“… 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
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