In yesterday’s DM, I informed the story of a professor of training at Colby Faculty who’s encouraging his male college students to provide you with tales of wholesome masculinity by way of skits on TikTok.* After all I need to encourage such efforts.
I ended that DM with a quick itemizing of the wholesome masculine archetypes (relevant to ladies in addition to males) that I lay out in my guide on The Hidden Spirituality of Males: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.
Right this moment I share a quick abstract of every of those metaphors to help the inventive work individuals can do for themselves and others, whether or not younger or previous, male or feminine, to carry alive the wholesome masculine.
Typically when I’ve led retreats or workshops on the wholesome masculine, I first lecture on them swiftly, possibly 10-Quarter-hour to clarify every archetype. Then I invite individuals to interrupt up in teams of 5 or 6 individuals to create skits about one of many archetypes—solely 15 or 20 minutes allowed for preparation. Then they share the skits with the bigger group. After which on to a different one.
Outcomes are fantastic. Plenty of enjoyable and laughter within the course of and many perception too. As a result of it’s theater, the physique and creativeness are totally engaged. And readily remembered. That technique appears very match for the TikTok medium.
A number of the archetypes are these:
· Father Sky. In a time of a brand new creation story from science occurring—and every day footage from 13+ billion years in the past showing on our screens from Webb Telescope—and cosmogenesis turning into a brand new phrase and new manner of seeing our world, after all Father Sky is coming into his personal once more. Aquinas observes that the best factor concerning the human is that we’re capax universe, able to the universe.
· Inexperienced Man. In a time when our Mom Earth is being despoiled, after all the archetype of the Inexperienced Man who stands for the Defender of Mom Earth and humanity’s hyperlink to the vegetative world is coming into his personal once more.
· Blue Man. In a time when creativity is required to resolve our many issues as a species, the Blue Man who represents the therapeutic and creative self in us all calls us. He’s the “therapeutic Christ inside all of us as Hildegard paints and talks about him.
· The Non secular Warrior. It takes braveness and perseverance and an interior life to face as much as these forces and people preferring greed to the frequent good and management to justice. The Non secular Warrior or prophet says “No” and dares to intrude.
· The Hunter-Gatherer is embedded in all of us since 95% of our time on the planet Homo sapiens lived as hunter-gatherers. What are we trying to find right this moment? What are we gathering? What’s the genuine frequent good? Can we faucet into that highly effective vitality that’s deep in our DNA and share neighborhood (a standard activity) collectively?
· Fatherhood. Many younger males don’t come into their very own till they develop into fathers. Then they get up and be taught accountability and love as giving and defending and sacrificing.
· Grandfatherhood. Eldership is shamefully underdeveloped and beneath acknowledged in our society. The knowledge of elders, together with the knowledge of the younger, is a dynamic drive that may transfer society ahead.
Let TikTok contributors inform vigorous tales about all these archetypes and thus maintain up actual masculinity, which incorporates generosity and interior work that serves the bigger neighborhood.
To search out details about the Arms Off! March on Washington right this moment, click on HERE. Marches are additionally occurring in main cities and small cities throughout the nation. (Discover out extra on the identical hyperlink.)
* Fortesa Latifi, “Meet the Faculty Children Making ‘Optimistic Masculinity’ TikToks to Counter the Manosphere,” Rolling Stone, March 25, 2025.
Tailored from Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Males: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.
And Fox, “Non secular Warriorhood” in Fox, One River, Many Wells: Knowledge Springing from International Religion Traditions, pp. 404-423.
See Fox, Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Reworking Evil in Soul and Society.
And Fox, Unique Blessing.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion.
Banner picture: Males having fun with the pure world and each other’s firm. Photograph by Matheus Ferrero on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
Do you see an genuine and wholesome and thrilling masculinity and virility arising from incorporating and appearing out these archetypes? Would you encourage younger individuals to place them into TikTok and different media to awaken each other?
Advisable Studying
The Hidden Spirituality of Males: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he finds ten metaphors, or archetypes, starting from the Inexperienced Man, an historical pagan image of our basic relationship with nature, to the Non secular Warrior….These timeless archetypes can encourage males to pursue their larger calling to connect with their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Each man on this planet ought to learn this guide — to not point out each girl who desires to know the struggles, usually unconscious, that form the boys they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, writer of The Left Hand of God
One River, Many Wells: Knowledge Springing from International Faiths
Matthew Fox calls on all of the world traditions for his or her knowledge and their inspiration in a piece that’s way over a listing of theological place papers however a brand new method to pray—to meditate in a worldwide non secular context on the knowledge all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes which can be foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all of the world non secular traditions supply knowledge about every.“Studying One River, Many Wells is like getting into the wealthy silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you learn this textual content, you replicate, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Actually no phrases can totally specific my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to up to date spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, writer of Anatomy of the Spirit
Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had at all times shied away from utilizing the time period “Anti-Christ” as a result of it was so usually used to unfold management and concern. Nevertheless, given right this moment’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables on this guide using the archetype for the reason for justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a second, for inspecting the archetype of the Antichrist, it’s now…Learn this guide with an open thoughts. Good and evil are actual forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, writer of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For fast entry to Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white pictures, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To obtain a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for fast obtain.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Reworking Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling writer Matthew Fox provides a brand new theology of evil that essentially modifications the normal notion of fine and evil and factors the way in which to a extra enlightened remedy of ourselves, each other, and all of nature. In evaluating the Jap custom of the 7 chakras to the Western custom of the 7 capital sins, Fox permits us to suppose creatively about our capability for private and institutional evil and what we will do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a greater imaginative and prescient and depth of notion far past the grasp of anyone single science. A breath-taking evaluation.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, writer of Quantum Theology: Non secular Implications of the New Physics
Unique Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out an entire new route for Christianity—a route that’s in actual fact very historical and really grounded in Jewish pondering (the truth that Jesus was a Jew is commonly uncared for by Christian theology): the 4 Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an prolonged and deeply developed manner.
“Unique Blessing makes out there to the Christian world and to the human neighborhood a radical remedy for all darkish and derogatory views of the pure world wherever these might have originated.” –Thomas Berry, writer, The Dream of the Earth; The Nice Work; co-author, The Universe Story
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Consciousness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the which means and apply of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the long run that guarantees private, social, and international therapeutic, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, main the way in which towards a gentler and extra ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate exercise.
“Nicely price our deepest consideration…Places compassion into its correct focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
