Thousands of years ago the feminine powers ruled the world. Remembered as the time of the Goddess, there is a hankering in many of us for the sweetness of that time. But the downside was as abusive as that of the masculine world we are currently trapped in. Women seduced men, for instance, castrated them or simply used them for reproductive purposes.

What, then, would a balanced world look like? How would feminine beingness incorporate a certain respect for the masculine? Would a person who operates from her feminine being had to have clinched all the efficiency and self-discipline - the upside of the masculine - before they can achieve a balance of the two? Probably.

At least we know that for a balanced world to come into being, the feminine needs more energy at this time.

"The feeling side of human nature is the feminine activity of consciousness within every individual. The thought is the masculine activity of the mind. A thought never becomes dynamic in the outer life until it passes through the feeling body," writes Godfré Ray King in The Magic Presence. This, he says, is how we create our reality.

Certain hints at how to do this are given by numerous teachers and masters. Pir Zia Inayat Khan at the 2005 Sufi Conference in New York gave the following beautiful explanation of how gratitude can change the harsh world into a Divine reality:

"When we are present to the blessings of life, through gratitude and through thanksgiving, nothing can ever be lost, because our very act of gratitude, our act of appreciation, renders people – things – eternal in our heart. That’s the difference between ephemerality and eternity – gratitude. So it’s through gratitude that the substance of this world of Maya, this world of illusion, which is in fact non-existent, is made existent," he said.

"Gratitude", Khan said, "is the act of witnessing with clear presence – feeling deeply, fully experiencing, and thereby actually transforming and resurrecting the substance of the planet. All that has not been transubstantiated through gratitude dissolves into nothingness and is lost. And all that is taken up in gratitude is raised into eternity. It becomes the condition of the Divine Heart.

"So", Khan continued, "we have been incarnated – we have been born – for that thankfulness. We have been born to experience life with transparent presence. And that all that we take into our heart through our experience is actualised in the Divine Reality. This is how creation works. It doesn’t work merely through the Laws of Physics. It works through the alchemy of the heart. The world is not created of matter. Matter is an illusion. Matter is a prop for gratitude."

Notice this quote starts with the words, "When we are present to the blessings in life..." The difference between acknowledging the blessings and really being present in them are worlds apart.

It makes one think about our society where words are given the power, when the true power lies underneath them, in the transparant presence. I remember once reading a beautiful explanation of how swearing cannot be swearing if it’s done with love. Words cannot have power unless we give it to them.

"At best words are merely a vehicle, a very shaky and second-rate means of human communication," says Malidoma Sumé in his book Of Water and The Spirit.

How we bring the experience of life through "transparent presence in our hearts" into the world we live in is something unique to each of us. There are indications that this may not be all sweetness, sugar and spice, or only for the exclusive use of women.

A famous Sufi story tells of a Sufi warrior who was on a battlefield, and had his sword drawn to plunge it through the heart of his opponent. At that moment the man who was about to die looked up and spat him in the face. The Sufi sheathed his sword and walked away.

Afterwards someone asked him: "Why did you not kill him?"

"Because I was filled with rage," he said. "And I am only allowed to kill with love."

This suggests a man who was master of both worlds, able to live with integrity towards his feminine inner, and yet able to take strong action when needed. In the final situation, though, his actions were subject to his heart. To the feminine. As the Bushmen used to believe, the heart must be the captain of the head.

Maybe this is a useful picture of the future we need to dream into being, now that manifestation has become the buzzword in many circles. Maybe each of us can create for the whole, for oneness, in being present in our blessings. And in the process explore and rediscover the vast world of feminine beingness.