Yin and Yang

and

Human Nature's feminine principle

Yang without Yin is only half a person,
only half the world
, said the ancients of the East.

"Goodness, Beauty Truth, that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know." (Keats)

"The eternal feminine ever leads us upward" (Goethe)

Did Goethe have something?

This 'eternal feminine' is one of the natural resources we are destroying, leaving only its frivolous and silly aspects, as the world we live in becomes increasingly and excessively aggro-masculine, trigger-happy to destroy. What is the feminine that is missing in a macho world that is ugly, belligerent, callous, hard, unpleasant, noisy, ruthless, self-centred, destructive, competitive?

You dont have beauty, peace, gentleness, lovely, soft, quiet, merciful, caring, creative, co-operative. Men, it has been said, want power. Women want love.

However idyllic prehistory may have been like, the male has dominated the female throughout history . But as physical strength becomes less important for a modern society, women have a chance to seek equality. But it is still a 'damn near thing' as that equality wavers. Women too can become mach-aggro to try to claim and preserve rights.

Female is not the same as feminine or yin, and male is not the same as masculine or yang - as Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases shrewdly points out in classifying: -

Roget's 'masculine' list - strong, power, energy, vigour, force, muscle, virility, heart of oak, iron gip, grit bone, mighty, vigorous, hardy, potent, robust, stalwart, manly. (Goodonya bewdies!) The 'male' list - man, gentleman, sir master, fellow, manly,

Roget's 'feminine' list - weak, impotent, effeminate, feminality, fragile, flaccid, delicate, asthenia, weak, tremble, languish, relax, enervate, powerless, nervous, soft, womanly, feminate, fragile, flimsy. The 'female' list includes feminality, the sex, fair, weaker vessel, mistress, lady, belle, goody,matron, wench, girl, womanly, ladylike, matronly, maidenly, womanish, effeminate, unmanly. (Lists compiled by males. Secular women have been noted -by men - as being silly, frippery and dressing up. Christian women have been expected to be - by men - humble, lowly, giving and serving.)

A 'Battle of the Sexes' is a masculine scenario. Even feminism gets sucked into this masculine paradigm. Macho loves battles and competition. The most masculine aggressive men and the most feminine 'helpless-victim' women tend to have been either severely disadvantaged as children, and run to these excesses in trying to cope with the blows they have been dealt - or they have been severely spoiled and only know excess

Symbiosis - living together for mutual benefit, is part of Nature. In the old patriarchal East, Yin and Yang were seen as the feminine and masculine qualities essential for the harmony of the world and for the humanity in it, and in the old patriarchal West, Divine Wisdom was female for both Hebrews and Greeks. Every pantheon has had goddesses as well as gods, and often they were the more beloved. Classical and Christian personifications of the Virtues were female.

The complete personality for both men and women, in both Freudian and Jungian psychology, is made up of both masculine and feminine in varying degrees.

Men and women who successfully mix both masculine and feminine in their personalities have been among the greatest contributors to our civilisation. Their love-making is both feminine and masculine, with tenderness, gentleness and love, not only passion and techniques.

It is absurd to let waste half of human nature's best features, the feminine, both within our own personalities, and between each other.