William Keepin

The possibility for such collective healing holds tremendous transformative power that remains as yet untapped. It is difficult for people to imagine the freedom and energy that would be released if our society were to seriously embrace this task of collective gender healing in community.

Lasting harmony between the sexes cannot be achieved through social, psychological, or political reform alone...they are not sufficient in themselves because gender reconciliation entails an inherent spiritual dimension. Gender disharmony is vast and pervasive; its symptoms are manifest in myriad ways in virtually every culture across the globe. For authentic gender reconciliation, we aspire to a comprehensive approach that includes but also transcends traditional modes of social change, invoking a larger universal intelligence or grace.

There are moments in the course of gender healing work when the veils obscuring its deeper mystery are suddenly parted and the underlying omniscient presence of the Beloved, or Spirit, or Love _ the force and radiance at the core of the work _ is subtly revealed. In such moments there is an inexplicable energetic shift that touches everyone present, and people are moved beyond their usual selfish attachments into a selfless, universal compassion.

One thing we have learned is this: bringing compassionate, unflinching awareness to gender dynamics in groups and communities is a remarkably powerful place to begin. As in all spiritual practice, deepening awareness is itself transformative.

Gender is but a doorway to a vast inner universe of ultimate relationships between oneness and duality, manifest and divine, being and nonbeing, temporal and eternal.

We stand not as victims, but rather to bear witness to the gender injustices present in our lives and in our world as a whole.

When we stand, we do so not only for ourselves, but also for countless others who have similar stories but may never have an opportunity to be witnessed.

Reconciliation is a step beyond the domain of conflict resolution, which, as traditionally defined and practiced, is coming to be viewed as inadequate for creating true healing, harmony, and effective community in arenas where they has been long-standing conflict.

No one escapes gender conditioning. Most of us unwittingly carry the cultural gender shadow into our important relationships, and we end up in struggles with our partners, family members, friends, and colleagues that aren__ really about us as individual. When women and men do gender reconciliation work in community, they begin to see the power of this cultural baggage in a new light. They realise the prevalence of overarching social patterns and conditioning in much of their experience _ and comprehend that, in this larger context, they are not alone in what happened to them.

When women and men listen with the heart a liberating or cleansing process comes about in the collective, and something transformative moves through both parties and into the dialogue.

We live in an environment in which sexuality is often trivialized and defiled, stripped of its emotional depth and divorced from its sacred root.

Gender healing and reconciliation consciously invokes this universal love of the heart, which in the end has the capacity to overcome the very real and formidable challenges of gender oppression and injustice that have tormented human societies for literally thousands of years

A forum where real stories can be told, in uncensored detail, and be truly heard. A forum that is not limited to dialogue alone but welcomes the consequences of asking the deep questions _ where tears, outrage, embarrassment, anguish, shame, absurdity, forgiveness, compassion, healing, and spiritual grace can all come forth in their innate and flowing wisdom. A place where the heart can melt or soar as needed and the human spirit can triumph through the trials and tribulation of thousands of years of gender oppression and injustice.