The Feminine and Masculine — Complementary Principles of Wholeness
Every wisdom tradition recognizes two complementary cosmic principles — variously named masculine and feminine, yin and yang, Shiva and Shakti, solar and lunar — whose dynamic interplay generates all creation and whose integration within the individual produces wholeness.
The recognition of complementary masculine and feminine cosmic principles is among the most universally distributed cosmological teachings: the Taoist Yin-Yang (the receptive, dark, fluid, inward feminine and the active, light, solid, outward masculine as complementary aspects of all reality); the Hindu Shiva-Shakti (pure consciousness and its creative power as inseparable divine principles); the Kabbalistic dynamic of Chesed (masculine, expansive, generous) and Gevurah (feminine, contracting, boundaried) as complementary attributes of the divine; the Jungian anima and animus as psychological archetypes requiring integration; the Indigenous recognition of Mother Earth and Father Sky as generative cosmic principles. What is universally recognized is that these are not merely gender concepts but cosmic principles: every human being regardless of biological sex contains both principles and requires both for wholeness. The over-development of one at the expense of the other — in individuals, cultures, and civilizations — produces characteristic forms of distortion and dysfunction.
The nature of woman is the same as the nature of the earth; the nature of man is the same as the nature of heaven.
Developmental psychologist Carol Gilligan's research on moral development documented two complementary ethical orientations — an ethic of justice (associated with the masculine principle) and an ethic of care (associated with the feminine principle) — and argued that full moral maturity requires the integration of both, confirming the universal teaching that wholeness requires the balance of both principles.
I Ching