Gylany the Tao of Today
Gylany the Tao of Today.
Hi, I’m Steven Monahan, a prior fortune 100 executive, TEDx Organizer, and Gylany mentor.
Gylany the Tao of Today. If you haven’t heard of Gylany, don’t feel odd, few people have. Gylany is a new word for a new world. Introduced by system scientist and cultural historian Riane Eisler in her groundbreaking classic The Chalice and the Blade.
Personally, I describe Gylany as a partnership societal system. It is an alternative societal system to today’s dominator patriarchal system; which is today predicated on: one half of humanity, male, over the other half of humanity, female. Gylany is a societal system instead based on the principle of equal male & female partnership, rather than today’s male-dominated hierarchal non-partnership system.
As a visual of Gylany, I have used the Tao symbol circle of man and woman as one; depicted in the Tao Te Ching, which I teach. The Tao Te Ching was an era in humanity about 2,800 years ago when the societal system was in balance; half Yin, female, and half Yang, male.
The Tao, or the Way, is the approach in accord with the natural flow of Nature. The basic teachings of the Taoists is to enable people to realize that, since human life is really only a small part of a larger process of nature, the society which creates peace and harmony is a society in harmony with, not against nature. If we pursue harmony between humanity: male and female, animal and human, nature and society material and ethereal there will be harmony, not discord, friction and domination of one over the other.
Gylany is a philosophy of partnership and unity, respecting and uniting opposites’ It is visually shown in its best-known symbol, the harmonious circle of Yin and Yang. The Tao Te Ching symbol above represents the two primal opposite forces of the universe: light and dark, male and female, hot and cold.
Taoists and Gylanists recognize the world is like water, which benefits all of creation without trying to compete with it.” The book the Tao Te Ching, authored by, Lao Tzu, was written over 2,800 years ago. This partnership philosophy has fascinated and inspired people across the world over the course of many centuries. The Tao Te Ching is the most read and published book of Wisdom next to the Bible.
Gylany from Riana Eisler
What is Gylany? “One result of re-examining human society from a gender-holistic perspective has been a new theory of cultural evolution. This theory, which I have called Cultural Transformation theory, proposes that underlying the great surface diversity of human culture are two basic models of society.”
“The first, which I call the dominator model, is what has popularly been termed either patriarchy or matriarchy—the ranking of one half of humanity over the other. The second, in which social relations are primarily based on the principle of linking, rather than ranking, can best be described as Gylany, the partnership model.
In this Partnership, or Gylany, or Tao model the most fundamental difference in our species, between male and female—diversity is not equated with either inferiority or superiority.”
Eisler goes on to describe these contrasting models:
“For a more precise term than patriarchy to describe a social system ruled by force or the threat of force by men, I propose the term androcracy. Already in some use, the term derives from the Greek root words Andros, or “man,” and Kratos (as in democratic), or “ruled.”
“To describe the real alternative to a system based on the ranking of half of humanity over the other, I propose the new term gylany. Gylany is gi-lan-ee. The g is hard, as in gift. “Gy derives from the Greek root word gyne, or ‘woman.’ And the “An” derives from Andros or ‘man.’ The letter ” l ” between the two has a double meaning. In English, it stands for the linking of both halves of humanity,
In Greek, it derives from the verb lyein or lyo, which in turn has a double meaning: to solve or resolve (as in analysis) and to dissolve or set free (as in catalysis). In this sense, the letter l stands for the resolution of our problems through the freeing of both halves of humanity from the stultifying and distorting rigidity of roles imposed by the domination hierarchies inherent in androcratic systems.”
“For above all, this gylanic world will be a world where the minds of children—both girls and boys—will no longer be fettered. It will be a world where limitation and fear will no longer be systematically taught us through myths about how inevitably evil and perverse we humans are. In this world, children will not be taught epics about men who are honored for being violent or fairy tales about children who are lost in frightful woods where women are malevolent witches.
To understand Gylany from a broad societal and financial-economic impact, please read our article Partnerism Movement which is the social movement to mainstream the idea of the Partnership Economic System design.
If you are interested in the Chalice & the Blade book here is a link
Article by Steven Monahan. Former fortune 100 executive, licensee Organizer of TEDx Dupree Park and TEDx Arlington Park, Atlanta Georgia. Animal welfare activist, Executive Director of the non-profit 501c3 organizations, Green Pets Charities and Gylany.org.