The following was written in 2000

Further perspectives on  our journeying as a couple and on the harmony of male and female   in regard to didg.

Well by touching on female male relationships of old and new, I'd like to  share some  meaningful reflections .

In traditional aboriginal culture women played a primary role  as to the structuring and guidance of life and ritual. To look from an outsiders perspective though it seemed  a male  dominated or focused culture. But not so! Women were and are often the rocks the earth, their bodily cycles  and birthing of their children grounding them to earth life in a way us fellas often struggle to emulate. In traditional culture this was understood and respected and so was the need for men to focalise more so on the ritual side to help ground themselves from becoming too spirit .

In today's world we are aiming  for equality in all respects and yet  in the desire for equality we  run the risk of not honouring and respecting our differences or strengths.

Its therefore a challenge to find ones way and cut a clear path. In this  new frontier , Anthiam is like many women, who own their male side that desires expression and achievement, whilst celebrating their   femininity.

In our didg business all that comes about is grounded in the sharing's the feedback the guidance that comes from our relationship, working together.

Whilst, I tend to focus more on creating,  providing,  achieving , a warrior  in a different realm, lets honour equally the subtle realm that nots seen but felt and sensed, or trusted, as with ones intuition. Lets begin to notice and honour equally the feeling realm ,the feminine realm and not judge equality via a mans perspective. I appear to be the one making the didgs  . Ahh but not so.

Aside from the feminine realm that is her greatest giving, Anthiam is practically involved with many aspects  of the business. But as with  our cultures way of seeing things  there can be a  tendency to downplay the support or nurturing position and idealise  the lead position. Same as our tendency to trust what we see more than what we feel.

I'm not putting all  women in  the support role per say for each individual is   such and  has their own balance, but that , we can never put aside womens tendency to  hold more  of the naturing  qualities despite the aim to harmonise and minimise the extremes of the male / female polarisation.

With this being the case we can only envision a   culture that honours feminine  qualities with  the same  respect   as the  outward male qualities.

Interestingly too ,the feminine embodies qualities difficult and somewhat   impossible to intellectualise or write about. This explains why I agonised over what to write.

So  most of the gifts and beauty of the feminine can't be written about and do justice. I can only hopefully allude to them somewhat.

So I dedicate my sharings  and blessings to  Anthiam  and to the feminine in us all , to the vision that our culture will find a way to truly acknowledge both female and male qualities and to integrate this reconciliation into all aspects of life ;

*from birthing by giving back the power to   women, midwifes, and that  hospitals keep finding new ways to respect and empower patients to become healers, via us all sharing and supporting healing and nurturing.

* to schooling, where  a child's feeling realm will be honoured as being as important as achievements ,where  how to be   loving in relationship is as important as how to get our needs met.

*to home and school and home and work where we find ways to support integration as being as important as the choice to explore polarisation.

*to clan and community ,where we learn to take responsibility for all aspects of life rather than giving our power away to distant political processes.

*to our spiritual lives ,where we become co creators of religions that are more organic  breathing groups of  people exploring their sacred relationship to life and all creation. A place where, just being, is honoured  as   a spiritual act and where ritual is only  a tool that we don't hang our hat on but recreate as we change  to suit our desire to grow.

Didgeridoo for us reflects the dance of female and male, the solid hollow log together with  the air and vibration of the hole.

The process of changing our surname reflects the dance we desire! We were both thinking up a name and  at the same time individually we both came up with the same name. I from an intellectual exploration of the Alpha Omega (the male and female principles), Anthiam by intuiting it from another similar word .In two separate parts of the house without any pre discussion she shouts out what about Alaom just as I think it, by putting  the two words together to create one.

In  extending  our surname from Bradford to Bradford Alaom we empower taking with us the best of our ancestry symbolised by the ritual of taking on my family name-Bradford .  By adding Alaom which comes from the first letters from Alpha and Omega meaning the beginning and the end we hold opposites as one ,we live for harmony, unity and oneness.

Another didg friend came by a  source that spoke of didg as working with the Alpha and Omega order of Melchizedeck, a subtle order of Spiritual beings that work with supporting reconciliation of polar forces.

Coincidence. I don't think so! And Why was didg for men only ,perhaps to support the harmonising or completing of the end of this cycle. Why are women now attracted to it . Perhaps because we're beginning to explore the coming together that has been long  awaited on the planet. Why is male contained in female and yet  we generally lead by saying male and female, men and women.

Why in talking of Anthiam do  I include much more. Well,  in the physical realm we understand via the body the feelings the feminine , the experience  and yet our sojourn into the spirit -male realm for centuries or millenniums has served its purpose to stretch our consciousness ,but its certainly time to honour again the body ,the earth and the feminine and find the balance.

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