It is no secret that men are in trouble today. From war to ecological collapse, most of the world’s critical problems stem from a distorted masculinity out of control. Yet our culture rewards the very dysfunctions responsible for those problems.
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To Matthew Fox, our crucial task is to open our minds to a deeper understanding of the healthy masculine than we receive from our media, culture, and religions. Popular religion forces the punitive imagery of fundamentalism on us, pushing most men away from their natural yearning for spirituality and toward intolerance and domination. Meanwhile, many men, particularly young men, are looking for images of healthy masculinity to emulate and finding nothing.
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Grandfatherly Heart to the Spiritual Warrior. He explores archetypes of sacred marriage, showing how partnership becomes the ultimate expression of healthy masculinity. By stirring our natural yearning for healthy spirituality, Fox argues, these timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to reinvent the world.
Amazon Review:
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.”
— Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
“Fox deserves to find his true audience — thinking men (and women as well) who desire a rich exploration of ‘male spirituality’ by a thinker who can draw as easily on Thomas Aquinas as he does on Greek mythology and the work of the Indian saint Swami Muktananda.”
— Publishers Weekly
“A wake-up call to shake us free from old stereotypes of masculinity, this book is good news.”
— Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover, World as Self
“In this historic and revolutionary book, [Fox] inspires us to divinize male sexuality and exorcise the self-imposed and culturally held demons that bring violence and environmental desecration to our world.”
— Alex Grey, artist and author of Sacred Mirrors and The Mission of Art
“A gutsy, courageous book, one that confronts the terrible isolation in which men live with archetypal images that once nurtured, guided, and connected our ancestors and that still course within the depths of each of us.”
— Dr. James Hollis, author of What Matters Most
“Matthew Fox’s book is a magnificent masterpiece.”
— Andrew Harvey, author of Son of Man and The Hope
“It’s hard to know where to start with Matthew Fox’s prolific body of work, now logging in at more than two dozen books and continuing to stack up. There’s no question that his pivotal book remains “Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality Presented in Four Paths, Twenty-Six Themes, and Two Questions,” a 1983 landmark so important that a circle of Fox’s friends and supporters gathered in the summer of 2008 to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Then, I still recall the debut of “The Coming of the Cosmic Christ” five years after “Blessing.” I also like, “Creativity,” written just a few years ago….” read more