Women have become my rocks, my weave, my wise counsel, and ever present inspiration. But pivotal men have been keys in secret doors of my being that I never would have known existed, and could not have opened on my own, or with my sisters.  

I love Men. I have always enjoyed a certain somehow almost miraculous ever-renewing love and adoration for men close to me, particularly my son, particularly my lovers. Women have become my rocks, my weave, my wise counsel, and ever present inspiration. But pivotal men have been keys in secret doors of my being that I never would have known existed, and could not have opened on my own, or with my sisters.  

I wish I could write an epic enough hymn of praise for Men, what I’ve witnessed, what I see, and what I hold true. There is so much awareness, especially in my world, of the emergence and reclaiming that is so alive and necessary for womankind at this time. But it’s the same and often less visible, less articulated, for men. We all lost our way together, and we’ll have to find it together too. I feel into the millions of men who have lost their lives on the battlegrounds of other men’s wars, the struggle for nobility and self-knowing that so many men I know are doing their absolute best within, all of the ways men have been abused or objectified sexually, pushed and pulled and drained of vitality by a pornographic culture, all the gestures of giving and love and service that go unrecognized and considered to still, or never, be enough.  

When I served in the water at Harbin, probably 80% of the people who came to be held in my arms were men. It was a rare, intimate time. In the silent, subtle surrender that’s possible in the water, the unveiling of all that lies under the surface, what was revealed time and time again was the exquisite sensitivity lying dormant in so many of them, waiting much like the heart of woman does, to be met with a reverence that invites it forward. And then they would, literally, blossom. As men opened to their own ecstasy or wept in my arms, sometimes within moments of each other, I understood through witnessing just how deep the weave of emotional vulnerability and sexuality is within men, often hidden, denied, and ultimately just fiercely or unconsciously protected.

I suppose it has a lot to do with having raised a son almost to manhood. It’s impossible for me to not see him somehow in every man, and to now really understand what it is that boys face and must navigate as they become men, whatever that ends up being for them. Sitting in countless circles of women, one amazing truth is that even within expressing frustration, heartbreak, desperate pain, what almost invariably emerges out of women is the yearning to know and feel the nobility, shelter, and beauty of men. There is ultimately a deep seeing, and such a call of the heart. It feels ancient.

I love you, men! You’ve been my son, my father, my brother, my guardian, my husband, my lover, my healer and my sometimes selfish, lost and emotionally dangerous sparring mate. You've cared for my son, and so many times you've given generously of all that you had to give. And the deeper I move within my own being as a woman, the more I love you. Sometimes with adoration for your secret majesty, sometimes with a reluctant compassion for your fuckery, which most of you have inherited as fairly as I’ve inherited my own. 

Interestingly, the more self-resourced I become, the more I have the courage to admit that I need you. 

There are places I can only go with you, certain magics that only respond to you, and aspects of my being that wait for your alchemical touch, your capacity to shelter what’s precious, your simple presence, your friendship, your lightness of being and your innate nobility. I wish for you every blessing of the Good.