Inspired by my colleague Ayana Young (For The Wild) who releases encore episodes of her catalogue, I’ve decided to do the same: peppering in key conversations from The Mythic Masculine over the last five years.
Many new listeners are unlikely to dive into the trove of interviews I’ve collected, therefore, this will be a way to explore the as well as opportunities to revisit them with a current perspective.
The first is my conversation with author & philosopher Charles Eisenstein.
I’ve had the good fortune to collaborate with Charles on numerous films, including Sacred Economics and The Revolution Is Love, as well as spent time at Tamera’s Love School and other gatherings.
Our conversation for the Mythic Masculine (originally released as episode #8) touches on his own interview series on the “new story of masculinity” and what he learned along the way.
The major theme, as named in the title, is the archetypal shift of seeing earth primarily as Mother to meeting her as a Lover.
This perspective is influenced by the “ecosexual movement”, as Charles writes in his essay featured in the ecosexual anthology:
If we have not received Earth’s gifts with gratitude, if we have become so used to them that we keep taking more, obliviously, perhaps we might excuse ourselves by saying that we didn’t know any better. There is a kind of innocence about the belief that Earth has no limit to what she can give. It is the innocence of a child, taking from its mother.
[…] It is clear that we are finally hitting some limits. Our childlike innocence is coming, painfully, to an end, as we face the consequences of our despoliation of the earth and the necessity of no longer taking at will.
The ecosexual awakening is a direct response to hitting these limits, the waning age of abundance and the ending of our civilization’s childlike relationship to the Earth. We face the necessity of treating Earth not as a mother – a boundless provider of all we need and want – but as a lover, with whom we give and receive in equal measure.
This perspective has particular urgency for masculinity, as modern society (based in domination culture) has abandoned proper rites of passage & mentorship for men to cultivate the skills of the archetypal Lover.
This is one reason my focus over the last year has been offering exactly this, through Awakening the Wild Erotic (AWE) and The Deep Masculine online cohort.
By gathering together as men, my collaborator Deus and I invite men to expand their understanding of Eros - the primary life force of the world - and surrender to its deep intelligence.
When attuned to a lover, we can understand their desires, longings, and pleasure pathways. We can co-create a tapestry of beauty beyond our individual efforts. And perhaps this is what Earth is waiting for…
As Charles continues in his essay:
Like it or not, resist it or not, we are already ecosexual and even cosmosexual beings. We are in life, and life is in us. We are in the universe, and the universe is in us.
Enjoy this listen. And I’d love to hear your comments & reflections below.
#69 | From Mother Earth to Lover Earth - Charles Eisenstein [ENCORE]