Drew Gerald:
terry:
aloha drew,
Very interesting; do you know the yi jing?
Of course, to sustain a dialog there must be some sort of challenge.
For one thing, these polarities can be stereotyping, you know: me tarzan, you jane; men bright, women dark.
For another, the idea that the hemispheres of the brain are male and female is far fetched. Math, music and intuition are not exclusinvely feminine, and dare I say it, women are more reasonable creatures than men most of the time.
In the yi jing, all of the derivative feminine trigrams have two masculine lines, and the derivative masculine ones have two feminine lines. It is not the predominance of yin or yang that defines a character, but whether yin or yang leads. Only the progenitors of life, heaven and earth, are solidly yang and yin.
Can you comment?
Welcome to the group, and thanks for your input.
terry
Hi Terry, thanks for the input.
The idea is to move beyond stereotyping and work with the archetypes themselves. It's true a lot of people cannot see the qualities of the poles without projecting meanings onto them. So yes, many people get locked up in their cultural notions of macho and girls vs the universal qualities of yin and yang.
What you stated is actually in perfect alignment with this, as you can see in 3D, there are no points on the body that are completely 100% of either, beyond the theoretical bounds of heaven and earth.
Again, it's not that the hemispheres ARE a man or a woman, that is absurd. It's that the hemispheres work together as poles. You can label the poles whatever you'd like, m/f or y/y are just names we give them, could be hoobas/boogas for all it matters. We just get stuck on the male/female labels because of culture and their charge and our society being generally out of relationship with both.
Drew
I was indeed agreeing with you. To a point. Btw, I notice your androgynous diagram appears completely masculine, if anatomically incorrect.
I think it is still fair to say that, in bilateral symmetry, left and right are not poles apart. For example, the left thumb is not feminine to the right thumb's masculinity. The thumbs are not opposed to each other. Polarity implies opposition.
Of course men and women are not necessarily masculine and feminine. I would say, neither are the brain's hemispheres. In actuality, every cell is either xy or xx, so both hemispheres are either feminine or masculine. Are right and left hemispheres the same in women as in men? That would be more to the point.
I suspect the mind has a tendency to see polarities anywhere. Differences may be sharpened by identifying with them.
The above caveats aside, I agree that seeing polarities is an advance on naive dualistic thinking, which regards male and female, up and down, in and out, as wholly different and unrelated.
Can you relate any of this to meditation, or spiritual practice generally?
terry
tao te ching, trans feng:
five.
Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there is evil.
Therefore having and not having arise together.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short contrast each other:
High and low rest upon each other;
Voice and sound harmonize each other;
Front and back follow one another.
Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking.
The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease,
Creating, yet not possessing.
Working, yet not taking credit.
Work is done, then forgotten.
Therefore it lasts forever.