We Killed the God (And Now We Wonder Why He Won't Answer)

On masculinity, chivalry, and the sacred work of Isis

This is the third piece in a series about reclaiming the feminine. If you haven't read the first two, start with "The Conversation Nobody Wants to Have (About the Feminine)" and "What Venus Actually Wants." Next up: Coming home to Venus after years in exile.

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

We need to talk about Mars.

In the last piece, I said something that might have made you uncomfortable: Venus needs Mars. Not because she's incomplete without him. Because feminine energy requires a container in order to flourish. And that container is masculine energy.

If that landed wrong, stay with me. Because we can't have a conversation about femininity without discussing masculinity. They're not separate topics. They're two halves of the same conversation. And right now, we're trying to have half a conversation and wondering why it feels incomplete.

You cannot reclaim the divine feminine while simultaneously waging war on the divine masculine. It doesn't work. They're bound to each other. What wounds one, wounds both.

So let's talk about what we've done to Mars. And what it's going to take to bring him back.

The Energy Lives in Everyone

Before we go further, I need to say this again: We are talking about energy, not people.

Masculine and feminine are not synonyms for men and women. Every person, regardless of gender, carries both energies. Your astrological chart contains Venus AND Mars. You have access to both. A woman can operate from her masculine energy. A man can operate from his feminine energy. Neither is wrong. The question is whether you're working with these energies consciously or accidentally starving one while overfeeding the other.

When we vilify masculinity, we're not just wounding men. We're vilifying something that lives inside us. Women who hate the masculine are hating a part of themselves.

This isn't about defending men. This is about understanding ourselves.

And if we want healthy, well-adjusted men in our lives and in our world, we might want to consider that constantly attacking masculine energy isn't helping anyone become healthier or more well-adjusted. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

What Happened to Chivalry

I'm going to say something that might get me in trouble. I say this as someone who has always considered herself a feminist. I also believe in critical thinking, which means I'm willing to examine the unintended consequences of movements I support.

In the name of feminism, we demonized chivalry.

We mocked it. Called it patronizing. Treated every offered coat, every held door, every picked-up check as a subtle insult to our capability. We saw protection and heard you're weak. We saw provision and heard you're incapable.

Here's what we missed: The purest vision of chivalry was never about women being weak. It was about masculine energy creating a container within which feminine energy could flourish.

The knight doesn't protect the lady because she's incapable. He protects her because that's what healthy masculine energy does. It creates safe space. It holds boundaries. It guards what is precious so that softness can exist.

Was chivalry sometimes distorted into control? Yes. Did some men use "protection" as a cover for dominance? Absolutely. Toxic masculinity was real, and it needed to be named and confronted.

But we couldn't tell the difference between the poison and the medicine. So we threw out both.

We threw the baby out with the bathwater. And now we're standing in an empty tub wondering why we feel so cold.

We Slew the God

There's an Egyptian myth that haunts me.

Osiris was the god-king, beloved of Isis. His brother Set, consumed by envy and chaos, murdered him. But Set didn't stop there. He dismembered Osiris. Scattered the pieces across Egypt. Made absolutely certain that the god could never be reassembled, never be whole again.

This is what we've done to the divine masculine.

We didn't just critique toxic masculinity. We dismembered the archetype itself. We scattered the pieces so thoroughly that we can't even remember what healthy masculinity looks like. We've made it so that any expression of masculine energy is suspect. Strength is toxic. Protection is patronizing. Boundaries are controlling. Assertiveness is aggression.

We repeat slogans like "the future is female" as if they're empowering rather than exclusionary. We say "women will save the world" as if masculine energy has nothing to offer. These statements aren't just performative. They're harmful. Every time we position the feminine as superior to the masculine, we deepen the wound. We cannot heal the feminine by attacking her partner, to whom she is divinely bound.

And now we wonder why the divine masculine won't answer our call.

We killed him.

The Work of Isis

But the myth doesn't end with Osiris's death.

Isis refuses to accept his destruction. She travels the length of Egypt, gathering the scattered pieces of her beloved. She reassembles him with her own hands. She breathes life back into him through her love and her magic. And from their reunion, Horus is conceived. A new god. The next generation of divine masculine energy, born from the devotion of the feminine.

This is our work now.

We cannot resurrect the old vision of masculinity. That version is dead, and honestly, some of it needed to die. The parts that dominated rather than protected, that controlled rather than contained, that took rather than gave. Let those stay buried.

But we can gather the pieces that were worth keeping. We can remember what healthy masculine energy actually looks like. And we can bring forth something new. Not a return to the past, but a new god. A divine masculine for this era, born from our willingness to love what we nearly destroyed.

Only the feminine can do this work. Just as only Isis could resurrect Osiris.

The masculine cannot heal itself while under constant attack. It needs the feminine to see it clearly, to call forth its highest expression, to believe it's worth saving.

Are we willing to do that?

What Healthy Masculinity Actually Looks Like

We've spent so much energy identifying toxic masculinity that we've forgotten to articulate what healthy masculinity is. So let me offer some images.

Aragorn, from The Lord of the Rings. Here is a man who fights, yes. Who wields a sword and leads armies. But look closer. He doesn't seek the throne for power. He accepts his kingship as responsibility, not reward. He serves. He protects the gentle hobbits of the Shire not because they're weak, but because protecting what is innocent and good is what healthy masculine energy does. And Arwen, his beloved, never lifts a sword. She doesn't need to. She is the beauty and the light that gives his fight meaning. He holds back the darkness so that her luminosity can continue to exist.

Samwise Gamgee, also from Tolkien's world. Sam is no warrior-king. He's a gardener. He prefers peace, good food, and growing things. He's soft in all the ways we've been taught to dismiss. And yet. When Frodo falters, Sam carries him up the mountain. When darkness closes in, Sam fights. Not because he loves violence, but because he loves his friend. "I can't carry the ring, Mr. Frodo, but I can carry you." This is masculine energy in service of love. This is strength that exists not for its own sake, but for the sake of what it protects.

The chivalric ideal at its best: Strength in service of something beyond itself. Power that protects rather than dominates. Boundaries that create safety, not cages. The knight who kneels before the lady isn't diminished by his kneeling. He's elevated by it. His strength means something because of what he chooses to protect.

The divine masculine:

• Creates space for the feminine to flourish

• Defends and protects without controlling

• Provides structure and stability

• Emboldens us to go forth and stake our claim in the world

• Holds the perimeter so that softness can exist within it

This energy lives in you. Yes, you. Regardless of your gender. The question is whether you've given it permission to operate, or whether you've been so busy vilifying it that you've cut yourself off from your own capacity for healthy assertion, protection, and boundary-holding.

The Container and the Contained

I know what some of you are thinking. The masculine as container for the feminine? That sounds hierarchical. That sounds like you're saying Venus is "less than" because she needs Mars.

If that's your reaction, I want you to pause. Notice it. And then ask yourself: Why does "containing" feel like "less than"?

This assumption reveals something about our programming. We've absorbed a worldview that values doing over being, achieving over receiving, expansion over containment. This is capitalism speaking. Action produces. Contemplation doesn't. Asserting gets results. Receiving is passive. So we've unconsciously ranked them.

When we try to make Venus into Mars, when we insist that feminine energy prove itself by masculine standards, we're not liberating the feminine. We're revealing that we've internalized the very value system we claim to reject.

The container isn't superior to what it contains. The frame isn't more important than the painting. The banks of the river aren't more valuable than the water that flows between them. Without the banks, there is no river. Just a flood. Chaos. Destruction.

Mars isn't above Venus. They're partners. Different functions. Equal dignity. Each lost without the other.

The Muddy Middle

Here's what happens when we masculinize the feminine and feminize the masculine in the name of "equality": everything gets muddy.

Imagine putting Ares, the god of war, in a nursery. Give him a bonnet and an apron. Tell him his job is now to nurture. Then take Aphrodite, dress her in armor, hand her a sword, and send her to the battlefield.

What you get isn't balance. What you get is two deities who have no idea what they're supposed to be doing. Ares can't nurture. It's not his gift. Aphrodite can't fight. When she tried in the Trojan War, she got wounded immediately. Everyone is confused. Everyone is miserable. No one feels safe.

This is where we are culturally. We've blurred the energies so thoroughly that neither can function clearly. And we mistake that confusion for progress.

I want to be clear again: I'm talking about energy, not people. A woman can absolutely develop her capacity for assertion and boundary-holding. A man can absolutely cultivate his receptivity and emotional intelligence. We contain multitudes. But there's a difference between consciously developing both energies within yourself and insisting that the energies themselves are meaningless, interchangeable, or oppressive to name.

What the Masculine Needs from Us

The divine masculine needs to be invited back to the table.

Not the toxic version. Not the domineering, entitled, violent version. That one can stay dead.

But the healthy version. The protector. The container. The one who creates space for beauty to exist. The Aragorn. The Sam. The knight who understands that his strength is meaningful precisely because of what he uses it to protect.

He needs us to stop treating him like the enemy.

He needs us to remember that he lives in us, too.

He needs us to stop applauding slogans that position the feminine as superior and the masculine as obsolete.

And he needs us, like Isis traveling the length of Egypt, to do the sacred work of gathering his scattered pieces and breathing life back into him.

Not so that men can dominate. So that masculine energy can function. In men, yes. But also in us. In our own capacity to protect ourselves, to assert our boundaries, to create structure in our lives, to go forth boldly into the world.

The divine masculine, when healthy, doesn't suppress the feminine. He makes space for her. He contains her the way the riverbanks contain the river. Without him, she floods and dissipates. With him, she flows with power and direction.

And the divine feminine feeds the masculine with creativity, meaning, wonder, and magic. She gives his strength something worth protecting. Without her, he's just force with no purpose. With her, he becomes a guardian of beauty.

They need each other. We need both.

The Work Ahead

We've talked about Venus. What she is, what she wants, how we've starved her by forcing her into armor.

We've talked about Mars. What he is, what we've done to him, why we need to resurrect him.

But knowing about these energies isn't the same as living with them.

How do you actually come home to your Venus after decades in combat mode? How do you grieve what was lost? How do you soften without feeling like you're surrendering everything you fought for?

And how do you work with your Mars consciously, without either suppressing him or letting him run the show?

That's where we're going next.