I like to read self-help / psychology / spiritual books, and I'm currently reading A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson. I wasn't relating it to RPW, but last night I read a portion about feminine energy, being passive and "attractive," and learning surrender - and found it RPW relevant. I thought it was interesting and just wanted to share. The book is slightly new-agey, slightly spiritual - but this excerpt, I think, really does a good job defining femininity, and the power in putting out open, receptive (aka feminine) vibes - instead of controlling, forceful (aka masculine) ones:

"We’ve basically been taught that it’s our job as responsible adults to be active, to be masculine in nature—to go out and get the job, to take control of our lives, to take the bull by the horns. We’ve been taught that that’s our power. We think we’re powerful because of what we’ve achieved rather than because of what we are. So we’re caught in a Catch-22: we feel powerless to achieve until we already have. If somebody comes along and suggests that we go with the flow, maybe lighten up a little, we really feel hysterical. After all, we’re total underachievers as is, as far as we can see. The last thing we can imagine doing is becoming any more passive than we already are.

Passive energy has its own kind of strength. Personal power results from a balance of masculine and feminine forces. Passive energy without active energy becomes lazy, but active energy without passive energy becomes tyrannous. An overdose of male, aggressive energy is macho, controlling, unbalanced, and unnatural. The problem is that aggressive energy is what we’ve all been taught to respect. We’ve been taught that life was made for quarterbacks so we exalt our masculine consciousness, which, when untempered by the feminine, is hard. Therefore, so are we—all of us, men and women. We’ve created a fight mentality. We’re always fighting for something: for the job, the money, the relationship, to get out of the relationship, to lose weight, to get sober, to get them to understand, to get them to stay, to get them to leave, and on and on. We never put away our swords.

The feminine, surrendered place in us is passive. It doesn’t do anything... the feminization process... [is] a quieting of the mind. It is the cultivation of personal magnetism.

If you have a pile of iron shavings and you want to arrange them in beautiful patterns, you can do one of two things. You can use your fingers and try to arrange the tiny pieces of iron into beautiful, gossamer lines—or you can buy a magnet. The magnet will attract the iron shavings. It symbolizes our feminine consciounessness, which exerts its power through attraction rather than activity.

This attractive, receptive, feminine aspect of our consciousness is the space of mental surrender. In Taoist philosophy, “yin” is the feminine principle, representing the forces of the earth, while “yang” is the masculine principle, representing spirit.... Our feminine self is just as important as our masculine.

The right relationship between male and female principle is one in which the feminine surrenders to the masculine. Surrender is not weakness or loss. It is a powerful nonresistance... The female allows this process and is fulfilled by surrendering into it. This is not weakness on her part; it is strength."