For years now I have been struggling to understand why the principal characters in the books I write are predominantly male. Men going through initiatic experiences, men struggling to find their path, men fighting to liberate themselves, etc.
I have been a feminist all my life. I’ve struggled with domestic violence and sexual abuse. I’ve worked on my healing for over thirty years to gain a sense of self, yet here I am, writing about men and their problems.
Because I write channelled fiction, I have no control over the gender of my characters. They come into my consciousness fully formed, and named. Only less important characters are left for me to name myself. But it always surprises me when the main character, or characters, are male. I experience a certain resistance to this. I want to write strong female characters, characters who create change in the world. I train women in the way of the Divine feminine, so why am I writing about men?
I experienced much resistance until I understood why it had to be this way.
A few mornings ago, I was having one of those inner conversations with an imaginary person. The conversation was about my favourite childhood stories (my therapist had asked me once what my favourite story story was. It tells you a lot about your inner motivation and deepest issues). In my current inner conversation, I was telling someone that my favourite story had been The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen. (The version I read as a child seemed to be a combination of that story and The Children of Lir, a story from Irish tradition). Both stories involved a wicked step-mother who places a curse of the sons of her new husband-king. There is also a daughter in the stories and it is her task to save them, but doing so causes her pain and sacrifice.
In my head, someone was asking me what it was about the story that appealed to me. My answer was that the sister needed to save her brothers. Through her sacrifice, love, and craft (she wove twelve tunics from nettles without being able to say a word) she could take the enchantment from them and they would be free.
And there was my answer!
In the healing modality I teach, The Gaia Method, which is really what the books are about, we are working with the anima Mundi, or World Soul. Represented by Gaia. It is based on ancestral teachings around fertility and energetic balance, all carried out at sacred sites around the world. It is mainly women who are drawn to this work. Perhaps because, for generations, we have been trained to serve.
Women have been growing in their power for over a hundred years and this has upset the male-centred viewpoint in the world. Many men have lost their roots and they struggle to keep up, to find their place in the world. As women grow, men often fear that women will take over and then treat men the same way they treated women.
If we go back to the old ways, the men who ruled in the Celtic world were responsible to the Earth. They were wedded to the Goddess Sovereignty, the spirit of Earth. In order to rule, they had to be clear in their intention to serve; both the land and the people. If they acted out of selfish interests, they could no longer rule.
For men to serve, it takes lifetimes of learning, especially when patriarchy has been the order of the day for centuries and has conditioned them to believe they are powerful and can control everything. For men to serve, it takes years of retraining, reframing, re-understanding. They have to heal the effects of patriarchy on their own psyches and learn to love themselves, as the Mother loves them.
Many men are already in this healing process, just as women are, but for them it is a different journey.
Which brings me back to my books.
All the main characters are on a spiritual journey, either willingly or with great resistance. They are learning the ways of male-female balance, through Dreaming, sacred site work and dedication to their own healing and the Mother Goddess. Most importantly, they are often taught by wise women, Elders and Spirits of the Old Places. The books are for women to understand the male journey to healing and surrender; and for men to learn that dedicating themselves to the Mother, which is the Spirit of the Earth we live on, brings balance to themselves and to the earth.
It feels like the books have been written for a new generation of male healers; those who work with the body of Planet Earth. Men who are born to serve the Land, born to heal the wasteland. Our lack of connection to the Earth has created this wasteland and we no longer recognise the earth as an entity. The new generation of young people come in with a new vision and it is this vision that will hopefully bring us back to balance. My books are for them.
While I was writing this, this guidance came in:
“It is time now for a reversal of values. A reversal of our worldview and a return to the nurturing energies of the Great Mother Goddess, as she was known, and loved, in the past.
It is time for all to recognise that we have a part to play in her demise. That our greed and acquisitiveness creates lack for many, while we live in luxury. It is time we saw that our actions have consequences. Time to grow, time to sow new seeds of belonging.
It is time to return to the faery lands of the Underworld, to learn to live in balance with nature and the nature elementals once more. It is time we stopped tearing down the forests and polluting our atmosphere. These books are there to help you reconnect to, and re-spirit, the world.
Everything is a choice. Now it is time to choose.”
Ann M Murphy 