Feminine women

[Natalia]

As the woman that I am, I relate to this, very much <3 (not all women do, and that is ok)

" A requirement of femininity is that a woman devote her life to love-to mother love, to romantic love, to religious love, to amorphous, undifferentiated caring. The territory of the heart is admittedly a province that is open to all, but women alone are expected to make an obsessional career of its exploration, to find whatever adventure, power, fulfillment or tragedy life has to offer within its bounds. There is no question that a woman is apt to feel more feminine, more confident of her interior gender makeup, when she is reliably within some stage of love-even the girlish crush or the stage of unrequited love or a broken heart. Men have suffered for love, and men have accomplished great feats in the name of love, but what man has ever felt at the top of his masculine form when he is lovesick or suffering from heartache?"

~ Susan Brownmiller

[Hazel]

Amethyst, if you havn't ever done so previously.. take a look at the works of the Elizabethan poets and their love sonnets, with their ecstatic appreciation of the women they yearned for. And the Romantic Poets and their love of nature, such as those penned by Byron and Wordsworth. You may then have another perspective regards the depths and capacities of the male gender.

Also, you may appreciate the works of Rumi and Pablo Neruda for the depths of their understandings about love.

Personally I believe that it is more accurate to talk of the capacities of the 'human heart' in matters of the nature of love.. from Eros to deep compassion for all living beings. After all, acts of wickedness or kindness are not exclusive to either gender... therefore better to view individuals on personal merit as to their schooling in the heart, and not to exclusivity of aspects of the feminine in man or woman.
It's high time we moved beyond separation when it comes to 'outmoded' concepts about gender and recognise that without the true union that this achieves, we are like mice on a wheel... blindsided to the full meaning(s) needed for us to meet our collective spiritual evolution. This I wager is just about the biggest call of our Age... for without this we will not also dissenguage from the urge to have power over others, to discriminate against and to hate... on every front that blights our current existence on this planet.

excuse my soap box there / back to topic

Rumi -

Oh Beloved,
take me.
Liberate my soul.
Fill me with your love and
release me from the two worlds.
If I set my heart on anything but you
let fire burn me from inside.

Oh Beloved,
take away what I want.
Take away what I do.
Take away what I need.
Take away everything
that takes me from you.

[sigma6]

Kierkegaard's concept of love was a complete openness to the reality around us, to be completely open, exposed to, vulnerable to, the entirety of what is happening in and around us... a relationship between observer and environment... so profound, I never forgot that one...

- and much needed today in a world of perception manipulation, denial, rationalization, 'persuasion' marketing, political propaganda, mind control...

Maybe it is true... "All you need is LOVE"