“I don’t know,” Ava mused. “Maybe.”
“You’re gonna find out today,” Liam said, and we came to a stop beside them. “Take a seat.”
By the sound of rushing water, we were somewhere near the fountains. I sat down in the grass beside Ava’s chair, and Sophia and Liam sat across from me. Oberi’s goofy ass romped across the gardens and plopped into my lap. I let out an oof as he knocked the wind out of me.
“First things first. You two are out of balance,” Liam said. “If we fix that first, we can start working on all these other problems.”
“Wow, we didn’t figure that out before,” Ava mumbled. “What a revelation.”
“Cut your smart mouth, peanut,” Liam said. “You already know these lessons, but it looks like you’ve forgotten them, and Charlie’s never learned, so we’re going to have to start at the beginning.”
I’d missed so much of my culture. I was glad to be getting these lessons now, but I sometimes wondered if I’d known all this Hawkei wisdom before, we could’ve avoided the situation we were in.
Maybe not, though, because Ava had this knowledge, and we’d still ended up in the same place.
“How do we get back into balance?” I asked. Being married was like a balancing act itself, and we’d stumbled and dropped everything we’d been holding up. Our love, each other’s feelings, our emotional well-being, our life together. I didn’t want to watch it fall out of my hands again.
“As Elementai, we work with the spirits of the Earth, and the different energies that live inside of us. We are not separate from this land, but a part of it, a reflection of nature and the spirit realm itself,” Sophia said. “That means uniting the masculine and feminine within.”
“What does that mean?” Did they want me to be more manly, and Ava more lady-like? Sorry to say, I was probably too aggressive in that department already, and as far as Ava went, that wasn’t happening.
“These are not the traditional embodiments modern society would have you think they are.
These are practices rooted in ancient tradition,” Sophia explained. “Feminine energy is creative. It embodies compassion, growth, and patience. It is sensitive and graceful, in touch with sexuality, with nurturing oneself. It relies on intuition, on the energy of trust. It is, above all, the energy of creation itself, of giving life.”
“And masculine energy is protection of that life,” Liam clarified. “Masculine energy focuses on providing and safeguarding. It’s action-forward and logical. It summons strength, confidence, and is set on finding purpose. It centers itself on the external, on caring for others.”
“In our tribe, marriage is meant to be a union of these two energies as one,” Sophia said. “The feminine is meant to receive, while the masculine is meant to give. The masculine grounds, while the feminine takes flight. They complement each other while co-existing in the same space.”
“And no one is completely feminine nor completely masculine,” Liam added. “There are traits of both in all people. Some people are more feminine than they are masculine, and vice versa, but for a person to truly thrive, both sides have to be in balance. When these two sides are out of alignment, whether in a person or in a marriage, it can cause problems. Too much masculinity can cause a person to become aggressive and egotistical. A person with wounded masculine energy will shut down their emotions, become defensive, and seek to control whatever they can to avoid feeling vulnerable.”
I winced. That was definitely me. I was certainly out of balance.
“And too much femininity will lead to a lack of boundaries,” Sophia clarified. “Love and empathy can feel overwhelming to the wounded feminine. Someone with too much feminine energy will be in emotional chaos, unable to control their feelings or the consequences of them. The wounded feminine will try to manipulate situations or reject the idea of being gentle or soft, for fear they’ll be taken advantage of. The wounded feminine side does not operate out of trust, but fear.”
“We get it. You basically read off a laundry list of everything that’s wrong with me,” Ava said grumpily.
“There are things wrong with both of us,” I said, to try and help her feel better. “You’re not the only one in the wrong.”
“No one is wrong, here,” Sophia clarified. “It’s not unusual to be out of alignment from time to time if you’re not paying attention, simply due to the difficult circumstances everyone goes through in life. And masculine and feminine energy don’t mean male and female. No one person is meant to serve as the sole masculine or the sole feminine. Different couples can serve different roles. Sometimes, the situation reverses, like you’ve seen with your friends Marcus and Kallie.”
I smirked. That was a perfect example. Marcus definitely embodied more feminine traits, while Kallie seemed to thrive in masculine energy.
“That makes sense. Ivy was assigned male at birth, but they have an abundance of feminine energy, while Chancey embodies the masculine,” Ava said.
“Correct. But you also see where the different energies are out of alignment when it comes to their relationship,” Sophia said. “Couples are meant to live together in a flow state.”
“Exactly. Sophia and I typically fit into conventional roles. I usually embody the masculine, and she thrives in the feminine,” Liam explained. “But sometimes, there are times when she needs to embody the masculine, and I need to embody the feminine. We trade off roles, existing in a state where we can match what the other needs, and what our marriage needs, as situations arise.”
I wasn’t sure if Ava and I would ever get into that kind of flow state, where we’d seamlessly match whatever the other person needed when they needed it. It was hard enough getting us on the same book, let alone the same page, but we had to learn how if we were going to make this work.
“So how do Ava and I balance these energies?” I asked. “Even if we balance them inside of ourselves, how do we know what roles we serve in our marriage?”
I really didn’t want to get into this BDSM stuff with her parents, because they didn’t need to know what had gone on in our bedroom, but that situation reflected these lessons. Me serving as Ava’s dom and her as my sub had worked for us for a long time, but we’d gone too hard in one direction. I didn’t think we could live happily without those roles, but at the same time, they’d become toxic to us, too. We needed to clearly define things, because since I’d lost my position as her dominant, I didn’t know what Ava needed from me or what to do in order to move us forward.
“That’s what you’re going to figure out, because we can’t do it for you. It’s something you two need to decipher for yourselves,” Liam said as he stood. “Come on. Your carriage is waiting.”
“What do you mean, our carriage?” I asked.
