One of the books I’m reading lately is King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore and Doug Gillette. It’s a fascinating book that explores the archetypes of the mature and sacred masculine. This is currently part of the spiritual work that I’m engaged in as I explore my own relationship with masculinity and heal the ancestoral and contemporary wounds that I’m becoming aware of as it relates to how masculinity is treated and perceived in modern times.
One of the aspects I’m exploring in particular is related to sacred kingship and the land. I am in the process of exploring the new city and surrounding areas that I live in. While I’ve lived here for a year, I didn’t have much opportunity until recently to really begin exploring the area and developing a relationship with the land. I find it fitting and useful that part of the process has also involved cultivating a relationship with the land, particularly on the basis of the relationship has with their home and how that relationship plays out in sacromagical work one does in connecting with the land.
For example, I’m currently developing a relationship with my home that involves creating an inclusive wall with gates, where I’m forging different relationships with the rocks, plants and other life that lives on the land. This is ongoing work I’m involved, but what its helping me do is appreciate the interdependent connection between the life in the land and myself and what my role as a person ought to be if I want to develop a strong ongoing relationship with the land I live with.
The emphasis is living with the land, because the hierarchical models people have typically applied to land ownership don’t work when we see the land as a commodity, which ultimately treats the land as disposable. One aspect of this that may prove useful is fostering an approach of right relationship with the land where a bond is formed as a sacred relationship wherein the person has a responsibility to the land they are part of and enter into a sacred contract in order to fulfill that relationship.
This is where sacred kingship as a model of sacred masculinity can come into play, because sacred kingship involves a relationship with the land that is mandated by the heavens and the underworld and yet is not focused on ownership so much as its focused on relationship with the land and the contract the sacred king forms with the land and with the spirits. The sacred king is called on to fulfill his end of that contract by cultivating a relationship with the land and spirits where he performs a stewardship of sorts. In turn the land and spirits take care of the sacred king (and subjects) with the bounty that the land produces. It’s a sacred cyclical relationship where all is lived with and taken care of, because there is a responsibility and just as importantly a recognition that all is part of each other.
We can apply this same awareness in our modern times by choosing to purposely create a relationship with the land that embodies a similar sacred awareness and connection. Taking time each day to walk the land and to connect with the life that lives with it is one way to do this. Another way is through deliberately doing work around the land, whether it’s picking up litter, planting a garden or doing other related work that allows you to connect with the land meaningfully and purposely so you honor it, and in turn open yourself to being honored by the spirits that cohabitate the land with you. Sometimes the most powerful magic we can work, in such context, is to embody the sacred contracts available to us in the way we choose to consciously create the relationship with where we live.
