Writing Directly Out of the Vast, Deep Mystery

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when you are struggling
in your
writing (art).
it usually means
you
are hearing one thing.
but
writing (creating) another.
— honest | risk

from salt, by nayyirah waheed

 

 

We all receive what wants to be created through us in different ways. As a writer and creative, I get images and a sense of what wants to be written/created. I can feel it, but it’s rarely clear. But even then, there’s always enough to begin, enough to take that first step.

That’s really the most important piece. To take that first step. To begin.

But what happens along the way to cause the struggle?

I was talking to a friend today about writing. We were sharing with each other about our writing process and how hard it can be sometimes to put words to what we ‘hear’ or ‘sense’ wants to be written.

I usually get a sense of the writing that wants to come. Sometimes it comes in images, other times I ‘hear’ something. But to write and create, my mind has to communicate what I sense, see, and or hear. Something deeper than my rational mind, the unconscious, is showing me the writing in its own way, but my mind must take that and put it into words. My mind must communicate the creation into form.

Sometimes I’ve noticed that my mind has a hard time doing that because there’s too big a gap between what I sense and what my mind can translate into words. So my mind fills things in as best it can and what I end up with isn’t at all what I sensed or heard. I’ve lately found myself sitting here at my laptop, fingers poised to write, while my mind attempts to find the words. It’s such an interesting thing to witness in the moment because I am aware of a felt sense of frustration within me – seeing/hearing what I’m trying to write and then trying to find the words and phrases that capture it.

Sometimes, too, the writing just flows. There is no gap. The mind is open and free enough that there is no separation in me, the one who is writing. There is only writing.

And then other times, I notice that my Voice of Judgment (VOJ) jumps in almost immediately, judging and criticizing what comes even before the mind gets it down on paper. It’s like an immediate judgment of what comes. It’s crazy how fast the VOJ can grab a hold of the steering wheel and take you right off course.

But really what I want to do is communicate what I am hearing and sensing. That is all I really want to do. It’s easier for me through photography (the image above) and dance. I don’t edit. There’s no judgment. There’s only the expression. But writing has been harder for me to lose the VOJ, the editor that wants to edit before there are even words on the page.

Can you relate?

We want to get it right but so often we come up short. It’s the mind somehow thinking it has to ‘make it happen’, which is really way beyond its job description of simply communicating. It’s trying to play ‘Soul’ rather than letting Soul be Soul and being, doing what it was created to do.

I’ve found that writing regularly helps to shorten this gap. A regular writing practice helps the mind get used to the practice of writing what it receives.

And, what I’ve found always brings me back to writing more naturally and effortlessly is writing about what brings me joy, or what I love, or what I care deeply about. If I’m trying to write something because I think it is what others want to hear, I never do so with much ease. I struggle to get the words out and once I do the piece can feel stilted and tight. And after writing it, I do, too. Because I’ve left Soul by trying to make it happen.

But when I write something that brings me joy or pleasure, then the writing flows. The soul can be heard and felt. When this is true, Soul is so close. That’s also true about writing in my Writing Raw groups. I love diving into writing when I’m surrounded by that sisterhood. Just the energy alone of the circle is a big support. And in these circles, we write from deep within, from the texture and beauty of Soul. We write directly out of the deep and vast ocean of Mystery. But you don’t need to be in a circle. You can begin to deepen your own practice of entering into this deep and vast mysterious ocean that is the source of all that is created.

We are so deeply interconnected through something much greater than any one of us. When you write what brings you joy or deeply moves you,  and you faithfully express it as you hear it, you move those who feel a similar way or need to hear it, or something else related. There is a connection. There is a correlation. We do meet our audience through our words but not in the way we ‘think’ we are supposed to.

Something greater than any one of us connects us through the deep place of love within each of us. It is this that drives creative expression. It is this that we honor when we write what we hear. And our writing becomes so much easier through this honoring.

Thank you to nayyirah waheed for her poem, available in her profound book of poetry, salt.  And thank you to Tanya for reminding me of this poem.

 

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Limned: A Braided Essay For World Storytelling Day

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FFOA

Today, March 20th, is World Storytelling Day.

And, I have a story to share with you. Many stories really, but first this one…

 

For years now…

I’ve been moving in spaces of the feminine, whether that be in energies of the feminine principle, the elements of the Earth, or spaces solely filled with women. My experiences in these have unveiled and reshaped who I know myself to be not just as a human being, but as a woman and who I am with women. This was my hope when I founded Unabashedly Female – to come to know the feminine as She moves through me, as She is in other women, as She is in men, and as She moves through the worlds.

For me, both storytelling and writing have been a part of this process. Two deeply creative acts. Through writing my stories and sharing them here, I’ve discovered deeper layers of the feminine. In writing the stories, I began to see things about myself, my life, and my relationship to the world, from a deeper, wider arc. By sharing them, I began to hear from you that these stories guided you to see things about the feminine, about yourself, and about who you are becoming. Sharing our stories does this. And writing from down in where we excavate the deeper truths does this.

All too often the Voice of Judgment (VOJ), another deep and powerful way of seeing the Inner Critic especially with regard to creativity, vehemently hates us sharing these deeper stories of truth that lay waiting inside of us for breath and life and ears to listen. These are the stories that truly unveil, the stories that cast light where there was shadow.

And so, of course, as Life would want…

I managed to find a way to begin to write these stories AND share them. Though in the beginning, it had to be with a very small group of women who are writers and with whom I felt comfortable enough to go there…to write these stories. Writing with these women – Ronna Detrick, Amy Palko, and- for over two years has been the fertile ground of my becoming, and fertile for each of them as well.

Today on World Storytelling Day…

Our group, which we have named Fierce For One Another, is sharing one of our many braided essays – Limned. We have many braided essays; enough to fill a beautiful woven book of feminine voice and experience. We did this through a process of discovery.

Yes, we are fierce for one another. Through writing together, for the most part weekly over the past two plus years, we have found a place where no matter what we write and read to each other over our weekly calls, we hold the line of fierceness for the words, the stories, and the woman we have been and are becoming.

About a year into our time together, we began to braid our words together. Braiding is a very feminine attribute as is this process of writing together. Weaving together into relationship, through story, finding the lines that meet, walk together, then meander to another. Words that call resonate, phrases that catch the breath and must be penned again, essential fragrances of womanhood that demand to be known again in the light of the heart, in this realm of flesh and blood, in this day and time.

In this process, each of us would begin a piece and then we came together to read them. Then, we would each pass our words onto another woman who would carry on from our last word to share her story that, while indeed her own, was born out of the first. We then came back to read, and then we passed them on again. And so on, until the piece returned to the first woman, who sometimes would finish with her words, and would sometimes feel that the piece already stood on its own.

Today, we offer you Limned.

It is a braided story that in some ways is also about story and tales. But these aren’t fairy tales. These are rich, embodied, stories of our lives, sometimes sharing memories and sometimes coming directly out of our felt experience of that moment.

I hope you enjoy Limned. And if you do not know Ronna, Amy, or Tanya, I hope this leads you to their work for they are powerfully creative women whose businesses are about empowering the women to live as we are.

A p.s. : we sometimes swear … a fair bit.

After listening, I’d love to know what you feel and think of this long braided story. It’s just over 36 minutes so you might listen as you walk in the woods, or urban woods if you live in the city like me. Or curl up on your sofa and with hot tea in hand, sink in.

However you listen, I hope you feel the power of four women coming together to write what is true in that moment, to share their stories together, to become so in love with each other that we hold each other’s words, stories, and lives as sacred and worthy of ears who will listen without judgment and with love. I wish this for you. Not necessarily the writing, but the closeness with women, this space of love, this acceptance of whom you are and the stories you have to tell.

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In Your Own Language

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Poetpic

 

 

“Don’t use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry.”

~  Jack Kerouac

For some time, I couldn’t call myself a writer. Then I did.

Same is true for poet. Now I do.

I’ve come to see something about writing. And poetry. When I first began to write after graduating from Stanford, my writing was – as you might guess – academic. But, I was 45 when I graduated, and had a lot of life in the rear view mirror. I wasn’t new to life. Academic writing served me there, but as I began to write about my life, my words felt clenched, tight. I slowly began to unwind my voice, to free it, to soften it. I began the journey of writing, and it has been a journey.

The journey of writing is so many things. For me, it’s been part of this long journey to discover who I really am, to discover what is inside as well as outside, and ultimately to discover there is no distinction.

The journey has taken me to many places, places that I’d hang out at for a while. Hanging out gave me the chance to settle into a new writing style, really a new writing freedom – plateaus on the long way down and in.

Lately, I’ve seen how I, and many, many women, learned to translate our native, mother tongue into a language that is more acceptable in this masculine-centric culture. My writing journey has been to come home to this mother tongue, my mother tongue – the language my own soul speaks.

Perhaps it is poetry. Perhaps. I say that because I don’t even really know what poetry is. I don’t know the rules. And, I don’t need to know either. I know it by feel. There is spaciousness in poetry, and there is room for you to read my words and have your own experience – whatever that might be.

So, yes, I am a poet. A poet of my own language. As you are a poet of your own language. Isn’t that truly the only way we can really tell and write the truth? In our own language?

::

writingrawpin01How do you come to know this language when you’ve been taught to speak ‘the’ language your whole life? You listen. You listen within. You go within, open your inner ears, open your inner eyes, touch with your inner fingertips, taste with those taste buds that line your heart’s walls and tumble down the sides of your round and supple belly.

You wade into the deep waters inside your inner temple, waters that hold the elements
of creation, waters that are creation.

You write, raw, the language of your own Soul. Every Soul is a poet. Every Soul. It is up
to you to know what poetry means for you.

If you’d like to take this journey with me, join me for the next round of Writing Raw.

We begin the week of January 12th and our circle lasts for six weeks. The early-bird price of $295 ends Dec 31st.

It is not simply for writers. It is for any woman who wants to know the deep feminine within, who wants to explore her own body and the body erotic, who wants to hear her own voice spoken aloud in a circle of women, without judgment, without critique.

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Your Body is a chalice for your Creativity.

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So many myths. So many road signs. So many descriptions of how to enter into the divine mystery. It is laid out for us to see. At least as much as it can be…the mysterious part remains just that, thank goodness.

Over the centuries, people have tried to understand what it takes to enter into the unknown. Whether it be the Hero(ine)’s journey, Inanna’s descent, or navigating a labyrinth, those who’ve traversed this terrain have tried to find ways to guide others through. It’s really quite beautiful.

What I’ve found through so many of these myths, stories, and guides is this: We have to let go of something in order for our hands, hearts, minds to be empty enough to receive that which is being offered to us. And, in receiving what is offered, we take charge of the seedling. We become the gardner, the attendant, the one who will love this seed into expression. It is not our task to ask that it be a certain kind or flavor. It is not our task to judge this seedling.

Nor is it ours to question our ability or capacity to be this home of nourishment and growth. We were created for this. Our capacity has been given to us as a sacred task while living in a human body.

As Creatrix, our role is to welcome the creative seed and to give it a place to burrow down into the soil of the flesh so it can be held in the nourishing dark. It must have a home as its shell breaks open and roots and wings grow forth.

Your human body is a chalice always being filled with love, inspiration, and breath. Just as we are breathed, we are filled with the creative force, a force that rises up from the base of the chalice that is the body.

As I’ve been researching how we are guided into the mystery for Writing Raw, my new online writing circle for women, over and over I see the same markers of the map into this terrain. Yes, there are different words used, or different myths that carry the stories. But the relationship is always the same. It is a relationship where we who enter must let go, unveil, or undergo initiation so that we are open and vulnerable enough to be entered into by that which is meant to come in. It is the nature of our dance with the divine.

writingrawpin02AsCreatrixAnd, that is why I am offering Writing Raw.

This relationship we have with the sacred mystery is an important one because if we are not conscious of this relationship in our everyday lives, then we aren’t conscious of the sacred, of the very real presence of love in the world as it is right now. If we are not aware of how to open our hands and hearts to what is being given – not what we want, but what is being offered – then we aren’t in relationship with our intrinsic power as human beings to be a force of good, a force that is moved by love.

It is our relationship with the sacred, with love, that needs healing. If we know the sacred, we see it in everything in our world and in our lives.

It is a great act of love to take the journey within in order to be and live this chalice that you are.

It is a great act of love.

I would truly love for you to enter into this vibrant writing circle for women, Writing Raw. We will be practicing with these powerful ways to enter into this mysterious, sacred circle of receiving so we can truly be these vessels. Take a look. See if it resonates. Reach out to me if you have questions.  Join if it feels right.

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When words become Word

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Instinctual Pursuit

It’s an odd thing to be on this journey looking for something, following the scent, almost instinctual, toward that which you’re longing to discover and know, only to realize that what you’ve been looking for can’t be known, or understood, or figured out in the way the part of you that’s been searching is fixated on.

This instinctual pursuit feels like the deepest longing for something. It feels like something I remember, a taste of something once tasted, a scent or touch or sound of something I was once with. I’ve come to know that I can’t know this thing that I’ve been trying to understand. I can’t grasp it. I can’t get it. I can’t even see it clearly. I have a sense of it. I have an inner vision of a large vast void out of which things come – like a big womb.

When I relax into this force of creation, like when I dance and thinking stops, instinct takes over and joy flies in every direction that leg, foot, arm, hand, head, hair can travel. All that exists is the dance. The dancer is gone, having fallen into the vast void of the dance.

Relationship

What seems to matter most is the relationship I (or you) have with Creation, where the I is the part of me that has to put stuff out into the world (the part that worries about how I will make a living, the part that cares about the human pieces and parts of life). In this relationship, Creation is that which I can never know but which I clearly experience with every inhale and exhale.

On the dance floor, this relationship between creator and creation has become almost easy. Creator gives way to creation and all that’s left is motion, and in its wake is form, the form of a dancer that’s been danced. I know this. It’s been ten years and I now know and trust this relationship.

The dance floor holds it all.

As I dive more deeply into my writing, my mind has struggled with form, with finished product. After a deep dance last night, I wondered how writing is really dance in disguise, dance in just another form. Can these words be the dance that grace the page? Can they fly out of the void, in any direction they desire, landing in some form that ultimately is meaningful? Does it matter if it has meaning?

Is this when words become Word?

Is Creation like a big dance floor?

Can we know it holds us?

What is your dance floor?

What is your relationship with Creation?

Is there trust? Is there hesitancy?

Is there a willingness to put all four paws on the ground and follow the scent so you can dine on that which you are ravenous for and drink from the infinite source?

::

And speaking of all four paws, have you met your four-footed self? Do you long to and at the same time fear her just a little or a lot?

Come join Lianne Raymond and me for the inaugural session of The WildSoul Book Club. We’d love to have you join us for this instinctual journey to that which you hunger for – the Wild Soul.

Take a moment to hear what wise women you know discovered reading our book – Women Who Run With the Wolves. We’ll be sharing interviews with lots of wonderful wise women.

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Pieces of Life

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The first few days of November hold deeply meaningful things for me.

November 1st is the date I was due with my first child, Jackie.
She came eleven days later, on November 11, but for some reason I always remember the 1st, too, as if the day I was due to deliver also marked the crossing of a threshold.

Perhaps it was because for eight months this date stretched out in front of me as the day I would become a mother. I remember the feeling of this date being etched in my heart before I knew how my heart would break open to the unconditional love I felt when I first held each of my daughters.

The last day of October and first few days of November also mark a time when the veil between life here and life beyond is thin – then enough to feel and sense life on the other side. Life almost seems to have a magical quality to it during these hours and days.

In these days, I feel a strong desire to go inward, to begin the descent into the darker months of late autumn and winter. This desire to go inward sits awkwardly with the warm sunny days we have here in the Bay Area during this same time.

Yesterday, I spent a part of my day co-working with a few fellow coaches and writers. At the suggestion of Tara Mohr, we began to meet one day a month to work together, to enjoy community, and I’ve come to look forward to simply being with these lovely women.

As I sat in Rachel‘s kitchen, the sun shined so brightly into the room that I could have sworn it was late July. While the heat felt like summer, the warm cozy colors of her home deepened the urge I feel to settle indoors, making a warm cozy space in which to write.

Andrea and her son joined us as we took time out from work to eat. I felt so at peace simply being with friends, eating good food and talking about everyday things. I tend to be a loner, and I’ve been consciously trying to spend more time with others.

The way of women is to come together, and for some reason I learned habits that conditioned me to spend so much time alone. I am learning to come together with women. It hasn’t been easy. And, I long for it.

I’ve had the pleasure

of getting to know another woman, a woman I first met at the World Domination Summit in June. We met in an unexpected way. The doors of the hotel elevator opened and lo and behold, Jamie Ridler, who I had only known through social media, stood there right in front of my eyes. I witnessed her divine smile in real time.

Just a few weeks ago, Jamie invited me to be a guest on her podcast series. Let me tell you, speaking with Jamie was one of the most ease-filled times I’ve ever experienced. As you’ll notice on the podcast, our conversation was so fluid and effortless.

In this podcast, Jamie also shares some of her own wisdom. And then, further into the recording, Jamie and I speak of creativity and the Feminine, what it means to be creative as a woman.

I’m excited to share this talk with you. I hope you enjoy it, and I’d love to hear what it sparks for you.

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The Other Half

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Sometimes, the urge to write is so strong. That’s only half of it. What is strong is the urge to write and then share the words with others.

Sometimes, it feels like what I write has been said many times before, yet I still find I must write it.

Sometimes, I wonder about this urge, about why it is necessary. No, that’s not quite right. Make that imperative. It is imperative that I write and that I share it.

Sometimes, the words feel meaningless, as if they are just words.

Sometimes, when the words come out, they seem pleasant, powerful. And, I know there is something else there.


“Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you.” ~Kahlil Gibran

The muse has her way with me. I type as she whispers, as she infuses something else into the work.

Who knows why we are moved to express what we do and how we do it? Who knows?

There is more to it than meets the eye. There is more than simply that which can be seen, noted, measured.

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Beautiful Evidence

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Smell Of Freedom
Smell Of Freedom

Whatever it may be that holds you captive is nothing compared to what wants to set you free. ~ @GuyFinley

::

#reverb10 day two’s prompt is from Leo Babauta at Zen Habits:
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

::

Serendipity is always happening, just like Grace is always available…we just have to be open to receiving. Today’s reverb10 post is no exception. Yesterday, I came across the quote above by Guy Finley. It captivated me from the moment I saw it…it’s captivating because I know the truth of it. It is beautiful evidence of the creative power within each of us.

What wants to hold us captive is absolutely nothing compared to that which wants to set us free. And this has everything to do with writing…

For me, writing is a direct path to freedom. Dance is another. So is love-making. Play. Prayer.

We are meant to be free. We are free, except in our minds. It is only the mind, the conditioned mind, that holds me captive. And so it is in my writing. When I am not free in writing, it is because I listen to those small voices in my head that tell me all sorts of stories about everything but freedom.

I could try to eliminate the mind, the conditioning, the stories, but that would be a waste of my time, my energy, my life force. They aren’t going to go away.

It’s my choice which one I will feed…that which wants to hold me captive or that which wants to set me free.

::

Think of your own creative experiences. Consider the power of the force which yearns to be free. Consider the smallness of the voices that keep you captive. Consider that you might just be afraid of the power within you that longs to be free to move, to express, to voice, to sing, to love.

In Lisa‘s reverb10 post, Writer Love, she tells of how her “writer envy transformed itself into writer love” – beautiful evidence that “Whatever it may be that holds you captive is nothing compared to what wants to set you free.” And it will set you free, if you open to the Grace of it.

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Smell of Freedom is by Gagilas on flickr under cc2.0


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There’s No Voice Like Yours

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I’ve been thinking a lot about Voice…as a metaphor, as an act, as a unique expression of oneself.

Every time I sit down to write, my voice sounds different as the words fly from my fingers. While I sense my voice is different, I imagine those of you reading my posts on any regular basis feel I have a ‘voice’ you recognize as different from any other…or maybe not. As I consider that, I wonder if it matters. What does really matter when it comes to speaking that which must be said?

Just yesterday, my dear friend Jeanne wrote, in her blog the barefoot heart, about voice and her experiences finding hers. I love Jeanne’s voice. It is unmistakeably hers.. Jeanne writes that she wonders what her ‘right sound’ is:

“do i forget funny and stick to serious, reflective tones? do i keep trying the funny, knowing that writing humor is different from doing humor? do i do both ’cause i am both?”

Jeanne’s words struck a chord within me. I am becoming more confident in my writing. Same as with Jeanne, much of that confidence I owe to the women I have met on Twitter that have embraced me and my Voice with such love and support.  I notice that my voice can change from serious, spiritual, funny, loving, and sometimes powerful and intuitive. Sometimes I write sludge (feels and sounds a lot like internal processing on the page, something the roommate in the head likes to sell) …sometimes clarity and truth.

Writing is an interesting practice. And I know I don’t even know what will come out when I sit down to write. I can try to force things, but that never feels right.

Writing from my body helps. My body speaks truth, as do all bodies. If I remember to drop down into the body, truth flows.

And there’s still fear present when I write.

What’s the fear about?

For me, the fear is not so much if others don’t like my style or writing abilities. The fear is about the repercussions I might face if I write what is deepest in my heart, some of which is:

  • the beauty and sacredness of the female gender and the sacredness of our sexuality and female bodies
  • the possibility for women to discover that they are the sacred feminine, and for men to discover they are the sacred masculine
  • the devaluation of women and girls and the violence perpetrated on the female gender
  • the constant bombardment of demoralizng images, messages, interactions that women and girls face in their day-to-day lives, meant to keep us dis-empowered and depressed
  • the pain that men feel as the dominant gender where the effects of patriarchy still hold sway
  • the absolute importance and necessity of healing our mother wounds, and the wounding of the Big Mother, our divine planet
  • AND the vision I see of the way things could be if we realize, before its too late, that we are all really divine in human clothing.

And the fear comes from simply speaking out as an act in itself. As Miriam Greenspan writes in Healing Through The Dark Emotions:

Fear for women is not an enemy to be conquered but a warning track that says: Go no further. It is the demarcation line that points to the bounds of possibility and permissible female behavior. If you’re a woman and you don’t use fear to limit yourself, there is an implicit threat of violence.”

I came across another post yesterday by Brené Brown titled, ” I’m Pretty. Pissed.”

In her post, Brené writes about two friends and how they were attacked after writing opinion pieces in public forums. She offers up 8 points of advice to women who are speaking out, in hopes we can avoid the kind of attack her two friends encountered.  Make sure to read her full post to reap the benefits of her great advice.

“In my own decade-long research on authenticity and shame, I found that speaking out is a major shame trigger for women.

I can see Brené’s words clearly in my own conditioning and know these powerful forms of conditioned control have played a part in my journey to becoming a writer that can and will speak that which has to be spoken.

The main reason I’ve posted this today, is to speak to what I think is an important community of collaboration and support for the feminine voice to be heard: social media networks – Twitter, Facebook and whatever else you might find that helps you connect to other women that are heading the call to stand up and speak out in these times when it is critical for women’s voices to be heard.

Creating community to speak and listen, is imperative. To have a vehicle for women’s stories to be spoken and heard is critical. Women speaking out is what is being called for right now. Women supporting other women is what is being asked of us right now.

As Jeanne wrote yesterday,

“see, usually i’m a little too tentative, too scared of smackdown to post anything i feel like isn’t going to be well received. but since being on twitter, i’ve met women who make me feel comfortable enough, safe enough to mash “send” because i know they’ll be patient and accepting…”

When I read Jeanne’s words, I felt this connection, this witnessing of story, of voice, of truth by one woman to another. This is where we find power. I saw myself in Jeanne, saw my own struggle to stand up, to speak out, and to know, while doing so, that I am part of a family of women.

One small point here that is of utmost importance: Not all women are supportive of this. Many men are. Brené comments on this, too, saying: “Don’t blame men. Men are as likely to be offended by cruelty as women, and women are as likely to perpetrate it as men.” I have found so many deeply honoring and supportive men on Twitter and Facebook, men who write to me expressing joy and respect for the words I write. And, I’ve had women deride me for the same words.

This point is important, AND there is something that needs to happen by women coming together, to tell their stories aloud, to witness and honor, to hold each other in reverence and awe, to see the sacred face of the divine in each other’s femaleness, wisdom and pain.

You see, I could have picked any one of my village of women – Jeanne just happened to write something yesterday that sparked something in me. I was so taken by her words, by what was happening inside her, and I value being witness to the stories she writes about her heart, her life and her wisdom, just as I value these very things that are born from all women. This is one of the most creative aspects of having a village. We are connected. We witness. Our hearts can break open by empathizing with the other as she unfolds her sacredness onto the page.

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So, here are some ideas to hold as you speak up and out.

  1. Just start. Write. To yourself, to others, on a blog, in a journal, by letter, anywhere you can write, just write. Let the fire in you find its way out onto the page.
  2. Write and speak from the body. It doesn’t lie. write/speak from your instincts. your intuition.. (check out the book, Writing From the Body, if you want to know more about this.)
  3. Trust that your voice will emerge if you just write the words that want to be written. Know that your voice will change, will flow, will find its own way. Your genius will emerge. It wants to be heard.
  4. Know that not everyone will agree, and not everyone will find your words meaningful.
  5. Find your village of women to support you. Search the social media halls for women who have a penchant for topics your voice likes. Reach out to them. Read their words, and if they truly resonate with you, comment, friend and follow them.
  6. Know that you don’t always have to agree with your village in order to support their work. What if we women stood by each other, in solidarity, simply because we know and understand how hard this process is and how important it is each woman be heard. We’ve all been conditioned to the hilt. What if we stopped judging each other’s conditiong, and held each other as the powerful woman we know she is?
  7. Hold the paradox of being in community and learning the ‘way of surrender is about remaining vulnerable and finding the power of no-protection” (Miriam Greenspan). At some point, we all must find the place of balance between the two, somewhere on the continuum that works for you.

I share from my own experience. I’d love to know what has helped you.

As I open to this paradox, of knowing I have my village of women, and knowing the power of no-protection, I find truth finding its way.

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