The Woo Factor

From Bypassing to Belonging

I’m sensing that more and more men - and the masculine principle more broadly - are beginning to fall in love with what might be called the feminine, or the realm of “woo”: the felt sense of interconnectedness, intuition, cyclical wisdom, and the unseen threads that bind us to one another and to life itself. This awakening is both beautiful and promising.

However, without a committed path that supports integration - whether through inner work, embodiment practices, or relational accountability - this enchantment with the feminine risks becoming a form of spiritual bypassing. In such cases, woo remains on the surface - undigested and unintegrated. It rolls off the psyche like water off a rock, functioning more as a temporary ideology or identity marker than as a true source of transformation.

The challenge, then, is not merely to awaken to the feminine but to stay with her. To allow her presence to reshape how we relate, live, and hold ourselves and one another within the web of life. As such, what we need are reliable pathways to integrate the masculine and the feminine within ourselves, in the relationships we’re committed to, and in the systems we will need to rebuild when our current ones inevitably fall apart.

The web of existence is real. It lives in me as it lives in you. But when the immature masculine dominates - cut off from heart, vulnerability, and listening - the immature feminine has little chance of surviving unless she allies with him. And too often, she does this by hiding or seducing, rather than by standing in her full, sovereign presence.

In the emerging paradigm, the mature masculine and mature feminine will learn to work in harmony, honoring each other’s inherent differences while finding a rhythm of complementarity. Doing so will require trust - trust that our vulnerabilities won’t be used against us. This kind of trust must be cultivated first within ourselves, then between us in our ways of relating, and only then in the institutions we create together.

This personal and collective work can only move at the speed of trust. Cultivating trust, therefore, is essential. Find those with whom you can begin to build trust. Learn to allow it within yourself, between yourself and others, and among yourself and the world.

While a world based on trust, care, and love may feel heartbreakingly far off, the work of integration can begin right now. And one way to begin is by opening to the possibility that we are not, in fact, alone. Our separateness is not the end of the story - it’s just the beginning.

When we realize that this - that togetherness is not only possible, but true, then life becomes radiant with new possibility. And the growth that arises from that place of connection, coherence, and shared becoming is far greater than anything we could have reached on our own.