An Australian Man in Search of an Embodied Spirituality

Abstract

This thesis attempts to answer the question of how a framework for a contemporary Australian male spirituality might be formulated. It provides a theoretical base for constructing a spirituality for Australian men that would prove more relevant than the religious patriarchal framework that many men have traditionally experienced. The study makes use of the potentially positive impact on men's spirituality, and that of Australian men in particular, of three of the most significant revolutions affecting contemporary society - the feminist, environmental and embodiment movements. A critical examination is first made of the many strands of the contemporary Men's Movement and the spiritualities associated with them to gain an overall view of the state of men's spirituality today. From this overview, a new philosophical and religious stance is developed, spiritual virism. This may be defined as a sacred worldview by and for men, which, informed by feminist spiritual principles and perspectives, results in a range of redefined personal and collective spiritualities for men in relation to the Sacred. As a result, men are challenged to work actively for the deconstruction of religious patriarchy with a view to the liberation of both men and women. Spiritual virism, in turn, defines the methodology employed throughout the thesis. It is a critical analytical methodology drawn from the disciplines of academic spirituality and feminist theory. It entails the deconstruction of life-denying forms of patriarchal religious attitudes and the construction of more life-giving forms of spirituality. As experience is central in both spiritual and feminist research, personal texts, involving my own spiritual experience expressed in my paintings and in autobiographical commentaries on them, are the prime starting points in this analysis. Discursive discourse, involving more abstract methodology, follows. The deconstruction of the traditional patriarchal understanding of the Sacred in Western Christianity is undertaken first. The construction of more life-giving images of the Sacred, drawn from parallel paradigms in feminist thealogy and earth-based religion, follows. The results are that men may find a positive re-imaging of the Sacred in non-gendered forms such as the Source or the Great Cycle of Life, or in gendered forms such as the god, radically reinterpreted, and especially in the feminine Sacred, the Goddess. Evolving contemporary perceptions of the place of the environment in spirituality, such as ecofeminism, deep ecology, the new science and ecotheology, are employed to help construct more positive spiritual practices for men with respect to nature, the earth and the cosmos. This follows a deconstruction of traditional patriarchal understandings of them within society and Western Christianity. Insights such as the Sacred embodied in the unfolding cosmos, in the living earth and in the web of all life, lead men to a more contemplative, less exploitative attitude to the world around them. Thirdly, having deconstructed the traditional patriarchal attitude of Western Christianity to the male body, the positive impact of contemporary embodiment theory and practice on a spirituality for men is sought. Implications are drawn from feminist understandings of the sacrality of the female body, from Christian embodiment theology and from the practices of body-honouring religions. A more body/earth-centred spirituality, which is non-dualistic and respects the sacredness of the body and sexuality, emerges. A unified spiritual framework draws together and integrates the positive insights of each of these studies. In seeking the application of this generic male spirituality to the Australian context, this framework is brought into dialogue with contemporary approaches to Australian spirituality. The result is a way of formulating an Australian men's spirituality from the perspective of An Australian Man in Search of an Embodied Spirituality, the title of my thesis. This spirituality is rooted in the land of Australia, where the body of the Australian man is seen as sacred and embodied within the sacred body of the Australian land. A sacred Australian mythos is explored to personalise this embodiment. This images the masculine Sacred, the god, as embodied within the man, who both move within the all-encompassing female Sacred, the Goddess, embodied within the land of Australia.