A Sip of Lemonade
- Gogo uMkhanyakude
- Oct 24, 2016
- 8 min read
There is a principle in the Bible that is set forth very early on. In the creation story of Genesis 1, we see the words "each according to its own kind" repeated all throughout the first chapter describing the process of reproduction. All things being equal, the Bible is both a literary work of art and a metaphysical code book. So, when we read the words, "each according to its own kind" in repetition after each instance of creation, we can infer that this is a pattern that all reproduction and replication follows.
With that being said, I want to talk about our relationship with our fathers, our male lovers, and the Divine Masculine.
"Came into this world
Daddy's little girl
Daddy made a soldier out of me."
Beyoncé, "Daddy Lessons:"
It's a well-known truth that a father is a daughter's first love. I know my daddy was. Even though he's only 5'10", to me, he was 10 feet tall. He was the most beautiful man I knew. He always smelled good, and dressed nice, and he treated me like his little princess. That is, until I hit puberty. That's when the tension became evident in our relationship. He became less affectionate and more authoritarian. He stopped speaking to me with gentleness, and the sound of disdain soon began to tinge his words. For a little while, I thought my daddy hated me. I thought he hated me because I was a girl, because I wasn't a boy.
See, I was the only child at the time, and my daddy always lamented not having a son. So, as I grew and began to come of age, I equated his increasing emotional absence with my burgeoning femininity/sexuality. That's the seed that reproduced in my subconscious and replicated itself in my relationships with men.
As I grew in age and stature, I began to attract relationships with men that reflected this fractured sense of identity that had, like a virus, spread throughout my soul causing me to downplay my natural magnetism and my spiritual intelligence, all while subconsciously trying to win the approval of my father. It wasn't until much later in my adult life that I began to realize that my father's approval was never meant to be mine. The Divine Feminine doesn't require the approval of the Divine Masculine or vice versa. Complementary energy and effort? Yes. Approval? No.
"Daddy liked whiskey with his tea."
I love my best friend, Michelle. We have some of the most amazing conversations that often result in deep, soul revelations. One such insight came about recently when we were discussing the nature of our relationships with certain men in our lives and astrology. During this discourse, we discovered that all of the men I chose to partner with exhibited distinct and distinguishable characteristics and traits of my father, and that my role is to reflect the Divine Feminine back to those areas to inspire acceptance, healing, and eventually wholeness within the Divine Masculine.
In other words, in encountering my Divine Masculine counterpart (my father) in each man I choose, I am reminding myself of two things:
The Divine Masculine is wounded.
The Divine Feminine is the healer.
My father's behaviors and attitudes towards me began to shift drastically when I entered puberty. The wounded Masculine within him was rebelling against its own healing, much the same way a child does when he is overwhelmed by his emotions and throws a tantrum. Although it hurt like hell to endure, and I didn't understand it, I did because it was all I knew how to do. Endurance is bred into Black women in this world. "Taking it" was almost second-nature.
Honestly speaking, no one can get through to my dad the way I can as his firstborn daughter. I'm sure that if I were to ask any daughter with a reasonable relationship with her father, she'd say the same thing. Daughters are gifted to interact with the souls of their fathers in a very unique way. It's the same thing with sons and their mothers. Humans have children because our soul is ready to confront itself. The universe did the same thing when it split itself off into a fractal reality and created life. The trick is that the truth of this choice is often locked up in our subconscious mind, and so we don't recognize our reflection in our children when we see it. That's why my daddy started changing when I did. And, like any ignorant young girl would, I took it personally.
The truth is, my daddy has, like many of the men I know, wounds that he has never allowed to see the light of day. Because of the lie of this hijacked Matriarchy we mistakenly call Patriarchy, many men are completely underdeveloped in their emotional selves. Society-at-large conditions young boys to stifle their emotional expression, and even to ignore it completely. They channel that vulnerability into testosterone-driven activities and soon competition and acquisition become cheap substitutes for emotional depth. Men with a low E.Q. (Emotional Intelligence Quotient) respond to emotional stimuli the way a 9-year-old boy does. They shut down. They become unresponsive or belligerent. They find it difficult to identify, interpret, and communicate their feelings in a healthy way. My father did, and still does, all of these things. As a man well into his 60's, the likelihood of him changing is quite frankly, very low.
However, because he is my father, and every seed reproduces or replicates after its own kind, he/my dad/the wounded Masculine keeps showing up in my relationships. So I researched my natal chart. and I discovered something very interesting. Most people are only familiar with the planetary correlations in their astrological chart, but I learned that there is more. There are asteroids in our charts as well. Asteroids... what some people look at as "space debris". Let's look at how this "debris" affects us.
"The asteroids were all named after the female family of Jupiter. Ceres his sister, Juno his wife, Pallas Athena his daughter and Vesta another sister. Much of the feminine is left out of astrology aside from Venus and the Moon. The asteroids help add the feminine back into the astrological chart. Pallas Athena was the second asteroid discovered. Named after Jupiter's daughter, Pallas Athena is intelligent and cerebral. She is the weaver of patterns, linking ideas together. She is strategic command in both the warrior and the peaceful general.Cities are her domain. She has an interconnection with Libra because of her focus on ideas. Like Libra, she can see both sides. She is not blind justice… she is only just. She is creative and artistic. She is a survivor. She expects everyone to claim their personal power.Where her influence falls is where you will find talents in the following areas. Jupiter's daughter carries influence over many things, such as the immune system, the arts, the father/daughter relationship, intuition, justice, wisdom, defense, horses and the kidneys.With her spotlight on daddy's little girl, Pallas Athena will help determine how you interpret your relationship with your father, and in turn how you treat all males in general. On her negative side, Pallas Athena touches on conflict, legal battles, injustice and illnesses due to a weakened immune system."
My Pallas Athena rests in Aries. My father is an Aries sun. Pallas has an interconnection with Libra. Both of the fathers of my children and my lover are Libra suns. (Read Goddess Angelika's blog, "Libra and the Divine Feminine.")
"Pallas Athena in Aries charges in and tries to find the fastest solution. They get the action started for whatever purpose they need. They love competition and battle. They are innovative and inventive. They know how to mobilize the vital energy, whether it is for fighting, inspiration, artistically or for healing. They are pioneers. This is a good combination for artists, acupuncturists, homeopathy practitioners and athletes.
What this means for me is that I have the creative ability to facilitate strategic healing, to create beneficial patterns, and to mobilize vital energy to inspire the men in my life to focus on their personal power. Before I knew this, I attracted abusive situations under the guise of healing or intercession. That's what happens when that Divine Feminine energy is out of balance. When I began to operate consciously from a place of emotional balance, I realized that I am actually able to strategize creatively to get a desired outcome, in this case, the remembrance of Divine Masculine energy. All women are.
This is about our relationships to our daddies, our male lovers, and the Divine Masculine. As the optimal embodiment of Divine Feminine energy, women have a unique responsibility to bring healing to the Divine Masculine so that we can interrupt the patterns of replication in our relationships. I know that there is a contingency of women who will read this and interpret it as me saying that Black women need to save, rescue, and redeem Black men. I did not say that, nor can it reasonably be inferred from anything that has been written here. This really isn't even about "men" and "women," it's about the Divine Feminine bringing balance to the wounded Divine Masculine. That is the nature of nature, of the universe itself.
Ma'at is represented as female in Kemetic iconography. This is because ideals of justice, harmony, balance, cosmic cycles, and truth are distinctly feminine in essence. These things belong to the Sacred Feminine within both males and females. Women are uniquely created to activate that energy with the men we interact with, and especially those with whom we connect intimately. Women have within us the power to create new patterns within our relationships, thereby embodying our own personal power and empowering the men in our lives to do the same.
Back to the Lemonade. In the last section of the visual album, called "Redemption," Beyoncé shares practical wisdom for turning lemons into lemonade from her late grandmother, Agnéz Deréon's, recipe for making lemonade.
Take one pint of water, add half pound of sugar
The juice of eight lemons
The zest of half lemon
Pour the water from one jug, then to the other several times
Strain through a clean napkin
Unlike typical lemonade recipes, this one calls for a secret ingredient: lemon zest. The oils from the zest infuse into the lemonade and boost the lemony flavor. There's something deeply cathartic and therapeutic about preparing the lemonade like this. The lemon squeezing, swishing the lemonade back and forth between jugs until the sugar dissolves, and straining out the pulp and lemon zest: all of these actions take time, and yet focusing on them is like a meditation. The procedure is slow and calming, which is perfect for a scorching Summer day. The lemonade flavor itself is shockingly citrusy at first before ending on a soothing, sweet (but not too sweet!) note. I can see why Beyoncé's family has passed this recipe down from daughter to daughter, and why she would pass it, along with the simple-yet-wise message, to her fans and women everywhere.
There's a common theme here. Lemonade, Pallas Athena, and Ma'at all stand in formation to remind women of our power as strategic innovators and creators within our relationships. Women are uniquely gifted to take little and make it much. We are born multipliers, capable of destroying and creating over and over again. We don't have to endure the sour lemonade of the wounded Masculine we experienced from our fathers. We've got a secret ingredient... that lemon zest, our feminine magick, our personal juju. When we allow ourselves to be zesty, we embody the ability to move mountains.. and men. When the Divine Masculine receives the healing from its Feminine counterpart, our future generations are healed. So, like I said, this isn't about rescuing a man from his bullshit. This is about acknowledging our Divine power and being so whole within ourselves that the men in our lives rescue themselves.
- mb.
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