We are going to explore aspects of how to work with masculine and feminine energy, or yang and yin, receptive and creative energy.
The feminine side at its best would listen, pay attention, try to understand, even go to Inner Voice or Higher Consciousness. So that if you feel something, either emotionally or physically, or are presented with a situation in the outer world, then you need to heed its message. The masculine side, which is active and expressive, might try to ignore it, override it and push it out. The masculine side does need to be able to express and act in the world, but under the guidance of the inner feminine, not by ignoring it and operating on a basis of anger or insecurity. When the feminine side is not listening and goes to fear, it usurps the masculine power and acts inappropiately, often in a domineering fashion.
It is interesting to note in the current Ogham or Tree Calendar, as I and some others see it, that the Alder tree is the teaching tree for this current cycle. Two noteworthy characteristics of the Alder tree are that the male and female catkins appear on the same tree and that the Alder, being a tree that grows in damp places, is very resistant to water and hardens with exposure to water over time. Alder wood, therefore, is used for structures that are exposed to a lot of water.