tall grasses

I'm in India, in Hampi in the state of Karnataka, and I'm looking at some tall grass. And each of the grasses has a long slender stem and is topped with a very light feathery part, very soft. And looking at these grasses, I am reminded of the balance of masculine and feminine. The stem or stalk of the grass reminds me of the masculine. It has some strength, upright, almost phallic. And the top feathery part is so feminine, it's so soft. Without even touching it, just looking at it, one can feel its softness. And it's a beautiful combination: the masculine strength, and the softness of the feminine.

And it seems to me that each of us, at least if we are following a spiritual path, needs to become like one of these blades of grass. We need a balance of the masculine strength and feminine softness. Each of us has both these aspects within us. And part of our work on the spiritual journey is to balance these: to balance the masculine and the feminine, the rigidity and strength of the masculine, and the soft yielding flowing aspect of the feminine. The masculine allows us to penetrate life, and the feminine allows us to be penetrated by life. And this interpenetration is really the route by which we come to realise that we are not separate from the rest of existence.

To reach that realisation, to manifest it as a lived embodied truth, we can approach it through this masculine feminine dance, of penetrating and being penetrated. But here I'm not talking about the sexual act so much, where one embodies the masculine and the other the feminine. Rather I am talking about how we interact in every moment, with life, with existence, with what is surrounding us in the moment. Can we penetrate it with this masculine aspect? And can we allow the moment to penetrate us with the feminine? Both of these can happen simultaneously, and in that way our self-created boundary simply melts away. And all of this I am reminded of, looking at these masculine feminine grasses.