Solar Light, Lunar Light: Perspectives in Human Consciousness by Howard Teich
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Howard Teich’s groundbreaking new book, SOLAR LIGHT, LUNAR LIGHT, Perspectives in Human Consciousness, courageously challenges the cherished assumption that masculine and feminine traits represent opposing forces. In fact, Dr. Teich shows how that entrenched belief has led to limitation and dysfunction in our human growth and development. Dr. Teich posits and proves in his new widely praised book that the masculine and feminine are actually cooperative partners, no less in harmony than the sun and the moon.
Dr. Teich convinces us to ditch our gender bias and recognize that men and women both are influenced by the sun and the moon. For example is that the moon, just like the tender feelings that have been associated with women, belong to the masculine side of human consciousness also. And the sun, which has been associated with the warrior male belongs to the feminine side as well.
Rather than being from two different planets (Mars and Venus, say), men and women are earthlings who embody both solar and lunar traits. Solar traits are expressed when one is direct, logical, and goal-directed, while lunar traits show up as emotion, intuition, and visioning. Denying either sex that dual influence deprives each the richer, more creative, and integrated life each deserves and sets the stage for emotional and psychological imbalances ranging from personal dissatisfaction to serious depression and dysfunction.
Dr. Teich studied volumes of world mythology and found that nearly every civilization—Hopi, Navajo, Aztec, Mayan, Iroquois, Zuni, to name a few—honored twin heros representing the sun and moon archetypes. In those cultures, the moon is both masculine and feminine, just as the sun is, unlike our culture, in which the moon is strictly feminine and the sun masculine.
SOLAR LIGHT, LUNAR LIGHT not only tells the reader how and why, but also includes a workbook with a survey of questions that readers can answer to measure their balance or imbalance of solar and lunar qualities.