It is no secret that society today is characterized by major crises. The Danish political party and the movement The Alternative points towards three major crises. We have a climate crisis. We have a crisis in our financial system. And then we have a crisis in empathy. The point is that in this period of necessary social transition, we cannot overlook ourselves as human beings. Because if we fail at the level of empathy, it will appear at social scales sooner or later; even while seeking to create regenerative, new social forms. For this reason, while taking the idea of a social crisis in empathy seriously, in this article, we move into the deepest chamber for exploration, development and expression of empathy: the intimate space of sexuality between man and woman.
When it comes to establishing and developing empathy at the social level, and the challenge of balancing individual and society, it has always been so that life in the community has had a price for the individual. When the price of being a member of society, however, becomes too debilitating, which increasing diagnoses of people with stress and depression seem to testify of today, it is time to seek towards a new dynamic between individual and society. Nothing in history suggests that being human would be historically static. As it is said by Heraclitus: the only thing constant is change. As we become aware of the current need for social transition, we can focus upon rethinking our systems structurally and functionally. But we can also turn it around and realize like Gandhi that in the end, all development begins with ourselves. From here we can turn the focus toward our ability to love. Empathy is about our ability to sense ourselves and others. The prerequisite for letting ourselves dare to be sensed by others is that we experience a safe space for it to happen. A safe space demands an opening for love, for only where there is love, can we feel safe and have confidence in each other. And it is only where there is confidence and trust that we can unfold ourselves authentically. We might not think about it on daily terms, but not often in modern day society do we experience safe spaces for authentic unfoldment.
So we can begin by asking ourselves: do we actually know what it means to open our hearts to love? Do we know what it means to love ourselves? And is it even permitted today, where the word narcissist is often used as a condescending term directed towards the youth, and where rules of mediocrity still form subtle social conditioning? The truth is that we are often afraid to love ourselves and others unconditionally. We laugh in insecurity when we are introduced to the idea. It seems a quite generalized perception that unconditional love forms an unattainable goal. Our current dominating ideology is that of the neo-classical economics thinking combined with Darwinist philosophy of survival of the fittest. It teaches us that we are in an eternal battle zone where money constitutes the ultimate goal, and only the fittest survive. To get money, we must work hard. And we must fight others as competitors, and seek to place ourselves in the front, by all means. Besides from the fact that such a strife indeed does inflate our self-focus in quite materialistic ways, it also ties us up in very tight time schedules, leaving little room for self-inquiry, or just being in a deep connection to ourselves and everything around us. Because, in reality, it takes time to be human. It takes time to discover self-love. It takes time to find the place in us that sets the stream of unconditional freedom as a flow of life and creation that runs through all of natures’ living entities. It takes time to re-discover the parts of ourselves that are able to sense, to be, to breathe, to meet unconditionally, but that are often buried under layer upon layer of social and cultural conditioning.
Perhaps, learning the art of setting love free could be a prerequisite for making us truly able to take the next step in the grand social transitioning? Perhaps, the social transformation of our externally shared reality has to begin at home in ourselves, in the deepest core of being human where we cannot even hide from ourselves: the intimate zone with another human being.
Restoration and development of the sexual space starts with the woman
The space of genuine intimacy would be characterized as uncertain. Since we are, in this article, claiming that we do not know the feminine side of the sexual force well, it requires that both male and female dare embark on uncharted territory. This space is uncertain because we are brought up in a society with the extrovert, the mental and logical, the measurable, the instrumental, the goal-oriented and the quantitative as primary qualities. This represents the most dominant social values that you must live up to, if you want to perform optimally in society, whether you are male or female. However, these properties do not provide useful tools while seeking to move into the feminine depths and ever-changing inner sensorial landscapes in the quest to know them better. Furthermore, when it comes to this space of uncertainty: in order to meet the feminine sexual landscape, it is necessary that we dare throw off our masks. We need to not only physically take off our clothes. We must also be willing to cast aside our symbolic clothing: we must release ourselves of the roles that we play in society, and that we are being played by commercial powers, and look towards the authentic spaces in ourselves as natural bodies, energies, sensations, reactions, feelings and ecologically based organic energy entities.
Healing of the feminine erotic life force
Although today it happens at quite subtle levels, it is our claim and statement that the feminine part of sexuality is still repressed. The entrance of new feminine approaches is therefore troublesome, and becomes tied up in old blockages, trauma, and reactionary social thought patterns. And here it is crucial to emphasize that our approach is not concerned with feminism. It is about releasing human potential per se. We will rather talk of masculine and feminine essence. Thus, our case does not concern only biologically based physical creatures. And not cultured gender only. It concerns overall energies. It is about reintegrating the inner territories that we have lost on our way through human, cultural and social evolution. So, what is the feminine essence and social expression about?
The authentic encounter with the feminine sexual force concerns the process rather than goal orientation. This is well known in the tantric traditions. Concretely, it concerns a deep dive into the overall landscape of the body, sensing all the energies that the body sets in motion, and experiencing all the minute sensations that happen during sexual activation, and after. It is about merging bodies that involve many more levels than what is physically apparent. And it is about mutual pleasure representing a space for the two parties to grow together, and gain intimate insight in each other. When the man becomes able to take in the very distinct feminine erotic quality, and not only finds his way to her clitoral orgasm, the entire horizon of the sexual intercourse gradually becomes expanded to accommodate both worlds: the feminine and the masculine. It will expand to involve both the physical level, the mind, and the energetic reality of it. Both the man and the woman have a potential to hold much more sexual energy within the body than what is usually experienced. In this way, they become able to expand their horizon at sensory and deeply embodied levels. This affects the journey into expanded consciousness in deeply grounding ways. From here, the couple has the potential to take this extended space back into the many areas of the lives that they live. And here is where we claim: it is in this space that we can rediscover our ability for unconditional love, and deep empathy. It is also, however, in this situation that we meet the challenge of the man having to dare to accept that in moments, his natural overview cracks, because he does not know in advance what he can expect. He needs to open himself up towards exploring new territory at formerly unknown levels, and accept that the female is more at home here than he is. He must dare to feel uncertain. The good news, however, is that nothing is lost by doing so. All the power and potency he has gained in all of life’s other areas so far, are never lost, because he allows himself an extended horizon from the sexual encounter. He only grows.
Sexual force as vitality and inner confidence
What has happened today is that the woman has lost her ability to connect with her own inner feminine power. She has never really been supported in finding it. When she is not anchored in her own power, she can become possessive and demanding of her partner. She meets him in a deficiency, often in the expectation that he should fill up her empty inner space. When she stands in her own power, on the contrary, she is whole. The point of departure of the relationship is another. There is a great need for healing, and restoration of the feminine force in order to balance the poles masculine and feminine, and thus to balance the foundation for relationships. Since the sexual force is a natural part of being alive, a genuine and active connection to it gives rise to a deep feeling of self-worth. She no longer demands of the man to fill in this missing link. She knows she is worthy. And she can more easily respect his worth as well. They can experience a deep, mutual and equal respect. The sexual space that integrates a space for the feminine sexual energies in love, trust and confidence, constitutes a space where women can really flourish and come into feminine existence. This is where she may experience liberated natural erotic forces and experience how they can expand her heart opening. When the couple learn to know themselves in this way, their common creative force will grow. Both parties have more to give.
The space for relationship expansion is not a relaxation space where one exhales after a long day of work. Nor is it a random room for superficial visitation. It is a space that is as intense as anything else in life that one wants to grow in, and see flourishing. We have been taught that only what support us in earning money, deserves a dedicated focus. Now might be the time to learn that love deserves an absolutely dedicated focus as well. Maybe one day we will reach a stage where we become able to let money and economy serve love, rather than the reverse.
Naturally, we are not suggesting that the green transition should be called off, and that we move into our bedrooms to practice lovemaking as an alternative solution. We are rather pointing out that before we will be truly able to build the communities that serve ourselves and each other to a higher degree than what is known by now, it could be necessary to practice the intimate space between two people of opposite sex. Until we find inner balance in ourselves and in the encounter with the other, until we experience a balance between masculine and feminine within our deepest bodily rooted selves, we will not be able to recognize and establish the same in our external environments. This might form a prerequisite for the formation of future viable, sustainable and resilient social units. Throughout our commitment to expand our horizons all the way down to our deepest levels of cells in our flesh and blood presence, we are invited to re-connect with ourselves, and to gradually be ready to move back into the creation of more balanced communities based on open hearts through which unconditional love floats, just like a natural river of life.