Monday, I was coming home from work and I saw a man forcefully grab a woman on the arm and start pulling her down the sidewalk against her will. I pulled into the Shell parking lot and got out of my car to confront them. She was trying in earnest to get away at this point, yelling at him to let her go, saying “no”, and calling him a drug addict. I started to yell at him loudly, telling him to take his hands off her, stop, and that I was going to call the cops. He wouldn’t stop though, and kept trying to drag her along with him . By this time, another woman had come out of her car and was also yelling at him. I got on the phone with 911 while they continued to tussle with each other. Finally, he pried her car keys out of her hand and took off up the street while myself and two other women stayed with the young girl. Her hands were bleeding, and she had huge bruises forming on her arms where he had been grabbing her. She was shaking…and so young.

It was clear that she had been in this situation before. She was saying things like, “he’s really a good person…he just gets into these drug frenzies and he becomes a monster. I’m not pressing charges and I’m not giving you any information.” It was so sad and intense.

She was set on protecting this person that she loves (or maybe just someone that she is terrified of), and she couldn’t see clearly how this same situation might have ended terribly different (I mean, he almost pushed her into oncoming traffic twice).

To the men who were pumping gas and didn’t come over and make your presence known to the abuser: Part of me wants to say “shame, shame”. Part of me wonders what what happening for you in the moment. Did you think that myself and one other woman had it under control? Were you unsure how to intervene? There are thousands of possible reasons why you didn’t step in, and I want to be understanding of that…and I’m having a hard time not being angry at you.

I want to yell at you to “Man up! Do something! Use your white privilege and make a difference. Someone needs your help.” But instead, I just looked at one of you in the eye, with 911 in my ear, and watching an abuser running away and a girl scared and crying on the sidewalk, and I called you a pussy. Your eyes got wide, and you sighed and your head dropped. I didn’t see any more of you after that because my attention was on the girl, but I felt some satisfaction in that moment of maybe getting through to you. And now, I feel some guilt and sadness around it, because I don’t know your story.

People are so complicated…we have so many layers. I’m left with a question today of how do we protect others who need help and at the same time protect ourselves? Even with the training I have in Aikido, and knowing how physically strong I am, I was unwilling to get between them and try to pull that guy off of her. I stand behind this decision, and I know that this situation could have been much much worse, but if I had had full confidence that I could take this guy, I think I would have. I felt the urge in my body, but my brain told me no (thank you for that sound warning). But me, the other female witness, and the two men pumping gas? We could have done it together.

Reading that my heart HURT. When the moment came, my friend stepped in and was left hanging by the men around her. This is not an isolated incident. Like it or not, women have really been going for it – growing, changing, and evolving to better take care of themselves, their families, and the planet. Woman are doing their part to keep this world together, and time and time again I’ve heard so many of them say “Where are the MEN?”

Men, we are being asked to co-create a new way forward.

All of us men have areas of our lives where we’re needed, where our presence matters, and where we’re so often not fully showing up.

Places where we’re being called forth to step up. Places we’re being called forth to rise.

Masculinity is the ascending current of the universe. EROS. ISHANA. AGENCY. The drive upwards towards the sky, the direction of ultimate freedom and liberation. It is the mountain triumphantly towering into the sky raising forth from the very earth herself.

The industrial revolution and the many wars of the 20th century proved that the masculine current unbound was quite dangerous. So our global system blew up in the 60s and the feminine current has been descending ever more powerfully since to deal bring balance to our troubled world.

As a result, the masculine current was down regulated, and for very good reason.

Power through the lens of the old pathological masculine meant power-over; for me to win you must lose, for me to RISE you must fall. Ascendance and progress happened no matter the cost, to ourselves, our families and communities, and even our planet.

I have interacted with hundreds of men over the last years, and the truth is so many of us have been wilting. Collapsing, wandering, and unsure of who were are or where our place is on the planet. ALL of our traditional rites of passage have been eroded. Sacred times in our life where we were thrust into the unknown and had to RISE up to the challenge of discovering who we are.

We must reconnect to the current. We must step up and join our sisters in the direction love is guiding us.

It starts inside. Feeling into the places in our lives where we’re already being called forth to expand, grow, and rise.

Women, and the feminine are immense allies for us here, always revealing to us the places we’re not rising forth. Sometimes gently, sometimes fiercely, in service of love they call for our strength, our solidness, and our ever expanding presence.

Then, as we reconnect to that ascending current, we must EVOLVE it and create a new paradigm, one in which our merit is not measured by our ability to wield power-over, but our ability to grant power-to.

In this paradigm we connect to this divine current, and let it’s energy flow THROUGH us, empowering all around us so that we may all RISE together. In this way our merit shifts beyond how much freedom do I HAVE, to how much freedom do I create for others?

None of this will work without men calling forth other men to rise. We must all grow together.

We must rise when we’re tired.
Rise when we’re scared.
Rise when we’re collapsed.
Rise when we’re lost.
Rise when we’re uncomfortable.
Rise when we’re unsure.
Rise when we’re hurt.
Rise when we’re lonely.
Rise when we’re overwhelmed.
Rise when we’re sad.
Rise when we’re angry.
Rise when we’re shameful

We must rise to our potential.

We must rise to meet the moment.

Where are you being called to rise?

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