Gilham-Luginbills 4-EVA!

Hot Damn! 

CHOICE.

I voted!  My ballot is all filled out and licked and sealed!

I feel smart and powerful when I help choose what happens and who controls what happens in my city and my state.

In my next post I'm going to do some quoting from Blueberry Girl, by Neil Gaiman and I want to explore the  feminine archetypes:  Maiden, Mother and Crone.

But today - my ballot is filled, I'm going to bed and I have some fun outdoor pictures to share.

Once Upon A Summer's Hike ...

... we challenge the men to recreate our pose.

They agree.  but only ...

... if they get to create the next pose.

They're a lot stronger than us.   

 Time Alone in the Wilderness:      

I'm closer to what I'm searching for when I'm alone in the wild.  I center down.  I walk and I think and I breathe deep.  And I wait for it to find me.                       

The Bull of the Woods Wilderness

oh woman / remember who you are / woman / it is the whole earth

This is Riley.  He will eat the bad guys.

Next week:  Archetypes!  Aren't you excited??

To Every Thing There Is A Season

I think it important not to deny things their time.  Even if that thing is uncomfortable or ugly.  Maybe especially if it is uncomfortable and ugly.

I've been mulling over some things recently.  Rolling them over in my mind like marbles between my fingers.  I know that in every journey there are no clean stages.  There is no magic line that you cross over from one phase to the next.  Often you find that it is

scootch, scootch, stall; scootch, stall, catastrophic reversal; bog, bog, scootch.

So, there is this messy journey.  And yet, I feel the need to place myself, to see where I am, to think about the other women who have been here and to ask them what they felt, what they experienced.

One thing I have identified is that I have felt angry and I have felt sad.  I was visited by Grief and filled with Rage while I  "stumbled down a maze / bewildered."  Then, I woke up.  Someone's thumbs covered my eyes and when I opened them again the world was ablaze with light.  There is Joy in knowing where you are, that you are not alone, that others have passed by, leaving candles to mark their presence in the wilderness.

Joy shakes me like the wind that lifts a sail,
Like the roistering wind
That laughs through stalwart pines.
It floods me like the sun
On rain-drenched trees
That flash silver and green. 

I abandon myself to joy -
I laugh - I sing.
Too long have I walked a desolate way,
Too long stumbled down a maze
Bewildered.                                            

by Clarissa Scott Delany

But it's a messy journey, yes?  And often the "catastrophic reversal" is not negative, it's just part of the process.  So, here I am again, full of Rage.  And I must give it its time under the sun.  I've been reading about the difference between Rage and Outrage.  Rage is internal.  Outrage is external.  Outrage can be turned into action.  And if you're careful, it can be guided by love and make change.

O, may my Rage become loving Outrage.

Why am I full of Rage and visited by Grief?  Because I've had my eyes opened to women.  I've begun to see how we've been oppressed, suppressed, lessened, brushed aside, and silenced.  And this is only the beginning.  I am a strong person, centered solidly in myself and I have not personally experienced all of this.  But I have gotten a whiff of it; I've tasted it.  And if those of us who are strong cannot fight for, speak for, stand up for those of us who are weak or silenced, then whatever are we gifted for?

It is so tempting to brush it aside, to see it as not that big of a deal.  But there are centuries and centuries of abuse that have shaped our consciousness, created a "normal" that is warped and wrong.  I've begun to see it and I am so angry and so so sad.

Today, I let that be.  I sit here; I stand here; I pace here, and I am filled with Rage and visited by Grief.

Denise Levertov comes stepping westward quietly, speaking to us

There is no savor
more sweet, more salt

than to be glad to be
what, woman,

and who, myself,
I am, a shadow

that grows longer as the sun
moves, drawn out

on a thread of wonder.
If I bear burdens

they begin to be remembered
as gifts, goods, a basket

of bread that hurts
my shoulders but closes me

in fragrance.  I can
eat as I go.