Gathering and Re-Gathering

There's a physical thrill that runs through me when the moon returns.  "Hello Lady." I might say.  Or even, "Dear Mother, there you are!"  It is such sweet relief to see that round curve of her appear above me.  The moon and her cycles, her veiling and unveiling, are such powerful reminders that we are coming around again.  There is always another opportunity to journey toward fullness, or to descend into darkness or introversion for a time.  She returns.  She rises and reveals herself again, in her own time, at her own pleasure.

I needed this gentle nudge tonight.  I am struggling to free myself from the mindset that life is a straight line.  I reject that!  I am tired of this feeling that there is only one shot at each hour, each day, each minute, and if I use that hour in a way that is wasteful or unproductive then it is lost forever.  That is such a useless and self-defeating way to think.  And I fall prey to it every day, goddamnit.

Now, I am gathering my body to myself, patting it down and reminding it of our power.  There is no more impatience, no more frustration that I let it all fall away today, that I lost that hard-won centeredness in one fell swoop.  There is only the gathering and the re-gathering.  The journey once again toward fullness.

Hello Lady.  I'm so happy to see you again.

Head up, eyes open.

I've been reminded recently of how wide open my life is.  There's this beautiful Clarissa quote (there's always a beautiful Clarissa quote):

I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.

There's a sense that my life is moving once again.  There's another bend in the road as my old friend Anne would say.

The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals. - Kahlil Gibran

Part of my nerdy quote joy is finding connections.  I love this idea of blossoming into your life, of unfurling.  There's a sense of sweet anticipation to it.  So here I am, head up, eyes open, hiking happily toward that bend in the road.

Quoting!

I don't know why I love quotes so much!  Yes, I do.  It's because someone else has looked inside of me and said, here, let me put that thing into actual words rather than colors or feelings or sounds.  Or it's because I read something and I have that wonderful "aha!" or "yeah, yeah!" or "click!" moment.

Did you know that the "yeah, yeah!" or "click!" moment is what women's consciousness raising groups were all about?  Those moments when some other person shares from her own experience and something inside of you rises up and says, "YEAH, YEAH!"  I love those moments.  I live for those moments.  It's what I'm looking for when I read about women.

Back to quotes.  I have my little quote board to the side here so I can dip back into them at any point.  They allow me moments of divine clarity.  I eat them up.  Recently I read a book called Women Who Run With The Wolves by a woman named Clarissa Pinkola Estes.  She's a Jungian analyst and a cantadora, a storyteller.  In this book she unwraps old stories and pieces together the bones to help women rediscover their wild nature.  It's beautiful, helpful, fascinating and true.  Man, I love books.  This woman is also a quote machine!

Behold!  Clarissa gets her own quote board in this post:

“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”

“I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and you laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.” 

“Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one’s mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down.” 

Clarissa shakes me up.  Clarissa makes me sit still.  Today, I'm thankful for the hard work that other women have done that allow me this moment on my couch or on my computer, going, "YEAH, YEAH!"

Searching for Sophia

The other day I read about a thought experiment at Harvard Divinity School in 1973, which was intended to raise male consciousness of how women feel in a world (or a religion) where language reflects only one gender.  The professor asked each student to imagine that he was the lone male in a classroom full of women in a completely feminine institution where he was expected to understand that feminine words apply equally to both men and women.

How would you feel if, "every time a professor says 'womankind' she means, of course, 'all humanity'?  When one enrolls in a seminar on 'The Doctrine of Woman' the professor intends at least to deal with men also.  When one sings of the Motherhood of God and the Sisterhood of Woman, one breathes a prayer that all men as well as women will come to experience true sisterhood."

Sometimes I have conversations in which I feel that I have to convince the person I'm talking to that not having inclusive religious language is harmful to women, that the patriarchy is real and that it gets me down.  After reading about this thought experiment, I see how absurd the situation would be if the roles were flipped.  Men, as they are today, would not stand for this.  They would be up in arms!  And yet women live with it everyday, many of them quietly, not realizing that there could be something else.  Many of them not wanting anything else.  But I do.  I want something else.  There should be an inclusive religious language that allows both men and women to relate to both male and female terms and images of the Divine.  Now, of course the Divine is neither male nor female; so really, what does it matter?  Ask the men in this thought experiment if they thought it mattered.  Amiright?

Now, it is a whole other conversation to talk about the difference between men and women and how much of one there really is.  Obviously, individuals cannot be defined solely by their gender.  But we cannot deny that our historical and cultural realities have been worlds apart.  And we women and our stories have been sadly misrepresented and overlooked.

I grew up learning the sacred stories of men and I believed that they applied to everyone, to "mankind."  I've since felt the loss of the point of view of women in those stories.  Where is the story of how Sarah felt and what she said when Abraham went to sacrifice her only child?  How did she relate to God?  What did she consider holy?  What were her sacred stories?  Where are the female sacred stories?

I want to learn all about Durga, who saved the world from the Buffalo Demon, first by cutting off his head and when that didn't defeat him, finally by piercing him through the heart.  I want to learn about the Shekinah, the female face of God in Jewish mysticism, and how she lead the Israelites through the desert.  I want to know more about Jesus-Sophia, Wisdom in human form.

It's not just women that need these stories.  When our perspective, our innate strengths are lost or dismissed, everyone suffers.  Men who are more relational and less success-oriented suffer.  Women who feel they must become men in order to compete for the things they want suffer.  Children suffer when they learn that linear thinking is the only way to be smart.

This conversation is huge and many wonderful writers have weighed in on it in countless venues and from many perspectives.  I am not capable of, nor do I wish  to tackle every element of this discussion.  I just want to know:

Where are the female sacred stories?

A Woman's Journey to God, by Jean Borysenko

You are at my side, dear friends, and God is everywhere.  Yet ultimately, we are alone, making our way home by the candle of the heart.  The light is steady and sure but extends only far enough to see the next step.  That there are steps beyond is a matter of faith.  That we have the faith to endure and walk our own journey - even when we think that we are lost - is a gift of grace, and of friendship.  Many times our light seems to go out.  But another light, one held by a stranger or a friend, a book or a song, a blackbird or a wildflower, comes close enough so that we can see our path by its light.  And in time we realize that the light we have borrowed was always also our own.

You're Welcome

Oh hey, just kicking gender norms to the curb.  What are you doing?

Capable

I didn't check my email this whole vacation week.  Not once!  It was amazing!  And then this evening, standing in my kitchen, making my dinner, I started to get anxious.  My mind began racing through all the things I need to make sure I'm on top of when I go back into work tomorrow.

Oh no!!  The red flashing alarm lights started going off in my head!  Sirens began whirring!

And then, all of a sudden, a golden thought arose.

"I could get all of that stuff done in an hour.  Before class starts, everything that is making me anxious right now could be taken care of."

There could be calamities in my inbox tomorrow morning. I'll take care of them.

There could be dramatic political shit that has developed while I'm gone.  I'll handle it.

Boom.

And it's not because it's easy stuff, thoughtless, or unimportant.  It's simply because I'm a fucking capable woman, bitch.