Reviving Eve

Exploring the next, and possibly final, wave of feminism

“Adam and Eve were persons of innocence until Eve yielded to the temptations of the evil serpent and Adam joined her in eating the forbidden fruit, whereupon they both recognized their nakedness and donned fig leaves as garments. Immediately God recognized their transgression and proclaimed their punishments—for the woman, pain in childbirth and subordination to man and, for the man, relegation to an accursed ground with which he must toil and sweat for his subsistence.” - A summary from the Book of Genesis by Encyclopedia Brittania

Spiritual traditions have stories, like the one in the Bible about Adam and Eve, to explain our suffering and ways to transcend it. These frameworks provide the ground for understanding and coping with our sense of separateness, which encompasses both our profound aloneness and our innate longing for connection. 

In some sense, we all understand that we possess a unique individuality, yet play a part in an interconnected whole. Thus, our lives constitute a journey in which we must develop our capacity toward self-actualization while also sublimating ourselves in favor of what is good for the group we are a part of. Learning to accept this tension between prioritizing ourselves and acquiescing to others is something we must come to terms with if we are to mature. It is not solely our individual responsibility; it is also our collective obligation.

I have suggested that the pain of separation originating from birth results in coping strategies for dealing with our existential predicament and that these patterns of being inadvertently resist reality. I have also pointed out how proper "weaning" opens the door to accepting reality as it is. Only then can we become effective agents of change in the world. Because these developmental tasks are far from simple, they often require a lifetime to accomplish.

Maturity is reached when we embrace our differences as a basis for genuine connection, rather than seeing our separateness as an immutable barrier. Essentially, when we accept our separateness, we become curious about ourselves and each other. Cultivating curiosity is how we deliver ourselves from our loneliness, how we gain the ability to understand and be understood, and ultimately, how we love and are loved in return.

Within this context, it is evident that everything emerges from relationship. A relationship is comprised of conditions that form a container from which something new arises. In the physical environment, this phenomenon is determined by natural laws. In the psychological realm, this dynamic is based on individual and collective agreements. When these physical and psychological elements align, a potential for relatedness is born, providing the nutrients that create and sustain life. Relatedness is the implicit or explicit recognition that we affect the world and the world affects us. In essence, relatedness is the emergent process through which life evolves into an interconnected, interpenetrating whole.

A New Orientation for Addressing the Meta-Crisis

Our world is facing a meta-crisis due to what Daniel Schmatchenberger describes as escalating rivalrous dynamics, exponential technological growth, and ecological depletion. This current trajectory suggests a potential for increased authoritarian control or worse, civilizational collapse. Therefore, we urgently need a radically different way of orienting ourselves in the coming decades.

In “The Master and his Emissary,” Iain McGilchrist guides us in exploring such a possibility. He emphasizes the importance of cultivating two types of attention: narrow-focused and broad-based attention. Modernity and post-modernity have primarily favored narrow-focused attention, which is predominantly located in the left hemisphere of the brain. This form of attention involves dissecting the world into its constituent parts, offering us the ability to manipulate and interact with our environment. This mode of attention leads to progress.

However, growth is beneficial only up to a certain threshold. Individually and collectively, there comes a juncture when differentiation, though crucial for all growth, must yield to union, or more precisely, reunion. It appears that this juncture is upon us. Essentially, it is time to prioritize wholeness over differentiation. This implies consciously strengthening broad-based attention in the right hemisphere, the aspect of ourselves that holds space for our inspiration to emerge. 

The good news is that we need not look far for direction finders of this way of being because this broad-based attention is inherently female in body and feminine in spirit as it is the source from which life itself comes forth and is nurtured. Although women and men are far more similar than they are different, the differences are quite pronounced. Scientific evidence suggests differences in the wiring of female and male brains, particularly in structures associated with the default mode network (self-reflection), striatum (motor planning), and limbic system (emotional regulation). These results seem to map onto the research which indicates differences in what women and men prefer to pay attention to. 

For example, women tend to focus on relationships. On average, they are interested in how people get along and thus, often hold physical and psychological space for other people’s experiences. Men, on the other hand, tend to concentrate on things, like systems and structures. In general, they prioritize fairness and effectiveness in the interactions among different units of people, recognizing boundaries and accomplishing tasks between them. These distinctions make more sense when viewed through an evolutionary lens. Mothers must be able to interpret their babies’ non-verbal cues, a demanding endeavor that consumes significant time and energy. Therefore, fathers must assume the role of providing for and safeguarding mother and child.

Just as the union or integration of feminine and masculine aspects of reality is vital for the creation and maintenance of life, both in actuality and in the realm of the psyche, so do we need both hemispheres of the brain to properly perceive what is possible. In “The Matter with Things,” McGilchrist describes this harmony as:

“all that is to be known must initially ‘presence’ to the right hemisphere (we have no other access); then be transferred to the left hemisphere to gain expression through re-presentation; and that re-presentation returned to the right hemisphere where it is either recognised for its consonance with the initial presencing and subsumed into a new Gestalt, or rejected.”

This oscillation is what Jonathan Rowson calls “The McGilchrist Manoeuvre.” In my experience, zooming out cultivates non-judgmental awareness or presence by holding a ‘both/and’ perspective while zooming in attempts to make sense of the world by manifesting an ‘either/or’ judgment. Zooming out, zooming in, and then zooming out reveals wisdom through a process of discernment. In other words, the BOTH ‘either/or’ AND ‘both/and’ perspective gives way to something real, something that corresponds with reality. Only then can a new gestalt be born. 

Wisdom corresponds with the actuality of our lives. It relies on a mature feminine aspect to presence what is manifested by a mature masculine aspect so that what is emerging is aligned with what the moment is asking of us. Increasing wisdom is essential for effectively addressing the social, political, and ecological crises we face.

The Next Wave of Feminism

Since reviving our connection with the right hemisphere, what I call the mature feminine spirit, is necessary for developing wisdom, the process that initiated our very birth into this life with its accompanying self-awareness is the same process that can bring us back into union with “what is.” Like the weaving represented by an infinity symbol, we must cultivate a way of being that continually moves between narrow focus and broad-based attention to test our perceptions against reality. When we engage in this process authentically, rooted in the actuality of our lives, we undergo a phenomenon that John Vervaeke calls "reciprocal opening.” This process is love. Through love, we understand that the fertile space from which everything occurs is just as valuable as the content that emerges from it.

Although the term "feminism" often carries political connotations, the concept simply recognizes that incorporating the female way of being is beneficial for society. Thus, the four waves of feminism have enabled women to enjoy many of the rights and privileges that men have. The first wave aimed to give women a voice in society, the second wave focused on women's reproductive rights, the third wave emphasized gender equality and the fourth and current wave is emphasizing women’s empowerment.

I intuit the next, and possibly final, wave of feminism will recognize and value the mature feminine spirit as grounded in, but not limited to, the female body. Possibly referred to as “metamodern feminism,” this wave will bring relatedness to the foreground of our awareness. More specifically, because the mature feminine spirit is deeply rooted in an appreciation of our inherent differences, this aspect of being enables us to make authentic contact with reality through a process of relatedness or knowing and being known - which is love. When we fall in love with reality, we experience the Sacred.

While participation, liberation, equality, and empowerment are necessary for a functional society, differentiation, relationship, and relatedness are essential for love. Love is how we connect with the Sacred by accepting reality as it is. By honoring the Sacred, we live in harmony with our environment. In essence, honoring relationality is the foundation of a new orientation which will require us to reconstruct the current paradigm.

Reviving Eve

Far from merely symbolizing humanity’s fallibility, Eve signifies the birth of human consciousness, the development of self-awareness, and the emergence of our capacity to make wise decisions. The wisdom embodied as Eve lives in you as it lives in me and is ready to find its rightful place in the web of life. Let us not waste time but invite it to emerge. In light of the current situation, we need to embrace a radically new way of orienting ourselves. We must revive our connection with the mature feminine spirit, cultivate broad-based attention, and learn to alternate between narrow and broad perspectives. Only then can we move forward with our relatedness fully engaged and fall in love with Reality to create a better future.