Finding the “Yin” in Culture
I was trying to think of how to explain the loss of the so-called "feminine values" - all that is YIN as opposed to YANG in our current times. It feels like an important exercise - like protecting an endangered species…
There is a passage from Helen Luke's wonderful book, "Woman, Earth & Spirit" which comes closest, (see below) but even she admits that "there are no intellectual answers."
Then I remembered that there is a song which touches the very heart of what that virtue of silent - even secret - nurturing, noticing, remembering, witnessing is all about. Michael Smith's song The Dutchman is one of the very few songs that tells a story about old age and senility - (Jacques Brel's "Old Folks" is another) - but it is so much more. It is the purest depiction of unconditional love that breaks the boundaries of time and will break your heart open, if you let it. It also is the clearest depiction of the deep feminine which is so different in its contributions to the world, and so needed, and so absent.
Gliding like a silent river deep beneath the crazy crust of the earth where ambitions lay claim to loyalties and stake out territory and run us ragged with pursuits and accomplishments and anxieties over deeds not done, there is another way of being. "The Dutchman" paints a picture of that way.
[There is a link below to a wonderful live performance of Stevie Goodman performing this lyrical masterpiece by Michael Smith.]
Here is the Helen Luke quote which lays out the problem very coherently:
"As we look back on the extremely rapid emergence of women in the century into the masculine world of thought and action, it is not surprising that she has fallen into increased contempt for her own values. It has surely been a necessary phase but it’s effects have been devastating. Women have lost their true roots in nature and are constantly beset by the anxious feeling of being useless however outwardly successful. The dreams of modern women are full of this basic insecurity."
"It is time for women to turn from this hidden contempt for the feminine values and sees to identify creativity solely with the productions of thought and achievements in the outer world. It is exceedingly hard for us to realize, in the climate of Western society, but the woman who quietly responds with intense interest and love to people, to ideas, and two things, is as deeply and truly creative as the one who always seeks to lead, to act, to achieve."
"The feminine qualities of receptivity, of nurturing in silence and even secrecy are, whether in man or woman, as essential to creation as their masculine opposites and in no way inferior."
"But these are all rational thoughts about the situation. What of the images without which no change is possible? How is a woman, when she feels the immense fascination of the power of the spirit stirring in her to welcome it yet remain true to her womanhood, or how is she to be discover her feminine values if she has lost them? There are no intellectual answers. Only the images by which we live can bring transformation. The future hangs on this quest for the heart of love by both sexes. Each of us has a well of images within, which are the saving reality, and from which may be born the individual myth carrying the meaning of a life."
Helen Luke (Woman, Earth & Spirit)
Michael Smith lyrics to The Dutchman
The Dutchman's not the kind of man
Who keeps his thumb jammed in the dam
That holds his dreams in,
But that's a secret that only Margaret knows.
When Amsterdam is golden in the summer,
Margaret brings him breakfast,
She believes him.
He thinks the tulips bloom beneath the snow.
He's mad as he can be, but Margaret only sees that sometimes,
Sometimes she sees her unborn children in his eyes.
Let us go to the banks of the ocean
Where the walls rise above the Zuider Zee.
Long ago, I used to be a young man
And dear Margaret remembers that for me.
The Dutchman still wears wooden shoes,
His cap and coat are patched with the love
That Margaret sewed there.
Sometimes he thinks he's still in Rotterdam.
And he watches the tug-boats down canals
An' calls out to them when he thinks he knows the Captain.
Till Margaret comes
To take him home again
Through unforgiving streets that trip him, though she holds his arm,
Sometimes he thinks he's alone and he calls her name.
Let us go to the banks of the ocean
Where the walls rise above the Zuiderzee.
Long ago, I used to be a young man
And dear Margaret remembers that for me.
The winters whirl the windmills 'round
She winds his muffler tighter
And they sit in the kitchen.
Some tea with whiskey keeps away the dew.
And he sees her for a moment, calls her name,
She makes the bed up singing some old love song,
A song Margaret learned
When it was very new.
He hums a line or two, they sing together in the dark.
The Dutchman falls asleep and Margaret blows the candle out.
Let us go to the banks of the ocean
Where the walls rise above the Zuiderzee.
Long ago, I used to be a young man
And dear Margaret remembers that for me.
~ Rebecca Armstrong
