Women's Relationships
with
Men & Masculine Energies
An Inquiry into the
Inner and Outer Masculine
Teleconference Workshop with Sheila Foster
8 sessions ~ 90 minutes each
6 - 7:30 PM, ET ~ 4 - 5:30 PM, MT
Thursdays: March 13 & 27; April 10 & 24; May 8 & 22; June 5 & 19
Men! Fathers, Grandfathers, Uncles, Brothers, Cousins, Friends, Boyfriends, Lovers, Husbands, Wasbands, Sons, Teachers, Priests, Doctors, Therapists, Colleagues, etc. We have them. They appear in our lives, our dreams, fantasies, nightmares, writings, and artwork.
From a Jungian paradigm, women also carry masculine energy within which appears as the Animus, inner masculine energies and figures that can appear in dreams, be projected on outer men. These masculine beings can be loving, friendly, hostile, immature, undeveloped or quite developed. Like outer men, they can appear as countless images and expressions of Father, Warrior, Lover, Magician, and King.
The question is, how do we live with them, love them for who and what they are, give up trying to renovate them so we feel comfortable and happy? How do we turn our challenges with men into opportunities for healing and awakening? How do we realize that what we see 'out there' in the men is reflecting something of our own Inner Masculine, bright and shadow? What is it in us that draws us to men who are not good for us? What in us draws healthy relationships with men?
They are a "mysterious other" species, so very different than women are. We spend our lives in relationships with them, in one way or another, often not very skillfully or happily. We don't seem to learn "how" to be with men, or if we do so with one, it's different with another. For women, men evoke love, hate, mystery, attraction, distrust, disappointment, respect, positive & negative projections & fantasies, frustration, rage, contempt, awe, disgust, heat, and utter bogglement, among many other things.
Women spend a lot of time and energy thinking about, processing, talking with each other and their therapists about their relationships with men. Here is an opportunity for more than talk, for real investigation, depth, and a way to do deep spiritual work with what arises with men.
What if we took on our relationships with men as catalysts
for our own healing, deepening, and transformation?
It is a fascinating and mysterious thing to see how, when we change, the outer world reflects that, including our relationships with men. Our own healing along with our natural feminine gifts can serve and support the healing of the men in our lives as well as the Masculine and Feminine on a collective level.
The reward for any ongoing spiritual practice, especially this one, is deepening capacity to love, forgiveness, healing clear seeing, transformation, beauty, more love, and direct experience with Self/Source, That which is our essential nature.
Format: Participants will have the opportunity to share and work individually within the group, bring up general and specific issues, witness and be witnessed and supported by the other women in the group. There will be spiritual practices & writings to do and share with other group members by phone in the weeks between our calls.
Some of the Possibilities:
- self awareness
- deepening capacity for love, compassion, forgiveness, clear seeing
- give up all stories, obsessing, struggling, trying to figure it all out
- give up the fruitless task of trying to renovate and reconstruct the men in your life
- recognize, engage, and work with your own inner masculine, your animus
- heal wounds related to men in your life
- change your patterns of relating to men and to your inner masculine
- learn to relate to men authentically, from your heart
- release any sense of victimization and give up complaining and contempt
- transform and heal relationships with the men who are currently in your life
- nourish your spiritual life, deepen your Samyama practice, learn new practices
- source empowerment as a woman
- be part of a circle of women committed to and contributing to the healing of relationships between men and women as well as the relationship of the collective Feminine and Masculine
Dates: Thursdays: March 13 & 27; April 10 & 24; May 8 & 22; June 5 & 19
I will email you the teleconference number once you have registered.
All calls will be recorded and links sent to participants only.
Tuition: $350 if paid in full by March 1, $400 after that or if paid in two payments. Other payment plans are possible. Visa and MC accepted.Checks can be mailed to Sheila Foster 4184 Amber Place. Boulder, CO 80304
To Register: please email Sheila Foster: temenosctr@aol.com
Refunds minus $50 are available until March 1, 2008.
Date Changes:occasionally something comes up requiring a change of date. If this occurs, I will give as much notice as possible, and we will find a date that works for the group.
Meditations from a Women's Mystery School, Volume II, Invoking the Sacred Masculine will be an important resource for the course. You can purchase it at www.dangerousoldwomen.com
Book: Invisible Partners by John Sanford
