Posts Tagged ‘women’

Today my first born turns 16. 

 I naturally ruminate on the events that led up to this day, the anniversary of his birth.  It was a hard day that revealed a lot about both of our most basic traits.

 My pregnancy was flawless…I LOVED being pregnant.  I felt powerful and sexy, the embodiment of Great Mother.  I had none of the issues that many pregnant women do, as if my body was doing what it did best.  As if I was built to make babies (if you saw my hips you would agree!)

I fretted about what to name this baby boy that was coming down the pike.  We discussed some names, but I wanted to be sure to pick the “right one”. 

One night I had a dream that I was with a grown boy, maybe about the age Jess is now.  He was sitting at a white kitchen table in a white kitchen, and I was standing and talking with him.  He looked exactly like Jess does now, with the exception of having very blue eyes instead of the green eyes Jess actually does have.  In the dream, I asked him about his names.  Do you like this one, do you like that one?  He would shake his head at each choice.  When I finally asked if he liked the name “Jess”, he shrugged, and I took that to mean it was the best of the choices we’d presented.  I woke up knowing his name.

As I got closer and closer to Jess’ due date, I wondered how I would get this giant child out of my body.  He was a big baby (I seem to grow big babies); at almost 10 pounds, my doctor was concerned that we would have to go the C-section route if he didn’t hurry it along.  I didn’t know any better, not having given birth before, and not having any mothering influences around to remind me to trust my body’s knowing.

As the due date came and went, I puzzled over why this baby wasn’t coming.  Was it up to the baby to decide?  Was it up to my body?  Was it a dance between the baby, my body, and something larger that made the decision as to his arrival? 

 My doctor gave me an ultimatum.  We would wait no longer than two weeks after the due date, or risk having surgery to bring Jess into the world.  We scheduled a date “just in case”.  I asked a woman I worked with about how to choose a date, and she told me that more animals are born before a full moon than after, so I chose to schedule his birth the night before the full moon.  Those two weeks I prayed a lot.  Please come, Jess.  Let him go, body.  But to no avail.

The morning of his scheduled birth, I was so scared and sad.  Scared because I had no idea what to expect and sad because I felt my body had somehow betrayed me.  It hadn’t allowed the birth process to happen as it was supposed to.  My body wasn’t letting this child go…it wasn’t releasing him into the world.  That was a big clue for me much later in my life about my core emotional wound…the world is not safe.

The birth itself was long and hard.  Pitocin to rush things along, and an epidural to keep me from losing my mind during the birth of an almost 10 pound baby.  I have since learned an immense amount about the often unnecessary “medical menu” experience; my second son was born at home in the water with a midwife.  But that’s another story.   After labor pains of 9 hours or so, I pushed for 2 hours, lost a lot of blood, and Peter thought both I and Jess were going to die.  I felt as if there were two of me; the one that wanted this baby out of my body and the one that was hanging on to him as if life depended on it.

Eventually, the me that wanted him out won by a slight margin.  I remember the moment; the doctor said Jess was in distress…this remarkable baby had been moving his head in an effort to help the move down the birth canal, but he was weakening.  He was stuck and losing strength.  I had been bleeding and pushing for 2 hours, exhausted and freaked out because I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.  The room was filling up with varied medical professionals, and a room for surgery had been prepared.  I thought I couldn’t do any more.  But when I heard her making noises that intimated that he may not make it, something bigger than the me that wanted to keep him safely in my body took over, and I pushed with a strength that came from Source itself.  I was no longer in the room; I was the big bang.  Suddenly I exploded and gave birth to the universe.  And Jess was born.   

He was blue and limp, needing oxygen for a couple of minutes.  His poor little head was shaped like a cone from being in between my pelvic bones for so long.  But he lived. Thank god for his determination.

My body was torn to shreds physically; the inner conflict I’d experienced left me exhausted and ripped open emotionally.  My most basic fear had been exposed, the scab of an old, but very alive wound, ripped right off.  The pulsating well of grief and fear within that was subsequently exposed took me down a rabbit hole of two years of post partum depression, and the re-emergence of my spirit back into my life.  And healing.

So, in a very real way, this beautiful boy who turns 16 today saved my life.  He is a teacher to me every day; wise beyond his years and with seeming nerves of steel, he has a tender heart and genuine caring for all humanity.  When he decides to do something, he does it with mastery.  I am amazed sometimes at the ease with which he moves through the world.

But it was his entrance into the world through my body that taught me one of my most precious lessons. No matter what our fears and doubts, no matter what wounds may seize us up and make us try to prevent flow, life wins.

Like so many GOOD things that have been twisted, misinterpreted, and manipulated, the conclusion that I am coming to about the word “WITCH” is that it needs to be shed of its nasty connotations (at least in my own mind), and that the word needs to be reclaimed.

In the spirit of reclaiming, I invite you to play with me and create an acronym from the word “witch”…several of you have already offered some:

• Wisdom Intuition Transformation Compassion Healing -Peter
•  Woman’s Intuition Touching Communal Heart –Liza
•  Women Inspiring Truth Change + Harmony –Peter
•  Wisdom Interconnected Terra Caring Hope –Licia
•  Wonderful Intuitive Teacher Called Healer –M.

Let’s hear some more!

My last post has struck a nerve for some of you, and I’m glad to know I’m far from alone in critically examining this word “witch” and trying to understand what it means in an original sense, rather than a pop culture, commercial, colonial, Christian or patriarchal sense (did I leave anybody out?)

 I feel the need to explain why being called a witch is something that stopped me in my tracks.  I have been proud to be a rebel or outsider all of my life, not being willing to be defined by any category or fit into the main stream ideas of what a woman is supposed to be.  I have flaunted my independence, and happily yelled “THANKS!” when someone told me I was weird or different.  However, unlike when a fellow yelled at me from his passing car, “DYKE!” in my buzz cut college phase (I was fine with that mistaken label), being called a “witch” felt too close to home, insidious, and brought up a sinking feeling of terror. 

 I couldn’t understand why I would feel that way in terms of my actual life.  I have never identified myself as a witch, although in my spiritual practice I do some things that might raise the eyebrows of bible thumpers (such as meditation, using homeopathy and herbs to treat illness, and dowsing, a very useful skill I learned from an old woman in the mountains of North Carolina). Of course, my shamanic work could be classified as witchy were it not for its connections to the indigenous populations…or are they “witches”, too?

 While I lived in the village where I was “identified as a public enemy” (before I knew anything about these behind-the-hand remarks about me) I had intuitive flashes in which an angry mob would come drag me out of my office, grab me by my hair and drag me down the street.  The intuitive vision would stop there, not revealing the fate of the woman I seemed to be in the inner vision.  But the feeling of cold stones weighing down the innards of my belly did not easily or soon cease. 

This was not an entirely new sensation for me.  Back in Asheville NC, where we lived for 7 years, I had multiple odd spontaneous awarenesses that involved flashes of me being disemboweled, drowned, or beheaded.  One such instance was preceded by a physical break down of my right shoulder…for weeks it got more and more sore and incapacitated.  After many attempts to have it corrected through chiropractic and massage work (and Advil), in a strange fit of inner knowing, I paused in the living room on my way to take some laundry upstairs and asked silently what my body was telling me. 

Giving in to the motion, my body then took over…I began to move as if somebody much bigger than me was rearranging me like a puppet.  My inner eye saw a lovely young woman with reddish blond curls and a long flowered dress being brought forcibly into a crowd of people.  She must have been 18 or 19 years old.  She was pretty, but had a gleam in her eye and a set to her jaw. My right arm went slammed tight behind my back, fist up behind my heart.  I was forced down to my knees.  My head was pushed down so that I was crouched over.  In my mind’s eye, I saw a bloody stump of a tree, where I was now resting my chest.  As my eyes looked down on red ground, I heard and felt a stalwart, “I will never let this happen to me again.”  Then the “memory” faded, and miraculously, my right shoulder was completely cured.  Never another pain.

I stood there in a bit of a daze.  What the hell had just happened?  Was that girl me?  I wasn’t scared; more I had the feeling of knowing that my body had revealed something to me, and because I gave it permission, something had been released.  It was a pivotal experience affirming my life philosophy, which I have incorporated deeply since, that our bodies are the key to so much wisdom.

Was what happened a playing-out of some kind of cellular or collective memory? Or did I actually live through that?  When I was called “witch” in the tiny town in Colorado where I used to live, was it bringing forth another wave of memories that were asking to be acknowledged and released through me?  If so, what did this mean to me personally?  Why is this such a prominent and repeated feature in my life?

And that’s why I am asking these questions of all of you wise people, and why I feel the need to explore this line of thought.  What is a witch, really?  Where did the word come from, what are its origins?  And when did it become a word for something that was evil, scary, and needing to be put to death?  

And do any of you have these spontaneous memories or experiences?  If so, I would be so honored to hear them.

…cause I’ve been called one!  Seriously!

The town we used to live in, small as it was, had several churches.  There is a meeting of the spiritual leaders of those churches called the Pastoral Alliance.  And, as it goes in small towns, there is not a lot to talk about except for gossip. 

One of the more enlightened pastors of this group (who has since been fired from his position at his church and moved elsewhere) spoke to me quietly at a party about something that made me sit up and take notice.  Here was the conversation:

Licia: “I would really like to meet with other spiritual leaders in the community to exchange ideas and support one another.  It gets lonely sometimes to be one that folks come to for spiritual guidance.”

Cool Pastor: (squirming uncomfortably)

L:  “Is there any kind of support group or meeting of spiritual leaders here?”

CP: (falteringly) “Yessssss…”

L: (excited) “Oh, do you think I could come?!”

CP:  (sheepishly) “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

L:  (genuinely puzzled) “Why not?”

CP:  “Because the Pastoral Alliance is afraid of you.”

L:  “HUH?!  …Am I not the nicest person that you know?”

CP:  “Yes, you are a very nice person.  But they have had a meeting recently in which you were identified as a public enemy.”

L:  (kind of laughing, thinking it is a joke) “WHAT?!”

CP:  (looking very sad) “They have read some of your writing, and your beliefs are very threatening to their beliefs.  They feel that you are dangerous to their congregations.” 

L: (stunned) “Wow.”

CP:  “I’m sorry.”

L:  “What century is this again?”

I learned later that my children were taunted at school.  “Your mom is a witch.”  And not just by other children!  Not one person in that little town had the balls (or ovaries) to come say this to my face, but they sure were talking about it.

It’s made me think a lot since then.  What is a witch anyway?  I learned from my early Christian preschool conditioning and the Wizard of Oz that witches are bad, Bad, BAD. When I hear the word and me in the same sentence, my blood runs cold.  But why?

I am writing a long piece about this that will continue, but I needed to get this out there for some feedback.  In my quest for truth, consciousness and challenging the status quo, I want to know:

What is your definition of the word “Witch?”  Here’s what dictionary.com had to say:

Witch –noun

1.	a person, now esp. a woman, who professes or is supposed to practice magic, esp. black magic or the black art; sorceress. Compare warlock.

 

2.	an ugly or mean old woman; hag: the old witch who used to own this building.

 

3.	a person who uses a divining rod; dowser.

I’m not buying it. 

Let me hear from you…I really want to know!

I’m not a scholar on Christian holy days; I observe spiritual traditions that make sense to me, that have personal meaning to me.  Until yesterday, Epiphany flew by unnoticed. 

The 12^th day of Christmas, Epiphany is the oldest of the Christmas festivals and originally the most important.  It is the day traditionally celebrated in Christian culture as the day the Magi arrived to behold the Christ child.

“The word epiphany comes from the Greek noun epiphaneia, which means “shining forth,” “manifestation,” or “revelation.”  In the ancient Greco-Roman world, an epiphany referred to the appearance of one of the gods to mortals.  Since Hellenistic kings and Roman emperors were considered by many to be gods, the word epiphany was also used as a term for divine majesty.”  (source: http://www.stpaulskingsville.org/epiphany.htm)

Yesterday was a day in which it felt like many veils were lifted between my eyes and the larger spiritual container I live in.  I had so many revelations, and indeed, one very important “manifestation”, that I once again feel affirmed in my belief that there is a larger energy that holds us all, and that if we align with it, magic can happen.

I sat in the morning for my inner guidance time, which I typically create several times per day (and always at night before bed so that I can bring my consciousness to anything pertinent while my body sleeps).  This is my time to be still, listen and feel my connection to the Whole and a larger perspective on my life. My usual pathway of access opened up, and I felt the familiar alignment click into place.  As I awaited the presence of higher consciousness in my mind, I felt a new (yet very old and familiar), somewhat different presence move in from the left of center, supplanting my usual interface with the Divine.

“Who is here?” I asked.  A vast, deep silence, a feeling of gravity, immense power in my belly and sweetness in my heart was the response.  I sat quietly straining to hear with my inner ears, but I couldn’t quite make out the name.  I asked, “Are you here to aid me in my highest good?”  Yes, I was told, and I felt a rush of goodwill pouring through me.  “Are you accountable to the light?”  I asked.  I heard, No, I am accountable to the dark. 

This is when I started squirming; my early Christian preschool indoctrination formed my young, developing mind into a good versus evil bent, and I struggle to this day with unconsciously perceiving light as good and dark as bad, even though I know consciously that this is not true. 

My resonance lies with the yin/yang symbol, in which the darkness and the light are simply two halves of existence that balance one another, and are therefore necessary for the Whole.  It is our small, human minds that place judgments on qualities of energy such as light and dark, calling them names and putting them in little boxes so that we can feel more in control. 

I have also studied the Goddess traditions extensively, and know that darkness, a symbol for the womb, for the void, for the night, for the face of the new moon, has been vilified ever since patriarchy reared its adolescent grab for power on the planet.  I know from hard won experience that anything we demonize warrants a closer look to see what we are projecting onto it.

I heard this Being that had entered my holy space speak that it was accountable to the dark, and took a breath.  “Who are you?” I asked again.

I am the Dark Mother, She answered.

I sat quietly, stunned at the simplicity and precision of this revelation.  I then proceeded to ask several clarifying questions, the first of which were asked to make sure I was safe to be interacting with this powerful yet benevolent energy, and the latter of which resulted from my increasing feelings of bliss and excitement.  Many moments later, I was in tears as accepted Her, and felt myself in the arms of my truest Mother.

Over the course of the day as I opened further to this awareness, my epiphanies ranged from seeing how the Dark Mother had been in my life, (very clearly had I eyes to see Her) for several years, to feelings of being Home.  The work I had begun in 2005 to embody the Divine Feminine was inspired by Her.  Images of the Black Madonna, which I’d written an extensive article about in 2007, flashed through my mind.  The many essays and radio shows and personal experiences of the Sacred Feminine that I’d processed and offered to the world as a road map fell into place. 

As a woman who resonates deeply (as well as recognizes within myself) the Sacred Feminine energies, I have spent time getting to know the several faces of the Goddess.  I remember in 1999 that Mary the Mother was the first face of the feminine I began to interact with as an adult.  She was safe, a clean symbol of goodness and light, and a good start for a woman fearful of her own feminine energy.

As a child, Isis was a frequent companion, but over the years I lost my sense of her.  She came roaring back into my life in 2001, when I got the tap on my shoulder to come out of hiding as a healer, and opened my energy work practice in downtown Asheville NC. 

Then other faces of the Goddess began to emerge in my consciousness.  Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, Innana, Brigid, Tara, Cerridwen, Persephone, Sedna, Lilith, Mary Magdalene, Amaterasu, GrandMother Moon, Spider Woman and more.  As each of these treasured and varied Faces of Her visited me, I interacted with their archetype and integrated them into my own awareness, making those aspects within me conscious.  It has been a remarkable journey of awakening. 

However, my names for Her never included the Dark Mother, perhaps because of my subconscious association of dark with evil. 

I had heard of the Dark Mother as a name for the fierce Goddess Kali, She who oversees death and rebirth, and so I had approached the Kali archetype with a large perimeter and a considerable dose of respect. 

I knew the acknowledgement and appreciation of the darkness that comes with shamanic practice, in which the journeying through the various inner worlds must be discerningly and powerfully navigated. 

I had experienced the darkness of entering initiations, and coming through into the light, being reborn. 

And I had experienced the darkness that came with fully exploring the archetypes of some of the previously mentioned faces of the Divine Feminine….darkness in the sense of exploring in unfathomable places in my psyche, such as deep, winding caves and caverns, traversed along with my sister Innana, and at the bottom of the sea, along with my underwater kin, Sedna.  Darkness in the sense of moving through what cannot be seen with the eyes, but must be felt and experienced through the inner worlds, where great treasure is yielded for those who have the courage to undertake the journey.

How magical that on this day of January 6^th, 2010, which I have just now learned is called Epiphany in the Christian tradition, that I would be visited by my own “magi”, or sage, in the manifestation of the Dark Mother, bestowing gifts upon Her child.  Thank you, All That Is.

“When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.”  -Adrienne Rich

There is something about having an audience that provokes an artist (of any kind, whether writer, musician, visual artist, actor, etc.) to rise to the occasion and express themselves.  I find this to be what will cause me to sit down and write, sometimes more than the need to express, itself.  But the need to express today is strong.

When I was a little girl, I had a vivid imagination.  I imagined worlds and dramas and tragedies and great tales of heroism.  I sometimes told these stories during show and tell in 1st grade, interweaving the facts of my life with the fictions in my mind.  These acts of creativity were unappreciated for what they were, however.  The era, the lack of knowledge or understanding in the family I grew up in, and the location of backwoods North Carolina where I grew up had little appreciation of normal child development, and so I was labeled a Liar.

That label followed me around for many years….again, doing what normal children do to sometimes cover up their mistakes, to try to look good in the eyes of those who have the power, to try to minimize the punishments for falling down, I sometimes did not tell the truth.  No, I did not take a cookie.  No, I don’t know anything about the candy in Grandmom’s drawer being gone.  No, I did not take the few coins on my father’s dresser.  It is absolutely true that I did those things.

Later in life, as I understood some of the crazier events that happened to me in my family, I began to see that labeling me as a “Liar” was a brilliant, if unconscious, strategy.  No matter what excellent grades I brought home, no matter what awards and accolades, my identity at home would be one of not being trusted to tell the truth.  And so, when I did understand the importance of speaking out about my early life and dealing with it head on, I would have an inner conflict set up even before I started.

I wonder now if there is a different standard for boys and girls when they do the inevitable and make up a reality, or lie.  Are boys expected to be “naughty” and therefore not stigmatized about lying?  Are girls expected to be pure and chaste and innocent, and so if they act out in ways that children do, they bear the brunt of unfair discrimination?

I remember a particular day when I was 11 years old, when I was caught in a lie (I cannot remember what it was, perhaps the stealing the change on the dresser thing), when I was sent to my room.  I lay on my bed and cried for a long time, feeling a sense of injustice and not being understood.  My parents did not give me an allowance, so I did not have money to buy myself little things like candy or toys.  At the time, I didn’t intellectualize the fact that children need to feel a sense of power and control over their lives in some aspects as they begin to enter adolescence, a healthy, normal development, and that my taking the change from my father’s dresser was an attempt to have some power.  I just knew I felt zero support and understanding in my world.

My father came up and sat on the bed with me for a long time, speaking the importance of telling the truth and how all we have in this world is our reputation.  It may surprise some of you to know that this was one of the most beautiful gifts my father gave to me in our twisted, convoluted history together.  While he raged and sexually preyed on me as a drunk at night, when sober, he became the kind of man my inner masculine wanted to model myself after.  His sharing of his concept of honor made such a deep impression on me at that age that I am touched by his teaching to this day, and part of my moral code and devotion to truth I attribute to this conversation.  How interesting and ironic that my dear father, whom I love and hold in my heart despite everything, would coach and prepare me to reveal what he did to me.

Perhaps I was at the age that I began to understand the difference between truth in the consensual reality and the truth of my imagination.  Perhaps at age 11-12 the child’s brain is capable of conceiving what that means.  Already a prolific writer and winning competitions for my essays in school, I had some sense of the worlds that I had access to through my artistic ability.  I began to learn that I was intelligent, and that the way I put words together had an impact and inspired people.  But add the complexity of what had been done to me in the name of satisfying sexual greed in the dark of night, and the desperate need to keep the secrets in an alcoholic family, and you will see how the telling of the truth has become a very loaded topic.  The gravity of the truth began to shine clear, and the heavy weight to burden me.

What is the truth?  Is something true if we don’t want to look at it?  Is it true despite our attempts to deny it?  What are the ramifications of pretending something isn’t true when it is?  These are all questions that I have wrestled with in endless cycles since I began to wake up.

To this day, I have an obsession with truth.  To the point that if I try an experiment and say something that is NOT true, such as “My name is Beth”, I will start coughing.  I can’t do it.  My inner barometer won’t let me speak or write something that I don’t personally experience as true. 

I have examined many spiritual traditions as well as modern physics and understand now that there are as many realities as there are perspectives, and all are valid.  I also know (and experience) that if a reality is unobserved it may as well not have happened. 

Additionally, I understand that there is some modicum of truth that we can all agree to, if we are willing to acknowledge it.  While my family has given slight, grudging acknowledgment of the sexual abuse and no acknowledgement of the alcoholism I encountered as a child, there is great resistance to me talking about it.  Does this make it untrue?

In my desire to be a loyal daughter, I have censored myself for many years, even though the truth has leaked out in ways through my writing and art and conversations.  Even in therapy I have protected my family as a “good daughter should”, revealing only parts of the story, perhaps the parts that I could handle revealing to myself.  I love my family, as people and as having been the sieve through which I arrived in this world.  I would not be who I am without them.  I have even attempted over the 21 years that I have been in conscious recovery and healing work to actually heal my family, out of my love for them and desire that they, too, be free from the sickness that bound us.  They have been unresponsive, however.

Now, the bird that has lived caged in my throat must be freed, and I am going to talk about my life openly and unapologetically.  I will censor no more.  I choose not to become a raging fanatic for a cause, because that would be out of balance.  Yes, I am a survivor of sexual abuse and an adult child of alcoholics, but that is not my identity or the sum total of who I am.  Not by a long shot. 

My desire is to tell the truth in a measured, grounded way, honoring myself, with the intention and purpose to heal and to give permission to others to acknowledge the truth within themselves, no matter how heinous it may be to see.  I know from my own life journey of looking at these truths that therein lays the path to integration and Wholeness.  And an even deeper appreciation of The Truth.

You know that I am ALL about the journey….everything I write in my life is about the journeys I undertake, whether from un-awareness to awareness, a place on a map to another, or the immense journey one undergoes to reclaim themselves for healing.

I was particularly moved when I read my friend and colleague, Anne Marie Bennett’s book, “Bright Side of the Road-A Spiritual Journey through Breast Cancer”.  While I don’t have personal experience with breast cancer (and hope I never do), I was eager to read her account of going open-eyed into the abyss of taking responsibility for one’s own healing and learning the lessons along the way.  I was not disappointed. 

I know Anne Marie through our mutual love of the written word and through our love of art and the amazing pathway to our deepest selves it provides access to.  She is an artist and Soul Collage facilitator, and an utter delight to know.  But underneath her smiling, kind exterior, there is a warrior woman who fully claims herself as precious.  This decision to love herself completely is what she faced when she was diagnosed in 2001 with breast cancer. 

It is not an exaggeration to say that when we face a truth about ourselves it is a kind of initiation.  The journey one undergoes when facing a truth is what makes us victors in our initiation.  We all have opportunities in our lives when we are asked to step out of our comfort zones and confront something challenging.  It is our lives asking us to be more.  If we rise to the challenge, and do what is asked of us as we let go of our old selves and become more, the passage to our larger selves is nothing short of transformation.

 I’m so grateful that Anne Marie wrote this book, and that she was willing to share the truth of her journey with the world.  I asked her to share with me about her experience:

LB:  How would you describe the journey you have undertaken through your experience?  For example, do you see a continuum of progress in your inner awarenesses and growth, or lots of backsliding, or a combination…it is hard to articulate an intense inner journey, but it helps others who are undertaking that journey themselves.

AMB:  Thanks for an excellent question, Licia!  For me, the journey is like a spiral, or even a labyrinth… moving always towards the center, but sometimes feeling turned around or even like I’m headed in the wrong direction.  But always, always, I am moving towards the center.  There are times when I feel like I am going backwards, but that is merely preparation for moving forward!

LB:  How are you different than you were when you started? 

AMB:  Before my breast cancer journey, I was numb in many ways.  The whole experience taught me to feel my feelings, to express them in some way, as well as the power of affirmations to change the negative thoughts in my mind.  I feel like I am clearer now about who I am, and definitely more grateful.  Gratitude has become the cornerstone of my life now. That is a huge difference.

LB:  What have you learned?

AMB:  The best thing that my breast cancer taught me is that I’m not alone.  Seems like an obvious fact, but let me explain.  When I received my diagnosis, I had a loving husband who was there for me every step of the way. I had my brothers and their wives, my nieces and nephews.  I had friends and coworkers who meant the world to me.   But all my life, my tendency has been towards isolation.  Somewhere in childhood, I learned (most likely from my mother, a stubborn Yankee!) that I was strong if I could do things myself.  On my own.  Not needing help from anyone else.

So my breast cancer was a huge wake-up call for me in that regard!  Suddenly, I COULDN’T do everything myself.  I learned that just because I needed help making dinner and taking a shower and remembering who I was, that I was still a strong woman anyway.  I learned to be open to what others were longing to give me: love, friendship, support, encouragement.

But most importantly, I learned that I wasn’t spiritually alone.  I had been isolating myself from Spirit for several years when my breast cancer came along.  This is the very best lesson I learned: that the Divine (which I choose to call Spirit) is with me always, as are many spiritual helpers. 

LB:  Are you grateful for the diagnosis and what it has brought you?

AMB:  Before my diagnosis, I had heard some cancer survivors on TV talk shows saying that they were grateful they’d had cancer.  Seriously? I thought they were misguided and crazy.  But now it looks like I am one of those people!  I am indeed grateful for my cancer diagnosis.   I never thought I would say this, but my cancer gave me more than it took away.   I was given love and support from family and friends that surprised me and was soothing to my soul.   I was given a closer connection with Spirit.  My practices of gratitude, journaling and meditation gave me a whole new perspective on life and living.   Ultimately, I was given a re-routing of my life, a re-direction, which I didn’t even know I needed until it was given to me.

For more information about Anne Marie’s book, Bright Side of the Road, please visit this page: www.annemariebennett.com 

To purchase the book, please visit this page: www.annemariebennett.com/how-to-purchase 

Bright Side of the Road is also available on Amazon.com http://tiny.cc/lf3HF 

by Licia Berry, April 2007

 

There is a lot of talk these days in progressive thought or spiritual communities about the “return of the feminine” on the planet.  If you type “re-emergence of the feminine” into an internet search engine, you will find endless articles and quotes about how the feminine is coming back to the earth.  Where did she go?  If this talk is true, it seems the Sacred or Divine Feminine left for a period of several thousand years and has now decided to return from her holiday!

The human suppression of the feminine powers has been a symptom of an era of exploration of immature masculine power.  Through brute force, rape and murder, witch trials, shaming of women’s sexuality, relegation of women to second citizen status, the view of the feminine as a “weaker sex’, and the choice of women to give away their power, it can surely feel as if there is no Divine Feminine present in a world that fosters these beliefs.  It is no wonder that so many have felt abandoned and betrayed by their mothers, whether Divine, planetary or biological.

The true presence of the feminine is a strong one, a presence that cannot be denied, ignored, made invisible, or rendered powerless.  Where has this strong presence been?  Why have we felt her absence?  Why did she leave us?

She didn’t.  In actuality, the Sacred Feminine has been here all along.  While we have been playing out the various and important human dramas and stages of development, she has been right here with us.  It is our awareness of her that has been away.  The presence and integration of the Sacred Feminine into our daily lives slipped away from our consciousness for several thousand years, but now our consciousness has evolved to a point that we are becoming aware of her again. 

Even though humanity has been through some pretty painful experiences as a result of the full exploration of the immature (and sometimes wounded) masculine aspects (or patriarchy), everything is in order.  After several thousand years of full exploration of the feminine (the Stone Age is thought to have been matriarchal), it was time to stretch out into the opposite pole and check out the masculine for awhile.  But now we have come to the time on our planet when it is all about balance.

She is not outside of us.  The idea that the Divine Feminine could have been “gone” all these years is a projection onto the outer world of what is occurring inside of us; it is true that she has been absent from the collective human consciousness for a long time.  And it is also a projection that she is returning in the outer world…truly what is occurring is that she is returning in our inner consciousness, and therefore we feel her in the outer world.  But she has been with us all along, waiting dormant in our inner awareness until we were ready to unearth and embrace her in a deeper, more encompassing way.

 

As a woman, I have had my time of anger and outrage about the “plight” of women and the dominance of patriarchy in our world.  I have felt women to be the victim and made men out to be the bad guys…….and I needed to fully explore that anger in order to come through to the other side of it, so I have no regrets about spending time in that place.   And I will again and again.  As I heal the wounds in myself, I will feel the anger anew, and more deeply, until I am cleansed and feel healed and in my power about my feminine face and ways of knowing being fully valued in the world. 

However, I have grown much beyond my place of powerlessness.  Now what I am finding is that the more I fully claim all of the various faces and aspects of my inner feminine, the more I see her in the world.  The more I embrace ALL aspects of my inner feminine, the more I see ALL aspects of her in my life.  So I see feminine faces of compassion and acceptance, I see strength and ferocity, I see softness and embracing, I see deeply and highly charged sexuality, I see raw power and I see infinite knowing.  And the more I am ready to claim ALL aspects of her in myself, the more I am ready to see and claim her in the collective experience.

My feeling, sense, cellular memory and perhaps other lifetimes of experience tell me that the feminine ways and feminine power needed to go underground for the safety and survival of women as a physical gender.  It was a necessary burial of our dearest treasures, much like the Tibetan monks destroyed their precious ancient manuscripts to keep them out of the hands of the Chinese.  It was what we had to do.  No regrets.  The world was not a safe place for the daily existence of the feminine powers.

In addition, men as a physical gender buried their inner feminine.  This can be seen even in modern times (although it is indeed shifting), where a man who is not physically strong or acts dominant is labeled as ‘weak” or “girly”.  It has not been safe for men, either, to be softer, embracing, intuitive, sensual, accepting and wise from a deep inner sense.  Can you imagine what the world will be like when the men claim and embody there inner feminine selves?  WOW.  Those are some men I want to get to know!  I am seeing this mature feminine as well as masculine emergence in my own beloved husband; it makes him courageous and warrior-like when needed, yet intuitive, discerning, deeply wise, willing to allow instead of push, and a sweet and tender lover.  Whoo baby!

Time has marched on, and humanity has evolved, and we, having fully explored the dynamics of the wounded or immature masculine in ourselves and with each other, are letting go of old concepts of the feminine and making room for larger ideas about the feminine.  We are allowing the blunt edge of dominance and suppression of the feminine (both inner and outer) to fall away under the brilliant light of clarity.  And this is occurring in each one of us in our own perfect timing.

It was in 1993 that Marianne Williamson wrote in her book A Woman’s Worth: “There is a collective force rising up on the earth today, an energy of the reborn feminine … She remembers our function on earth … This is a time of monumental shift, from the male dominance of human consciousness back to a balanced relationship between masculine and feminine. The Goddess archetype doesn’t replace God; she merely keeps him company. She expresses his feminine face.”

At that time, the way I read this statement was that men were going down in flames and women were going to grab their fair share of the power.  I was mad as hell and thinking and acting from my own inner wounded, immature masculine and feminine aspects.  My wounded feminine identified strongly with being a victim, and my wounded masculine was how I survived and made my way in the world.  I thought the only way the women would ever be treated with respect again was if we acted like the men who suppressed us.

But over the years, as I grew and softened and became more myself, I began to understand the feminine ways as powerful in and of themselves.  I began to open that cache of treasure that was buried in my psyche underneath all those years of heaviness.  I found an endless, boundless resource of love.  I understood that a truly healed, mature masculine and a truly healed, mature feminine made the perfect compliment to each other.  In fact, they were beautiful together.

It is interesting to note that if we dig into the story of humanity’s past, there are many, many examples of very strong and powerful women; queens, warriors and goddesses whose names didn’t make it to the “his-story” books.  It was a revelation to me to learn about and find that the strength of the feminine was even around in the physical form of actual women and that we just weren’t taught about it.  Let these few names of strong women (who actually existed-this is not a complete list) reverberate in your mind and heart:

Isis (Egyptian Goddess of All of Creation)

Mawu (African Goddess of the Moon)

Songi (African Protectress of the Bantu)

Nukwan (Chinese Goddess)

Danu (Irish Goddess and Protector)

Breo Saighead (Irish Goddess)

Ix Chel (Mayan Goddess of the Moon, Healing and Childbirth)

Xbaquiyalo (Mayan Goddess)

Coatlicue (Aztec Creator Goddess)

Xochiquetzal (Aztec Goddess of music, dance and love and Patroness of women’s sacred sexuality)

Queen KuBaba (Sumerian leader of war of independence)

Trung Trac and Trung Nhi (Vietnamese Sister Queens led battle against the invading Chinese)

Boudicca (Queen of Iceni, a Celtic tribe in ancient Britain, who led rebel armies against the Romans in Britain)

Hatshepsut (Egyptian, declared herself “Pharoah” rather than Queen)

Wu Zetian (Chinese, declared herself “Emperor” rather than Empress)

And these are just a scant handful of the women whose feminine strength propelled them forward into a larger vision.  Even now, consensual reality has some belief that women today are in a state of weakness and subjugation, but there are women (and men who are healing and strengthening their inner feminine) in our modern world who are changing reality every day with their strength and vision.  It is the media and the immature collective consciousness that devote their energies to the message that “feminine equals Paris Hilton”.  You have a choice about whether to buy into that message.

“Men are not the enemy, but the fellow victims. The real enemy is women’s denigration of themselves.”

- Betty Friedan

The more we step up and claim the inner feminine in ourselves, the more she shows up in our lives.  The feminine has many aspects, some of which we recognize as docility, forgiveness, and surrender, such as we see in the Christianized Mother Mary figure.  But these traits are only a small fraction of the totality of the Sacred Feminine.  She is ALL, and she is not being fully expressed until we embrace ALL of her.  It is wise to be alert to judgments and beliefs about what it means to be feminine or masculine.  Qualities we typically associate with the masculine, such as courage, ferocity, strength, and intelligence, as well as the “softer” sides of those such as passion, sensuality, deep wisdom and intuition, are all part of the Sacred Feminine as well.  In actuality, all qualities are universal, found in both masculine and feminine essences, but the ways of accessing and expressing these qualities is different in the masculine and feminine.

 

“Darkness precedes light and she is Mother”

Inscription in the altar of the Salerno Cathedral in Italy.

We see evidence in the collective psyche of the awareness of the “darker” aspects of feminine power in the global fascination with and re-emergence of the Black Madonna (be sure to look that up if you don’t know anything about these fabulous images of the pre-Christianized Sacred Feminine.)  In the wonderful book, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the presence of the Black Madonna is central to the story of personal enlightenment and reclaiming of power for a young girl.  In the story, three symbols of feminine power constellate throughout: the Fist, a representation of feminine authority, voice and autonomy, fierce outrage at injustice, dignity, substance, being both level and wild, with an ability to shake things up, the Heart, a representation of profound connection to one another, the big, wide lap of the great mother, a lap so big there’s room for everybody, inclusiveness, nurturing, unity, compassion for what is lost or undervalued and left out, refuge, and deep and beautiful wisdom, and the Moon- Madonnas have been marked with moons since the origin of humanity, and is a representation of cycles, women, women’s cycles, tides, oceans, earth, behavior of animals, fecundity of plants, the body, the rhythms of death and life, fertility, creativity, earth’s aliveness and holiness.  Certainly in these three symbols we see examples of the diversity that is represented in the feminine!  In terms of the collective awareness of the diversity of the feminine, I have a theory that Oprah Winfrey is personification of the ancient symbol of the Black Madonna.  Think of how she aids others in getting their message out, giving them permission and a platform from which to speak.  Think of how she creatively successful she is, but especially in the ways that the masculine world considers successful (money, power, resources).  And yet she has not appeared to lose other aspects of the feminine in her rise to fame.

 “The way to true and creative life is thru the dark feminine.”

-Carl Jung

 When I set an intention to fully claim my feminine power on Winter Solstice of 2006, I set in motion a process in which she has come forward in her totality, and it is blissful and amazing to feel the power coursing through my veins.  In reclaiming my feminine power, I also recognized that I am the one who has been thinking like a victim and I chose to cease that habit immediately.  When I cease to see myself as a victim, I stop playing that role with others in my outer world, even with men and women who may prefer to see me that way. When I stop buying into that drama, I force everyone I interact with to stop, too, even if for a moment.  It is like throwing a wrench in a well-oiled machine…the machine has to stop until the wrench is removed.  And if enough wrenches are thrown in, eventually the machine doesn’t work anymore.  It has to be adapted to the new situation.

“You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.”

- Erica Jong

      My theory is that, as humanity has evolved, we have been moving through developmental stages, just like a baby does.  In the beginning, humanity as a whole was exploring pretty basic animal nature…a denser vibration of physical life.  As we learned and grew, we explored a stone-age era of matriarchal worship….perhaps women were seen as all powerful because we were able to give birth.  Then, we moved into a developmental stage where we grew our intellect and reason and learned ways of controlling nature to guarantee our survival.  There was a time when there was a balance of reverence for women and men, a sense of some stasis and equality.  Then, in the middle ages, we went deep into the age of Christianity and colonialism, defiling woman as evil and the downfall of man, as well as the earth as the mother/planet upon which we all depended for our lives.  This out-of- balance approach took us crashing headlong into the industrial age, in which we developed commercialism and the credo that the one with the most toys (money, power, resources) wins. It was during this time that we explored the worship of the male aspect. 

The anger we see today in our world, in both women and men, could be construed as a deep grief and rage at the seeming lack of presence of the feminine on the planet.  We have fully explored the masculine aspects of power…..wounded as that masculine may be.  As a collective, humanity has explored colonialism, industrialism, over-use of resources and the plundering of the planet, power-over rather than power-with, brute force instead of cooperation, and the giving away of inner power to outer sources.  We have explored victimization, blame, guilt, sexuality as degenerate and dirty, shame, doing what others want us to, and belief in lack and therefore competition to get what we want.  

But this is an era which is dying….we are still seeing the last throes of this dynamic as it senses it’s imminent departure, but make no mistake, it is on its way out.  And now we are coming into an era of balance again, but a little higher on the vibrational scale; we will explore faces of the feminine and masculine that we have not seen before in human existence.  Each time we moved up the ladder of vibration, we explored a different aspect of the masculine/feminine dynamic.   We are see-sawing our way up the vibrational scale, ultimately to a perfect union of the highest aspects of each the Sacred Feminine and Sacred Masculine, the marriage of the Divine Queen and King.

I had an experience just the other day that played this out for me.  I called on the strength and depth of my inner feminine, and it felt so satisfying, like taking a long drink of sweet water after being thirsty for a long, long time.  As I enjoyed feeling the immense feminine in me, I saw in my mind a scene of the wild, fierce and powerful feminine aspect personified by a naked woman with long, wild dark hair.  Her presence was strong, primitive, shamanic, almost animal-like, yet very empathetic and discerning.  She stood before a pile of bones heaped in a corner, and I knew immediately that the pile of bones were my inner broken masculine.  She stood over the bones, breathing life into them and singing to them, gathering them into her strong arms.  As she breathed and sang and rocked the bones, flesh began to grow onto them.  Over a few minutes, the bones had become a beautiful man with light brown hair and piercing blue eyes.  She put the man down, where he stood on his own two feet, and looked at her with an illumined face.  As I watched, his beautiful body became clothed in the finest splendor, and a crown of gold lay atop his head.  His face shone with love and understanding as he beamed at her, my inner feminine.  And I knew that they were in love beyond any limits.  She had, by coming forward in her greatest strength and power, held the space for healing and embraced my masculine’s brokenness, and therefore brought forth her equal.  He was already there, but a pile of bones, and through her love and desire and feminine ways of knowing, she had opened her arms and encouraged him to come into himself.  The missing complete man was made whole by the love, strength, compassion and power of the woman who desired her truest partner.  And now the inner feminine and the inner masculine could join together in ecstatic holy union.  The two were again one.

As this scene played out, I felt energetic shifts in my body and feelings swirling around.  Breathless, I watched the glorious masculine come into the flesh and meet the feminine’s gaze, and I cried with recognition and joy.  I know this beautiful man!  I aspire to be him, just as I aspire to be the highest aspects of my feminine self!  As they embraced each other and began a long eon of passionate tangling, I wept with relief that my inner selves were indeed making love and becoming whole.  It was remarkable.  

Here is what I know; what we are ready to allow into our consciousness, appears.  What we are ready to put our focus on suddenly makes sense to us and we begin to see more of it.  What we are ready to embrace in ourselves, we are ready to embrace in the outer world.

The feminine has always been here, has never truly “gone away”….there is no “return”, but rather a remembrance and recognition of the strength of the feminine and its grace and its wisdom and it’s all-encompassing acceptance and it’s ways of power and knowing.  SHE IS RIGHT HERE and has been all along.  There is no tragic loss of the feminine….no departure or abandonment….it is just us humans, going though our growth process, who lost our awareness of her.  Our awareness of the presence of the feminine is what went underground; our conscious knowing of ourselves is what went underground, not the feminine itself.  And we are ready to internally embrace her again.   

 

“When they are equally present, all is calm.  When one is outweighed by the other, there is confusion and disarray.”

-central tenet of Taoism

 

The Stolen Mother Moon

from a story that Clarissa Pinkola Estes tells on “warming the stone child”, worshipfully transcribed by Licia Berry

This is about a light, a certain kind of light that is represented by the moon, a psychic light, a cool light, it has some distance to it, not the hyper-tropic mother that is all over her children every time their nose is running they might have pneumonia, this is a mother that is a little more aloof, a little more circumspect, she does not so much love by showering love as she loves by guiding, by bringing consciousness out of the darkness.

There was this village, a wonderful village, and everything happened just the way it was supposed to happen, and all the children were terrific and all the mothers and fathers loved each other, except, as there always must be in the psyche and in fairy tales, there was this one thing that was very, very adverse…..this beautiful, harmonious village was surrounded by a moat of black, murky bogs.  It was dark there always, and it stank because everything was rotting.  It was for that reason, the darkness of those quagmires and quicksand, that the people depended on the light of the moon to guide them at night.  Some nights, she did not come, and on those nights the bogs were filled with treachery, because there were evil things that lived there.  Things that live in the darkest corners of humans’ minds would come out at night and lead the poor, struggling travelers with no light into the quagmires and drown them. 

Well, it turned out that several people died in the course of a very short amount of time.  When the Moon Mother learned of this, she was filled with sorrow, for she cared for humans.  In fact she was so concerned she decided she would come to earth and see for herself.  So when the dark of the month came, she stepped onto a slow shooting star and landed at the edge of the marshes.  She wore a black cape pulled around her so that no light could escape, and for as far as she could see, the bogs were like black mirrors, with a few sparse willows sticking up here and there, and the smell of muck everywhere.

Around the bottom of her cape there was a bright rim of light; she saw that and she pulled her cape even tighter.  It was so cold she was trembling, and she feared the evil ones, just as we all do, but she loved the human soul more, and so she began her investigation, guided by the little golden light that leaked through her cape over her beautiful white feet.

She felt her way through the grass with the dank ponds on the left and the quagmires on the right. And just as she had thought she got the lay of the land, all of the sudden, she felt a vine across her ankles, and too late to hold herself, she began to fall forward.  She reached for a twining tree, the kind under the control of the evil ones, and sure as she grabbed its branches, it sent out tendrils around her wrists and her ankles, holding her as though with manacles.  And the more she struggled, the tighter it held her.  And there she was in the blackest dark, shivering and straining. 

She heard a voice calling from far off, “help me, please help”.  She listened and the cry came nearer and nearer, and she heard footfalls stumbling; at last by the dim light of the stars, she saw a haggard, despairing face with fearful eyes and she knew it was a poor soul who had lost its way, and was floundering on to his death. 

And the traveler now caught sight of the glimmer of light from the captive moon, and made his way toward the light, thinking it meant help, but there was a quagmire right in front of the moon.  She was filled with sorrow because she was luring him with her little tiny light, luring him to his death.  Frantic to warn him, she struggled until her hood fell back, and her dazzling hair lit the black waters; a flood of yellow, precious light of the Moon Mother glinted and the whole was as bright as day. How relieved the traveler was to see the evil ones rush back into their underwater holes. 

But the moon struggled against the branches which held her tighter, and she was so glad he was safe, but the traveler ran to the edge of the marsh so quickly, with such haste and relief that he forgot to wonder about the wondrous thing that had just occurred.  And the Mother Moon sank, exhausted into the mud, and as she did, her head fell onto her breast and her hood fell back over her hair and all became darkness again.

And the vile things that love the dark came too, then.  They came with a kind of whisper chatter… “we’ll get her now, we’ll get her now, now we’ll kill her, yes, we’ll kill her.”  They gathered around the Moon Mother, snarling and kicking and grasping, and they drove her into the ground, they who hated humans.  At last, no more light shown across those dark waters.  The One who gave light and even more, the One who shown down on mothers nursing their babies, the One who made sleeping women kiss their lovers’ backs, the One who put words into the dreams of poets, that One was pushed deep into the mud.  The evil ones didn’t care about mothers or babies; they didn’t care about lovers or poets.  The Moon Mother let one last ray of light zig zag over the waters before she disappeared completely.  The evil ones rolled a great boulder over her grave and danced a crazy dance on top of it.

On nights there was no light to guide, and so many people became lost, and so many children became orphaned, and so many people suffered, that the villagers decided they must go and find what had become of the moon.  Armed with torches and clubs, they trekked through the night into the bog, sinking down into the wet and slimy grass all the way up to their knees, and cold and wet they continued on.  The evil things were about and surrounded them, scratching and clawing at them, but the flames from their torches kept them safe.  

And they came to a great boulder, and they said they did not think this boulder was in this place before.  There was a little lip of light all the way around it that shown whiter than white.  With great excitement they lifted and they hauled and they tugged until the boulder rolled away.  And then staring down into what seemed like the most beautiful face they had ever seen, they saw eyes filled with the love of humanity.

  The light rose up, lighting their faces first from beneath and then straight on and then finally from the top as the Moon Mother escaped from her prison and climbed the dark staircase back to the sky, where now, on most nights, she travels across the sky with her hood turned down and with her radiant light everywhere. 

And on those few, now predictable nights, when she veils herself in grey and does not shine, travelers have learned to stay by the hearth and wait until she shows the way again.  

 

“I am not a victim. I am victorious.” -Jennifer Schuett

 

(here introduce the Old WiseWoman, the Teller of Stories)

 

Come round ye women, of old and of young

To hear the tale of a Shero sprung

From the heart of a child; a lion emerged

To claim her true power…all factors converged.

 

Come round me, women,

and listen to my tale

Of a woman who spoke up

When no voice was there

 

Come round the fire and lend me your heart

As I show you a vision of your own Lionheart.

A story of the strength you possess

Whether you be healer, sage or sorceress.

 

Listen to me sing this song of triumph and woe

Listen to this song of a true Shero

She who has risen from the ashes,

She who did not bow before the lash.

 

A woman who loved herself so much

that she would not allow the heinous crime

committed against her to claim her life,

and now she is speaking out, loud and proud

so others will have courage to do the same.

 

 

(here introduce Women in the crowd, around the fire, gathering)

 

Let us raise our voices to the Shero in all of us

 

Who perseveres and vanquishes her enemy

 

Let us take heart and dare to feel hope

 

From hearing her song

 

~

 

(Old WiseWoman, Teller of Stories)

 

On this day from the banks of clouds

A mortal woman inspires song

Her trials she bore at the hands of a man

Did undo her, but not for long.

 

As a maiden, but a child, she was plucked

From the warmth and safety of her nightly bed

And stolen away in the dark, beaten and deflowered,

Her tender throat cut open, and left for dead.

 

Oh, what did she wonder as she watched

The stars o’er head, her silent witnesses?

Did she want her family, miss her dolly, 

worry for her life, while the sickness of men possesses?

 

(Women around the fire, incredulous, angry)

 

A child is to be protected, cherished, adored

Not beaten, abused, and made into whores!

A child taken by adult woes

Carries that pain wherever they go!

 

(Old WiseWoman, Teller of Stories)

 

Powerless to overthrow him, powerless to stop him,

Powerless to scream, run, fight, or beat him

A little girl in her nightgown, tendrils of sweet curls hanging down

She was the victim of his madness, prey to him. 

 

Her voice, her sweet voice, it was made obsolete

By his cruel knife, an attempted final defeat.

No way to call, no way to cry

It is truly a wonder that she did not die.

 

He threw her away when he was done, lifeless

Onto earth’s field, her blood spilt on the ground

Did he have a moment’s remorse, a thought to whom he’d laid bare?

Or like so much trash, turned his back on her that made no sound?

 

She lay there until the light of day, almost one with the dirt

Barely alive, semi-conscious; and thus began the true work

Of reclaiming her life from that awful night, when innocence was taken

And retrieving her spirit from the blood, semen, and murk.

 

(The Women around the fire are stunned into silence; the Story Teller continues, quietly at first )

 

The choice to live after one’s heart, mind and body are broken

Is a courageous one, to be sure, make no mistake.

A victim as a child, most certainly; but as she grew,

Her goal to have justice was a thirst unslaked.

 

The burning to find her monster, to put him away

Formed a kind of resolve, a strength, a spine.

To put right what was put asunder

To take back, to reclaim what was thine.

 

How many would cringe, wish for and hold tight to their deaths

Rather than stand up, point and loudly scream his name?

How many would turn the old patriarch over on his grey head

And show him the grit of our spirits, the scars from his shame?

 

(Women around the fire, enraged and feeling their ire)

 

The choice not to die

Despite some men’s wishes

Is a clue to our strength.

In your face, sons of bitches!

 

And well meaning advice is forced upon us,

“Let it go”, “It’s karma”, “Forgive and forget”

Not knowing, they perpetrate

The violence that silence begets!

 

(Old WiseWoman, Teller of Stories)

 

The stories of old would nourish us in these times,

When women and children still bear the brunt of men’s weakness.

Stories of women and goddesses, who were erased from the books

But nevertheless, through their sex, show their uniqueness.

 

There is a power, unspoken, quiet but sure

A thread of life that runs through us, no matter what we endure

If we are but willing to take hold of that thread

The long ancestral line of Woman will tenderly hold our head.

 

And when we feel Her strength and resolve,

We will find our voices again, stand up and behold

Our own significant part of All Creation

So marvelous, precious, fierce and bold.

 

~

 

And now in this day of bombing the ancient face of the moon,

Women everywhere would take heart from Jennifer’s role

To find her OWN voice, to face her offender, no matter the years

To bring eyes, justice, awareness, then freedom to her soul. 

 

“To thine own self be true” was ne’er so bright

As when a little girl overcame fear to set things right.

And while we all may be spiritually “playing our part”,

I will go with the Amazon, true to her warrior heart.

 

 

 

Jennifer Schuett, you are a SHERO.

 

In deep and humble gratitude,

With Love and Blessings,

Licia Berry

www.liciaberry.com

Copyright Licia Berry, 2009, all rights reserved