It is with great pleasure that I introduce our July Reflections Parallel class to you entitled, Beyond Patriarchy: Recovering the Divine Feminine and Sacred Masculine and Why it Matters Today. This magnificent course will be taught by the renowned writer, mystic, and global teacher, Matthew Fox.

Before sharing the theme and write up of this course, I wanted to do a personal introduction to this class because of who Matt is to me. I was a student of Matt’s in graduate school in the late 1970’s. At that time, he was well on his way to earning his reputation as a renegade and dangerously brilliant Dominican priest who openly challenged some of the core doctrines of the Catholic Church, among them the archaic teaching of ‘original sin.’

Matt authored a book entitled, ‘Original Blessing,’ opposing the idea that any human being was flawed by the act of birth. Matt describes his theme in ‘Original Blessing’ in these stunning words: “In speaking of ‘original blessing,’ it is not solely about us humans but about the 13.8 billion years that brought us here. Since ‘blessing’ is the theological word for goodness, whatever the wild goings on in the universe from the fireball to today, the miracle is that we are here and ‘here’ is so special a place, the earth is such an ‘original blessing’ and the amazing critters we share it with from oranges to orangutans, from elephants to polar bears, rainforest, whales, plants, and all the rest that make our lives a blessing also. Actually, Genesis one, talks about ‘original blessing’ when it makes a mantra of how individual creations are ‘good’ (or the same word can be translated ‘beautiful’) and all together, at the end, with humans on board, it is ‘very good’ and/or ‘very beautiful’.”

Inner spiritual liberation is a very difficult sensation to describe, but listening to Matt, a Dominican priest at that time (he has since become an Episcopal priest) introduce cosmic-sized theological ideas as a student launched my inner world and my spiritual imagination. I would suddenly have this inner realization that it was ‘okay’ to feel that I was no longer Catholic or controlled by the parameters of Catholic dogma. I felt spiritually cosmic, not bound by the teachings of my youth.

Because of Matt’s outrageously controversial teachings on the cosmic design of the Divine, I exploded out of conventional Catholicism and began my exploration into the nature of human consciousness. I have memories of driving home from class so excited that I could not keep my attention on the road. My dreams exploded into cosmic night travels, waking up with wild symbolic images and questions already animated in my mind that I had no memory of asking.

Graduate school was my entrance into mystical consciousness, and I have never looked back. Let me add, I chose to study Theology in graduate school because I knew that I needed to break out of my own thinking patterns. I could sense my own intellectual boundaries and I knew I needed guidance to think ‘bigger.’ I didn’t know why I needed to find my way out of my ‘my own way,’ so to speak, but I knew that if I could not think in ‘whole’ thoughts, I would intellectually limp through my life.

It was Matt who told me years ago that I should read the work of Teresa of Avila, as her teachings on the seven mansions of the soul that she presents so stunningly in, The Interior Castle, would so perfectly align to what I had written in, Anatomy of the Spirit. Other than knowing her name, I was unfamiliar with the writings and teachings of Teresa of Avila at the time Matt made that suggestion, but because he pointed me in that direction, I purchased my first book on the writings of Teresa of Avila.

To say that I am delighted to have Matt present a Reflections Parallel course is a masterpiece of understatement. I am once again exploding with delight, enthusiasm, and respect for the subject matter that he has chosen to share. David and I asked him to teach the topic that he felt most enthusiastic about at this time, and he chose, Beyond Patriarchy.

Just as Matt once launched me into cosmic-sized thinking, I know his teachings on this topic will have the same impact on many – if not most – of you. We do not (in general) use the term ‘patriarchy’ to describe archetypal dynamic that is at play in our collective, but from a mystical and archetypal perspective, the powerful forces of the masculine and feminine archetypes are now blending toward the dynamic of holism. That is, the clear polarity between what is male and what is female is becoming unified in a way that we are experiencing in the expanding views of sexual identities, for example. And from another perspective, this blending of masculine and feminine is also creating enormous controversies, as all stages of evolution always do.

Everyone benefits, however, from gaining a higher – indeed cosmic – perspective on this collective and remarkable human journey of transformation that we are all sharing. And now, I will let Matt’s own words describe the class he is offering in July.

Love, Caroline