In yesterday’s DM, I told the story of a professor of education at Colby College who is encouraging his male students to come up with stories of healthy masculinity via skits on TikTok.* Of course I want to encourage such efforts.
I ended that DM with a brief listing of the healthy masculine archetypes (applicable to women as well as men) that I lay out in my book on The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.
Today I share a brief summary of each of these metaphors to assist the creative work people can do for themselves and others, whether young or old, male or female, to bring alive the healthy masculine.
Often when I have led retreats or workshops on the healthy masculine, I first lecture on them swiftly, maybe 10-15 minutes to explain each archetype. Then I invite people to break up in groups of 5 or 6 people to create skits about one of the archetypes—only 15 or 20 minutes allowed for preparation. Then they share the skits with the larger group. And then on to another one.
Results are wonderful. Lots of fun and laughter in the process and lots of insight too. Because it is theater, the body and imagination are fully engaged. And readily remembered. That method seems very fit for the TikTok medium.
Some of the archetypes are these:
· Father Sky. In a time of a new creation story from science occurring—and daily pictures from 13+ billion years ago appearing on our screens from Webb Telescope—and cosmogenesis becoming a new word and new way of seeing our world, of course Father Sky is coming into his own again. Aquinas observes that the greatest thing about the human is that we are capax universe, capable of the universe.
· Green Man. In a time when our Mother Earth is being despoiled, of course the archetype of the Green Man who stands for the Defender of Mother Earth and humanity’s link to the vegetative world is coming into his own again.
· Blue Man. In a time when creativity is needed to solve our many problems as a species, the Blue Man who represents the healing and artistic self in us all calls us. He is the “healing Christ inside all of us as Hildegard paints and talks about him.
· The Spiritual Warrior. It takes courage and perseverance and an inner life to stand up to those forces and individuals who prefer greed to the common good and control to justice. The Spiritual Warrior or prophet says “No” and dares to interfere.
· The Hunter-Gatherer is embedded in all of us since 95% of our time on the planet Homo sapiens lived as hunter-gatherers. What are we hunting for today? What are we gathering? What is the authentic common good? Can we tap into that powerful energy that is deep in our DNA and share community (a common task) together?
· Fatherhood. Many young men do not come into their own until they become fathers. Then they wake up and learn responsibility and love as giving and protecting and sacrificing.
· Grandfatherhood. Eldership is shamefully underdeveloped and under acknowledged in our society. The wisdom of elders, in combination with the wisdom of the young, is a dynamic force that can move society forward.
Let TikTok contributors tell lively stories about all these archetypes and thus hold up real masculinity, which includes generosity and inner work that serves the larger community.
To find information about the Hands Off! March on Washington today, click HERE. Marches are also happening in major cities and small towns across the country. (Find out more on the same link.)
* Fortesa Latifi, “Meet the College Kids Making ‘Positive Masculinity’ TikToks to Counter the Manosphere,” Rolling Stone, March 25, 2025.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.
And Fox, “Spiritual Warriorhood” in Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faith Traditions, pp. 404-423.
See Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.
And Fox, Original Blessing.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion.
Banner image: Men enjoying the natural world and one another’s company. Photo by Matheus Ferrero on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
Do you see an authentic and healthy and exciting masculinity and virility arising from incorporating and acting out these archetypes? Would you encourage young people to put them into TikTok and other media to awaken one another?
Recommended Reading
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
Matthew Fox calls on all the world traditions for their wisdom and their inspiration in a work that is far more than a list of theological position papers but a new way to pray—to meditate in a global spiritual context on the wisdom all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes that are foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all the world spiritual traditions offer wisdom about each.“Reading One River, Many Wells is like entering the rich silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you read this text, you reflect, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Truly no words can fully express my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to contemporary spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
