The Masculine and Feminine in Performance

Before sinking knee deep in the "Masculine Genius" it is important to put the concepts of masculinity and femininity into perspective. Masculinity and femininity are forever entangled in a relationship that cannot be dissolved. Neither can exist without the other and both desire the other continually.

P>LONG ISLAND, NY (Catholic Online) - In my previous article the case was made for a microscopic analysis of the "Masculine Genius." Before sinking knee deep in the "Masculine Genius" it is important to put the concepts of masculinity and femininity into perspective. Masculinity and femininity are forever entangled in a relationship that cannot be dissolved. Neither can exist without the other and both desire the other continually.

This wonderful dance of energy between the masculine and feminine is symbolic of God Himself. God is manifested to us as an indivisible union of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This relationship is so sacred, beautiful, and inspirational that its value is incomprehensible to all but God. God gives us a sense of Himself, however, by revealing His relational likeness through the physical world around us and even our very selves.

Anyone who has taken high school chemistry has learned about how tiny atoms of hydrogen form bonds with atoms of oxygen to make water. The hydrogen and oxygen atoms relate through their shared electrons. An even stranger relationship in science that has been in the spotlight recently is quantum entanglement.  Those in the scientific community sometimes refer to quantum entanglement as "spooky action" because it involves very tiny particles affecting each other over very large distances after a previous interaction! Sounds like these particles have some sort of a relationship!

Despite having created a physical world so fundamentally reflective of relationship, God saved the highest relational honor for man. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." Genesis 1:27 God created man in His very own image which is to say He gave man the ability to understand himself. This understanding is profoundly experienced through the marriage of man and woman, male and female. Blessed John Paul II discusses the beautiful nature of this relationship in great detail in his "Theology of the Body." 

"Theology of the Body" is a wonderful work for those curious about the mechanics of relationship. The beauty of the "Theology of the Body," however, is that it is experienced everyday and in ways you do not even recognize. I can attest to this experience. God has blessed me with the heart of a wonderful woman through whom He has revealed much to me. This woman is my fiancée and she is a talented dancer.

Prior to meeting my fiancée, dance was as far from my mind as the galaxies at the edge of the known universe. This, I now realize, was because it was challenging for me to be receptive to the talents of others that were foreign to me. I could never have imagined though how inspirational my fiancées dancing could be in helping me understand the relationship between the masculine and feminine.

Music is a somewhat of an invisible force in a dance that is made visible by a dancer. The dancers become the music by letting its emotion and beat be reflected in certain movements. This reflection is one of the amazing things about dance because it is how a dancer remembers the dance. Listening for a certain beat count or tempo clues the dancer as to which moves to use and how much energy to put into them. The dance is ultimately guided by the music - thus a dance about something joyful will look different from a dance about something sad.

The music also serves an important purpose of keeping dancers in synch when there are multiple dancers on stage. If a stage of 10 dancers danced to their own will, utter chaos would ensue. Dancers may collide, trip over each other, or just make the dance look very inartistic. I found the music is quite symbolic of the spiritual nature of masculinity.

The music certainly serves a purpose for the dancers but the dancer also does something equally important for the music. A dancer is a physical manifestation of the invisible beauty in music. Without a brilliant display of visual technique, it is very difficult for most human beings to truly appreciate the emotion and complexity of music.

It would be a shame if a beautifully composed song(s) was lost to time because no one could truly appreciate it. As visual beings, we remember and understand a great deal by seeing things. In fact, many of our memories are formed by things we see whether they are good or bad. I found the dancer is thus symbolic of the spiritual nature of femininity.

Any manifestation of masculinity or femininity can be demonstrated separately as can music and a dance, but when they work together in harmony they convey a much more powerful message. It is this understanding that sets up the masculine and feminine as complementary components of a harmonious performance rather than opponents on a battlefield. 

My God-given spiritual education through my fiancées talent to dance taught me the importance of appreciating and being receptive to the talents of others especially if you do not possess that talent yourself. In my case, this is one way I learned to appreciate the nature of femininity and its relationship to masculinity. Since we are created in God's image, each human being thus has the capacity to experience and understand both the feminine and masculine dimensions.

God assigns each human being a biological form that specializes in giving an understanding of either the masculine or feminine. Men reflect the masculine and women the feminine. A man and woman come to an understanding of the feminine and masculine respectively in a true marriage.

It is a common cliché that people say to their beloved "you complete me." Theologically and physically speaking no one is part human being -but there is room for completion in ones understanding of him/herself. I have learned a lot about myself through my fiancée and she has learned a lot about herself through me. God made marriage for all of us to understand ourselves, the beauty of relationship, and also for us to reflect that beauty to others so they may know Him.
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Joseph Rogers is a 26 year old Catholic man from Long Island, NY studying Material Science. Philosophy, history, and theology to feed his curiosity about understanding the human person. Christ is his greatest inspiration and strength in learning how to better serve those around him. His Catholic faith is important to him and has opened many doors in his life.

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