Men! I know you're out there. I have met you. Beautiful men, working to find the new masculinity. A masculinity that does justice to the men we are.
I know you're there. I see you on trains, in coffee shops, on marches and on those pain-filled healing weekends we spend together mentoring our younger brothers as they struggle to process the rage and grief they experience in their lives.
I know you and I love you. And I love myself more when I am with you. I love the man you help me to be. Thank you.
And if we're honest, we know there is more for us to do.
There is a shift we need to make. Or at least, there is a shift that's already being made, that we can step more fully into.
You know it, because I have seen you do it. I saw it when the Veterans went to Standing Rock to provide cover for the water protectors. I saw it in Tahrir Square when Muslims protected Christians at prayer and were returned in kind.
Let me be clear about this. Women are in the midst of some of the most important and sacred work of our age. There are centuries of wounds to be healed. There is pain to be processed. There is anger and disbelief at the centuries of oppression they have experienced.
Women are gathering in circles now to do this work, to process the pain, to find the new and ancient archetypal feminine power. The power that nurtures life, that builds community, that can tame the wilder excesses of masculine ego. And to be clear. This is what will save the world and what will save humanity.
I know this process is underway because women I know, love, admire and respect have told me. And they have asked us men to be patient while this is going on. They have asked us to be patient while they work. They have asked me to be patient with any sense of abandonment I feel. They have asked us to be kind to ourselves, to understand that we are not under attack, we are not being emasculated or ostracized.
And they have asked for support while they undertake their work. They want to be seen and to be heard. Seen and heard for who they really are, for their true feminine power. They want for this to be recognized, acknowledged, valued. They want men to say "I see you", "I'm sorry it has been this way for you".
And they want us to reassure our brothers who have trouble accepting what is going on – and to face down those who are on the counter-attack.
It will not always be this way but at this moment this is what is being asked of us. Protection. Acknowledgement. Bearing Witness. And above all patience. It’s not much to ask. But it may just be the most important thing we as men can do at this point in human history. Let’s not pass up this opportunity. We are up to this.
Having stitched her line together
with a mother's love and an angel's steel
banishing ghosts and this ancient stain
She leant down, took my hand in her's
soft and warm without a hint of pain
I need you to say sorry she mouthed from an ocean away
It was not what I’d come to say
It felt too easy. Too mundane.
When you did what you did, I offered her
You cracked open my heart.
I sobbed like a death-row-con pardoned at his final meal
I want to say Thank You.
When you said
This. Stops. Here.
You set me free. Set us all free.
I came to say Thank You
and to ask for forgiveness.
She looked down through my tears
a saltsea pouring from our shared ancestral line.
Her eyes were pure as a dove in flight.
I can forgive you but now you have to leave
I’m not ready yet to let you stay.
Ah. How could it be otherwise.
The rest will have to wait.
This does not come easy.
You cannot rush a resolution
that was shaped in the dream of forever.