Laboring To Be Born

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever does.” Margaret Mead

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I’m not sure where this post is going to go, but I trust it will take us somewhere.

Two days ago,  I wrote about Voice and the many things that can support a woman in owning and speaking her truth. Many of you responded so positively to that post. It was truly a joy to read your comments and to notice the sense of coming together that occurred.

For me, the great joy of writing the post was noticing how I am one of many in the stream of women’s voices that are yearning to be spoken and heard. There was a sense of how one builds upon another, how where one woman’s words end, another’s begin. I wrote my post, then Jeanne wrote her post based on mine, then I wrote another based on hers. Suddenly a new woman appeared in the stream. Renae left me a wonderful comment, noting how she found my blog:

“a few weeks ago – from someone else’s site – and right now I don’t even remember who.  Brené’s work has played a part in me beginning to find my voice. The connections are simply stunning to me.”

Connections. One follows another, which follows another. This is the currency of the Internet.

I followed Renae’s link and discovered her blog and a new post, one in which she mentioned my post and the impact it had on her.

“So I press ever onward, sometimes feeling like I’m fighting the battle alone. And then I ran across this post: https://unabashedlyfemale.com/2010/03/02/theres-no-voice-like-yours/ I’ve been reading Julie’s blog for a few weeks. I’m adding her to my blog roll. She touches the deep places in my soul. She makes me feel that the community I want for my daughters, might, just might, be possible.

And so, we move into a new year, ever closer to the teen years, with at least a little hope that my daughters will live in a world without shame about who they are. That they can spend their energy fighting new battles instead of the same old ones. That they will grow into their own voices and not need to find them, because they will have been there all along.”

As I read her entire post, I was so moved by it. I was moved by her clear love for her daughters and her hope that her daughters could find a community where there was no longer shame for being a woman, and by her hope that her daughters will know their voices, not having to discover them later in life.

I was moved by the fact that connections were made from Jeanne, to me, to Jeanne, to me, to Renae… and obviously there was no beginning and no end, just connections, just life moving as it does. Yet, if we had all stayed silent, we would never have met, we would never have been buoyed up, strengthened by our connectedness, by our shared longing for truth and expression.

I sat and pondered this. There is desire for something here, desire for a better way for women and girls, a better way for men, for the planet, for life itself. Mothers longing for it to be different for their daughters…and sons, husbands, brothers, sisters, men, women and life.

Something is wanting to be born, to come into existence through our words, through the impetus each of us feels inside to speak, to express, to share, to love, to create, to be in communion with each other and with life.

We are building something here, a community that is fluid, where people come and go, where ideas build upon the last, and where things fall away as new comes in. The stream meanders, finding its way.

Today, I came across this video on Leadership. It’s a simple homegrown video that’s fun to watch. And someone put some great commentary to it, with an interesting take on leadership. Watch it (it’s short) and see what happens.

Here’s this guy dancing. Just dancing and enjoying himself. His joy is contagious. One brave soul steps up and joins up, no longer able to contain the desire to join in. Then another two join. Then more. Suddenly there is a group of people dancing together. Soon a tipping point is reached and people are flocking in from all directions.

The commentator suggests the movement gets started when the first follower arrives. That seems to be true in the case of the dancing guy. Or is it when there are four. Or eight? Or twelve? What if the group split up into two? Or did the movement really begin when the music started?

Coming back to this deeper desire that is being born through women. What is this?

There are many groups of women, men and children that are creating a new world; but, I sense there is a movement happening that is being born by women. It doesn’t matter where it started, but we are now feeling the movement gain momentum.

This humanity of woman, carried out in suffering and humiliation, will then, when in the commutations of her external situation she will have stripped off the conventions of being only feminine, come to light, and those men, who do not yet feel it approaching today, will be astonished and stunned by it.
—– …some day there will be girls and women whose name will no longer signify merely an opposite of the masculine, but something in itself, something that makes one think, not of any complement and limit, but of life and existence: the female human being.

It’s this humanity of woman that is coming back into existence, but coming back into form after having been in exile for centuries.

It’s funny that this video of a joyful man dancing caught my attention. It’s not that men or women are so significantly different that we can’t see ourselves in the other.

Yet, there is something being born specifically by women, that only women can bring into being and it is something that can heal. It’s born of desire, a longing and yearning for life to be respected, loved and nurtured.

When I read Renae’s words about desire for something different for her daughters, I could feel this new vision trying to come into being.

I also can sense that it is time for our own inner masculine to become strong and active, for women to come into balance, knowing what we long for inside now must come into being through definitive action.

Marianne Williamson held a conference this past weekend titled Sister Giant. Prior to the conference, she created this video, that I find incredibly inspiring. While the event has passed, her message is loud and clear. We women have work to do.

Watching the dancing guy caused me to think about this movement, this movement of women rising up and saying, “Enough is Enough”. We can do it with joy. We can do it with passion. And we need solidarity, to come together, to find the one thing we all hold dear, the one thing we are willing to rise up for: the survival of the human species.

We are not alone in this. There is no starting point that can be pinpointed, nor does that matter. There are many leaders, many first followers, and many tipping points.

Something has been laboring to be born. The birth is imminent. The stream is gaining volume and speed. Where and how will we find the solidarity that allows us to hold our differences and yet stand strong, fierce and resilient?

By the way, I got to the end of this post, realized where it had taken me. I could see my own connections that I hadn’t seen before. I then knew the Mead quote was fitting.

We never know where the stream will take us. We just need to step into it, knowing how many others are already wet and long for the strength, commitment and determination that solidarity can bring.