Inner Michael

In mythology there was a family of giants called “Titans.” They were the children of Uranus and Gaea (the modern “Gaia”) who sought to rule Heaven but instead were defeated by the family of Zeus, god of Thunder– a controlling, masculine, punishing and patriarchal god. Milton’s Paradise Lost paints the Christian god too as hierarchical, commanding obedience, militant and punishing. Milton explains that Eve ate the fruit to be more equal, rather than inferior, to her counterpart– Adam.

It’s all about obedience to the ordinances of the kingdom. Yet at the same time god says mankind has free will. So in other words, god makes rules and gives humans free will and yet when Eve exercises her free will, god punishes everybody. God knows man will exercise free will and give in to the temptations, especially jealousy, yet does nothing to prevent the calamity. Yet when free will is exercised there is punishment for disobedience.

Milton goes on to explain how god is just and that the Universe can’t run correctly unless the inferiors are obedient to their superiors.

None of that paradigm ever made much sense to me. It seems to me that Eve only attempts to make a contribution; she wishes to bring her feminine perspective to the table. She simply seeks knowledge and equality. Yet she ends up the villain of the story and many of the stories. “Woman” is blamed for enticing the man in story after story and is still blamed today.

“She asked for it” is a common excuse. Because of what she was wearing, where she walked, what time it was, she was alone…

Women raped in Arab countries are subject to honor killings to expunge the shame she brings upon a family for being raped even though she is not the aggressor but the victim. In Africa a woman is raped every 30 minutes, as young as age eleven.

I am tired of carrying the shame. I am tired of the blame. I am tired of playing the Lilith role. Aren’t you tired of it? Helen Reddy asked that question as early as 1975 and Katy Perry is asking it again in 2013. “Roar:” “You’re gonna hear me ROAR!”

I find myself imagining what might have happened if the Titans had won. Or if Eve had achieved legitimacy and equality instead of shame. What if she had contributed her feminine strengths to the world? The oppression of the female is because of the male’s fear of feminine power. Man is even afraid of his own feminine side. (All humans carry both masculine and feminine energies.)

One of the reasons Michael Jackson was mocked is because he dared to embrace his feminine side. Not only that, but he dared to flaunt it on stage. Instead of viewing him as a male unafraid of his own feminine strength, he was called “gay” and of course if one is gay, then one must love males– no matter what age. The paradigm of thought at the time was that any hint of femininity or weakness (including a soft voice) meant the offender must be “gay” which was, at the time, unacceptable. There was such a fear of the feminine that males became macho and adopted machismo and anything less was a sign of weakness and subject to suspicion of being homosexual. And everyone knows that all homosexual males are predators of little boys, right?

The Chinese have names for the masculine and feminine principles (“Yin” and “Yang”) and they understand the need for balance. “Yin” is the feminine principle and “Yang” is the masculine. Asian men having inherited those ancient principles even walk differently. Martial arts uses both these principles effectively. Sometimes it is more effective to use your opponent’s energy to defeat him than to exercise your own in brute force. “Brute force” is what’s very wrong with this planet. It is often employed even when it is utterly destructive and makes no sense. The one place where this principle of brute force for its own sake is most evident in a modern visual display is the scene in the movie “Avatar” where it becomes evident that militancy, brute force and fighting for the sake of war-making is not sane. Even under utter and complete defeat, the villain continues brute force only for the sake of what? Itself? The male ego? “Who’s Bad?”

Jackson’s aesthetic honed the art and artistic expression of sensuality and it was a very effective means to carry a message. A Message.

He dared to challenge the rejection of the male’s feminine side which means he dared to challenge the dominant paradigm. Instead of using women and casting them aside, he revered them and their beauty and treated them with respect beginning with his own mother. He respected and appreciated the feminine form. And just like every other male, he commented on it and on body parts. His appreciation was extended into a huge collection of heterosexual porn. He also happened appreciated beauty in males. In other words, the perpetual artist, he appreciated the beauty of the whole human being. He appreciated the human body and its inherent beauty.

Michael Jackson didn’t pick up his art when it was convenient or needed and then lay it down the rest of the time. He was an artist every minute of his life. His appreciated of the beauty of the whole of the human form and of the cherub in children that delightfully mimics the art of the old masters. The chiaroscuro of the old masters was reflected in Michael Jackson’s art as the a juxtaposition of light and dark and its eventual amalgamation in a kind of alchemy or wizardry. Look for it.

Was Michael Jackson’s art a quiet form of civil disobedience? Or sometimes not so quiet? Was it deliberate? Without malice aforethought? Or did Jackson never do anything without “genius aforethought?”

Jackson understood the destructiveness of the male machismo paradigm and what it did to humanity and the planet. Babies and children carry both masculine and feminine aspects without distinguishing. It isn’t until later in life and after enough cultural programming that sexism makes that distinguishment. (Girls play with dolls and boys play with guns.) That’s an over-simplification, but you get the point.

He challenged fighting and gangs and the harsh treatment of women and he challenged the masculine invention: war– all these maladies the results of too much Yang (masculine energy) and not enough Yin (feminine.) He dared to publicly challenge the beliefs about what constituted “masculine” or “a man.” And he attracted women– by the millions. He made thousands of them faint. Imagine how that insulted the macho male image held in high esteem! Imagine how many males condemned him, hated him? Imagine how he confounded the male gender! He was role modeling the balance of masculine and feminine energies in the human species, male gender. And women were noticing and falling in love with him. Much of it may have been unconscious but its message was clear. The world was starving for androgyny, for balance. He dared to sing of the afflictions of Earth itself in “Earth Song.”

How dare Michael Jackson allow the archetypal Eve to win! He was allowing the “Titan” back into the paradigm with the feminine rising he embodied and messaged in his art. Certainly a juggernaut, but was he also a Titan?

“Titanism” is defined as a revolt against the art and social conventions of a culture. It’s also defined as greatness, having great stature and enormous strength. Was Eve a Titan? Did she revolt against convention?

Is there such a thing as “Spiritual Titanism?”

In mythology, the Titanides or women Titans have qualities much different from the patriarchal and hierarichal masculine principle. Let’s take a look:

The Titans, under the leadership of Prometheus, sought to claim humanity. The poet Byron said of Prometheus:
“Thy Godlike crime was to be kind,
to render with thy precepts less
the sum of human wretchedness
And strengthen man with his own mind.

In “Prometheus Unbound'” Shelly claimed that “Prometheus is the highest perfection of moral and intellectual nature, impelled by the purest and truest motives of the best and noblest ends.”

Goethe says:

“I know of nothing more wretched
Under the sun than you gods!
Meagerly you nourish
Your majesty
On dues of sacrifice
And breath of prayers
And would suffer want
But for children and beggars
Poor hopeful fools.”

The Titanides represented different aspects of their mother Gaia the Earth: Tethys was the nourishing waters of subterranean springs, nurse of all life; Rheia was nature’s fertile mother, and lady of the wilds; Themis was earth’s natural order, and prophetic voice; Phoibe was earth’s oracular midpoint (Delphoi)l; Theia was sight, the all-seeing all-knowing earth; Mnemosyne was memory, the preservation of earthly history.

The Titanides also represented various human and animal qualities: Tethys was the nursing mother; Rhea female fertility; Themis natural order and custom (implying instinct in animals); Phoibe intelligence, the mind; Theia sight; and Mnemosyne memory, learning.

Many of them were oracular in nature:–Themis was honoured at the oracles of Delphoi, Dodona and Ikhnai, and named after themistes “oracular pronouncements” or “decrees from the gods”; Phoibe was the goddess of the Delphic shrine, whose named was associated with the Greek word phoibazô “to prophecy”; Theia was the goddess of the oracle at Ikhnai, her name being derived from the word theiazô “divine inspiration” or “prophecy”; Dione was the goddess of the oracle at Dodona, named “the female Zeus”; and Mnemosyne “Memory” presided over the oracle of Trophonios at Lebadeia.

The marriage of the Titan sons of Heaven and Titanis daughters of Earth produced a huge family of gods which represented the power of heaven over earth.

When Zeus led his allies into the Titanomachia (War of the Titans), the female Titanides either remained neutral or were passive supporters of the Olympian gods, and unlike their brothers were never cast into the Tartarean pit. [The Tartarean Pit is a dome-like area beneath the earth that is equivalent to the dome of the sky above. The upper and lower domes make up the mythology of the Cosmic Egg– creation and genesis of Earth.- author’s note]

Many of the daughters of the Titanides were also themselves titled “Titanides.” These younger Titanes were a combination of heavenly and earthly goddesses. The earth-goddesses included Klymene, the chthonian goddess of renown, Eurynome goddess of earth’s rich meadowlands, and chthonian Styx the oath-protector. The heavenly Titanides included the likes of Leto a goddess of light, Asteria the starry night, Selene the moon, and Eos the dawn.

Hmmm… Divine inspiration, prophecy, nourishing waters, nurse of life, fertile mother, natural order, instinct, intelligence, mind, goddess of light, moon, earth… What does that sound like to you? A Comsic egg makes sense to me. What appears to be missing from our modern world is the feminine principle (the Chinese “Yin.”) That includes nurturing, compassion, forgiveness, light– earthy and fertile and divine.

The scale and paradigm slanted toward the masculine (“Yang”) principle has been dominant for a very long time on this planet. There is no balance between Yin and Yang. A preponderance of the yang or masculine has given us hierarchy, militancy, aggression, machismo, domestic violence, all-powerful corporations, weaponry, domination, war…

Perhaps that is why there is a push to “wake up” and it seems to be mostly feminine. The feminine principle is trying to make an appearance, a re-emergence on the planet to balance all the harm a masculine tipped scale has done– to the value of life and value of the planet. Nurturance of human life and the planet is missing in action.

It is imperative that we create a world where the spark of divinity and light within become the focus instead of the continual feeding of darkness. We need a world that uplifts the human spirit instead of condemning it and devaluing it. We need one that sees worth and dignity in every human being instead of flaws and blemishes to be mocked and ridiculed. We need one where compassion, not exploitation is the automatic impulse that enters every human interaction. We need one that recognizes all sentient beings as having dignity and worth. We need one that recognizes the planet as an island of scarce resources and rich diversity of humans and culture with and inherent and deep wealth of knowledge. We need all humans to become stewards of their mother– the Earth.

Now why do you suppose women reacted to Michael Jackson the way they did? In life? And why do you suppose so many women reacted the way they did with his death? I leave you to ponder that until next time…

And I leave you with some words from another modern Titan:

Matt Damon reads from Howard Zinn’s speech “The Problem is Civil Obedience” (November 1970) from Voices of a People’s History on Vimeo.