Masculine grieving and healing

A video based on the process described by Tom Golden. PLEASE NOTE, I have sent this article to three lists. Uou may have recieved it more than once. Thanks for your patience.

Please read past any typos; this letter has not been professionally proofread. Thanks.

A New Video Referencing Tom Golden’s Work

Good morning,

I received the above video today from Tom Golden via his Substack. Tom is a men’s advocate and grief counselor. I met him going through my own grieving process, healing from an attept to demolish my career for advocating for male survivors during the #metoo operation.

His friendship and public advocacy have been crucial to my ongoing growth and recovery, both personal and professional.

Tom’s message to the world is that men and women heal differently; we experience and move through grief differently. And how men experience their reality, inner and outer, is like some kind of occult secret. Male grief is concealed, said to be nonexistent, ridiculed and unrecognized for what it is.

‘Just the Way Things Are’

That men even feel pain is often denied by society, or blamed on men themselves (with the implicit message that men are inherently bad people and get what they deserve). The bias is so pervasive that men themselves almost always miss its existence or tally it up as “just the way things are.”

If anyone speaks about bias against men, they will inevitably be accused of misogyny (and they must know how to respond to that false claim).

In our current version of the world, the overwhelming proportion of both astrologers and therapists are women, and were trained mostly by other women. Astrology Student Union emerges as a public forum as the astrology community is still in the throes of the cancellation of one of its male elders, Steve Forrest, author of The Inner Sky.

There is a revolt against Steve’s cancellation from the elite astrology scene and many women object. Steve’s cancellation was reportedly validated and endorsed by one of the top female presenters at a conference that begins in two weeks (she has not responded to my repeated requests for comment, nor has one of the top professional organizations involved, NCGR).

Many women are furious about this, a fact that I find encouraging. And a few men are speaking up, but they rightly fear cancellation for even advocating for Steve.

Where are the Men?

I will return to that subject, which will be a topic of my on-scene coverage of the conference. Though I want to point out one thing: Astrology Student Union has had a healthy response by many wise and sincere women — yet only one man has even inquired about the program (and he has registered).

I know I reach readers who are men; I know many are aware of my advocacy for men and my questioning of all forms of gender and sexual bias.

Astrology Student Union is my latest effort to rise to the challenge of helping with the healing in an insane world where the sources of grief and loss never end. We will be learning from (among other teachers) the work of Tom Golden and also his colleague Paul Elam, who contributed a video to The Family Constellations Series.

We need male practitioners in astrology. We need men to teach the female practitioners how to work with men, through their experience.

We need astrology that is active in the community and that responds in a bold way to the current global crisis. We need astrology that balances the internal and the external worlds and is responsive to both.

We Are All Teachers

I will end below with a quote from one of my own articles, the one that allegedly caused so much trouble — sent as a postcard to the woman-dominated United Astrology Conference, after kicking one of its male elders to the curb.

A decade on, I would modify my idea: we need teachers who are both men and women, and who inform and educate one another. What I would not modify is that we are all teachers by example. If the Astrology Student Union had a building, over the door would be inscribed the words of A Course in Miracles: Everyone teaches, and teaches all the time.

Astrology is an amazing system in that it recognizes that all of us are made of a wide diversity of both masculine and feminine expressions (beginning with how we all have six masculine signs and six feminine signs; we all have the Moon and the Sun).

It is the ultimate gender-balanced system of thought. It would be excellent to see this reflected in the world.

Here is that allegedly misogynist quotation, based on the wisdom of Tantra:

In my theory of the universe, women, as the source of life, are the teachers. Whether one is right, wrong, or somewhere between, teaching happens by example. If men are being presumed to be in some way ignorant or in need of correction, it will presumably be women who do the teaching — and that will not happen with their words. It will be conveyed by women demonstrating what they believe is correct, through their actions.

Thank you Tom Golden for what you do, and for keeping the lights on for so many men.

with love,

The Story Beneath the Surface: A video by Gabbi Wolfe