Father-Mother God, Male-Female Human

“… God created [the] man in his image

in the image of God,

male and female he created [each of] them.”

--Genesis 1:26 (KJV, my emphasis from the Greek)

“…, the first human being—a single being—

is created “male and female,”

so two varieties interlinked in one,

as we indeed find it in several other species

(including many plants).”

--Neil Douglas-Klotz, Revelations of the Aramaic Jesus

Modern psychology recognizes that each human being is both masculine and

feminine. Modern genetics has learned that within the human there is often a

50/50 split between male and female hormones in the body. These modern

understandings confirm what the early Hebrews in the book of Genesis say.

When the 6 th century temple priest wrote “male and female,” he may not have

been focusing on the physical, biological make-up of the human, but the spiritual

dimension. As Neil Douglas-Klotz, an expert in the Middle East Semitic

languages of Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic, says that “… two polarities existed,

but rather than being separate, they were felt as united within the shared field of

the human soul.”

In the yoga tradition the human soul includes the unconscious mind, called the

“chitta” in Sanskrit. Each of us often identifies ourselves with our biological self,

yet there is a shadow, unconscious self, as Jungian psychology states. Persons

with male bodies generally identify with their task-oriented masculine

characteristics, just like persons with female bodies identify with their feminine

relationship-oriented characteristics. Yet, each has the personality

characteristics of the other sex which are often not recognized.

The masculine qualities and expressions are fact-oriented and express

themselves as objective thinking, task-oriented actions, and desires to get the job

done. When a person’s masculine tendency is given a plan that person will work

to get the job done. Feminine qualities and expressions are emotion-oriented and

express themselves as more relational. These feminine qualities are nurturing,

gentle, and affectionate in nature. In the world of holistic health, these

tendencies are called “energies.” Each human has these dynamic abilities which

we call forth depending on the need of the moment.

In our Western world we separate one part of ourselves from the other part and

call that part with which we identify our gender. In the early Aramaic world, there

was no distinction between those energy patterns. There was no understanding

of the modern concept of gender.

The Semitic word root, that translates this masculine energy as “male,” “points to

a movement of initiating a process, going out, searching,” whereas the root that

translates the feminine energy as “female,” “points to a movement of receiving

and completing something, finding, gathering.” In the early Semitic world, what

gives and what receives are linked. Actually, that linkage is the wholeness and

health of us as humans.

This understanding of wholeness as humans is what we need to understand in

our modern world. This will make us healthy. Let’s work on learning how to be

whole and being proud of it.

I bow to the divinity in you.

Michael Ketterhagen