women’s power – unabashedly female

February 19, 2018

Writing Directly Out of the Vast, Deep Mystery

when you are struggling
inÂ your
writing (art).
it usually means
you
are hearing one thing.
but
writing (creating) another.
â€”Â honestÂ | risk

from salt, byÂ nayyirahÂ 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,Â there’sÂ 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.Â 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 becauseÂ 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 theÂ 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 oceanÂ 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,Â and you faithfully express it as you hear it, youÂ 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 doÂ 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 toÂ nayyirahÂ waheedÂ for her poem, available in her profound book of poetry, salt.Â And thank you toÂ TanyaÂ for reminding me of this poem.

March 20, 2017March 20, 2017

Limned: A Braided Essay For World Storytelling Day

Today, MarchÂ 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 storytellingÂ and writingÂ 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 weÂ 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 thatÂ 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.

December 4, 2013December 4, 2013

What if Eve was simply letting the soft animal of her body love what it loved?

A while ago, I wrote about sin in The Courage to Sin. That writing was long and laborious. I felt as though I was giving birth to a 100 pound yam.

It’s not the most comfortable topic for me. All of my writing boogie monsters come out when I even get close to having a thought to blog about it. There are a lot of people invested in maintaining the idea of ‘sin’ as a way to keep us on our best behavior. But boogie monsters or not, the shame is here and I know I have to write about it.

This is a picture of Jody – a beautiful big horse whose gift it is to help heal. Jody taught me something profoundly beautifulÂ about the sacredness of our animal bodies.

I’m coming back again to a big piece of shame that’s been stuck in my body for way too long.Â This is shame that stems from projected sinfulness, meaning sinfulness that others believe is true about women and the world. It’s shame that has to do with sexuality and sensuality, with the power of women, and with women’s joy and passion.

This shame is dark and sticky. It feels as if it resides in my chest, covering over my heart, and even making its way down into my solar plexus and belly.

The shame keeps things pretty darn stuck. It causes me to think twice about using my voice, about writing what I feel called to write. It leads me to be really cautious and careful, to stay away from taking risks.

This shame borne out of projected sinfulness is a ploy used to keep women in check – to keep us small, silent, and dutiful.

It’s not like this is the first time I’ve met it face-to-face. But, this time is different. I realize that in the past, there were many ‘reasons’ to listen to it…but upon closer listening I’ve found all of those reasons aren’t reasonable. They are about as reasonable as the very idea that’s been passed around that women, like Eve, are sinful.

The more aware I become of the shame that is stuck in my body, the more clear I am that a) it is not mine, and b) I don’t want to carry it around any longer for those who decided long ago that I should.

I mean, why would I? Why would I go along with such a cockamamie story that tells me I should feel shame about who and what I am because I am a woman?

In the past, I’ve circled around the shame, mucking up in the shame, trying to figure out where it came from, what it meant, and what I had to do to get rid of it. That worked to a point, but now I see it’s more helpful to back up and look at the whole picture. This isn’t remorse or guilt or something I am feeling because I did something to hurt another. No, this is cultural, religious, systemic and toxic shame that comes from this fishbowl I live in.

Dr. BrenÃ© Brown writes that shame is “the intensely painful feeling that we are unworthy of love and belonging”.

Well, in the story that holds Eve was bad, the same story that constantly tells us women we should feel shame for what we are, women are seen as unworthy of love and belonging.

The question is…to what world do we want to belong? Do we want to belong in a story that holds that women are sinful? Or would we rather belong in a story that holds that all of life is sacred and holy?

Mary Oliver wrote:

“You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your bodyÂ love what it loves.”

What if Eve was only letting the soft animal of her body love what it loved?
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I’ve decided that’s how I want to live my life. Shame be damned. I am a soft animal and I know what I love.

October 25, 2013

The world will heal when women’s hips speak freely again.

The music pulses and my hip responds.
It’s my right hip.
She’s clearly talking.
She’s got something to say.
She’s been silent for eons, but now she’s awake.

Hips can be like that.
Especially women’s hips.
They can hold onto words not said, impulses not acted upon, and instincts not honored.
Until, one day, they wake up.

The music is all drums and she begins to thrust.
Just drums.
Just beat.
The drums speak her language and she’s deep in conversation.

Hips and pelvis are sacred territory.
All around the sacrum, deep in the pelvic bowl, lies the glorious instinctive feminine.
She sways and thrusts, drawing divine infinity marks with rhythmic precision.

Her mother tongue is ancient.
No words, just movement.

She’s asserting herself.
She’s uncoiling eons of serpent-like wisdom and sensuality.

She guides me to the wall and makes it clear I must dance against it.
Palms pressed hard against the wood slats, I can feel her power undulating and spiraling out.
It’s as if my entire body wants to experience this power in its cells – all the way out the arms to the tips of my fingers, out my legs to where my toes meet the ground.

She talks and talks and talks.
After centuries of silence, she has much to say.
She’s not going back.
She’s awake now.
She knows her medicine is good medicine.

She knows the world will heal when women’s hips speak freely again.

March 8, 2013March 8, 2013

International Women’s Day – Coming Home to Soul

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, 2013, let us reclaim what it is to be a whole women. There are aspects of womanhood that have been dormant during these times of patriarchal ways, yet we are now in times of remembering these ways.Â Let us guide each other back into living the wholeness of womanhood.

We’ve all (men and women) been well trained in the ways of the masculine mind. Itâ€™s the basis for our school systems. Weâ€™ve been trained to believe in, and be good at, black and white thinking, linear problem solving, and rational decision-making. Weâ€™ve been taught to value bullet points over poetic imagery, clear thinking over murky emotions, and rugged individuality over interconnectedness. While helpful in some areas of life, in reality, as a way to live life, this training hurts us all, and it especially hurts women.

The linear, rational mind thatâ€™s been conditioned to believe it has all the answers, can control and dominate life, and should be the master over feeling and mystery, is not very good at navigating life.

Life is inherently messy.

Life is unknowable.

Life is full of a multitude of experiences.

Life is always changing.

When the conditioned mind believes it is omnipotent, we make decisions (really important decisions) based on ‘hard facts’ – numbers, data, and rational reasoning. We forget we have hearts and bodies. We forget we have souls. We forget we are connected to the web of life. We forget we have an intuitive capacity that is far more intelligent and capable of living life and than our rational capacity could ever hope to be.

We begin to believe we are our thinking patterns and emotional tailspins.

As a young girl, I was wildly energetic and vivaciously in love with color and creation. I remember how it felt â€“ so much beauty, so much feeling, and so much joy. But as I got older, it became clear that the logical, rational mind was king, and everything not logical was to be distrusted. And as I got older, our home became more chaotic, with a deep sense of impending doom. As life became crazy, I longed to have something to gauge things by. Good grades, following rules, being polite became important ways to feel in control and good about myself.

So womenâ€™s consciousness can hold many things in relationship all the time. But what happened in the last centuries is that as women became educated in schools and colleges designed by men to teach men how to think in a masculine way, they absorbed this masculine consciousness. They overlaid their feminine relationship understanding with a masculine mind. And because they wanted to succeed in a manâ€™s world, they focused their energy on this masculine way of thinking. But it doesnâ€™t fully work for them â€“ it is not in harmony with their real natureâ€¦

~Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, The Return of the Feminine and the World Soul

Goodness in this culture is evaluated in a hierarchical, black and white wayâ€¦the very essence of the conditioned masculine mind. I learned that wildness and abandon were at the bottom of the scale, ways of being to push away, while a good grasp of math and science was near the top, with obedience to rules (for girls and women) at the very top.

The chaos I felt as a child became manageable if I could find something to hold me, something rigid and knowable, something that felt like structure, and so following the rules gave me a sense of rigidity that allowed me to let go and breathe. Well, not really â€“ it actually caused me to be tight and only breath down to my neck, but then the mind is good at making up fibsâ€¦big fat fibs.

When the nuclear family isnâ€™t so nuclear, we long to feel something is holding us. And when we grow up in a culture that only values the nuclear family, we find we donâ€™t have a village to hold us, and we donâ€™t have an understanding of interconnectedness or how this interconnectedness might already be available to us through life itself.

To a certain extent, most of us in the west have been trained to not trust these things, so we neither create them, nor do we look for them. Weâ€™ve been taught to believe the earth is dead, so we feel no sense of belonging to something larger than this culture that is hell-bent on women following the rules.

Hence, I internalized a hunter, a predator. This hunter would track down anything too wild, too out there, and too far from the top of the chart of goodness and kill it, and then toss it into the shadow regions to decay. In the wild girlâ€™s place, a good girl was born that was rigid, had to be right, and most importantly had to be polite and nice â€“ although those things donâ€™t really go together do they? Having to be right isnâ€™t really truly nice, is it? Itâ€™s funny how none of this is logical at all.

I donâ€™t know about you, but I do know that everything Iâ€™ve been taught about the â€˜way things areâ€™ is being blown apart by the very clear recognition that nothing is the way it seems to be.

Over the past two decades, Iâ€™ve been breaking free from this internal hunter â€“ the one that learned that safety comes from figuring things out, from knowing what is good vs. bad, from being nice and polite and hiding all the juicy, delectable parts of that wild child. This breaking apart has come in chunks, sometimes it comes in big chunks that leave me a bit lost and befuddled.

Deconstruction of the mind is a funny thing. The more it deconstructs, the more I see and know the lack of any kind of solid structure. Yet, what I have found is the heart, the heart and soul that are so beautiful at living a life that is mysterious by nature. While the conditioned mind loves rigidity and structure, the heart knows something the mind could never know â€“ it knows truth, and it knows the soul, which also knows wildness and abandon.

The soul calls us home, and like a wild animal, it leaves a scent as it moves through the brush. But this scent is not a scent the hunter can find. The soul is wily this way.

No, the hunter has no business in this soul brush, so the soul leaves a scent that only the wild child can find. Iâ€™ve had to get down on all fours, nose to the earth to discover it. Iâ€™ve had to walk barefoot through the mud again; Iâ€™ve had to dance until the sweat pours off me and then dance some more; Iâ€™ve had to paint large swaths of yellow paint across the paper to remember what this wild child loved; and, Iâ€™ve had to leave relationships that I used as structures of seeming safety rather than openings to soul.

Iâ€™ve had to come to see that there is no safety, not the kind I longed to know as a child.

What there is instead, now that this child is older and wiser, is a deep belonging to the earth, a belonging that cannot be denied by political positioning, nor laws that donâ€™t honor this womanâ€™s body.

Iâ€™ve come to know an autonomy that can only be found within the realm of the soul. Iâ€™ve come home to a longing for the divine that can only be traversed through the deepest, most interior chambers of the heart.

Coming home to the soul is the coming home weâ€™ve longed for our entire lives.Â May we come to remember that we are held by the earth and by the web of life, and may we remember our responsibility to the children, to this earth and all of her creatures, and to each other, women and men.

This post was originally written for and posted at Roots of She.

image “Silver Waterfall” ByÂ onlynickÂ :Â Â Some rights reserved

December 6, 2012December 6, 2012

Woman’s Tendrils of Wildness

Somewhere, I learned to be careful rather than carefree.Â At some point, I learned to think rather than intuit or feel.Â Along the way, this girlâ€™s wispy tendrils of wildness went way underground, deep down into the depths of the dark places where she learned to put away her very natural, very powerful, and very threatening erotic nature.

Carefulness is not a helpful strategy for a life well lived.

Thinking is good for many things (math, taxes, logic), yet when it runs the show we feel dead inside.

Living what is natural and organic to the soul is what unfolds a life that both sings and serves.

Woman’s erotic nature is powerful, yes; but threatening? Only to those who want to control and dominate life. Â

The nature of the Feminine principle is the full cycle of creation, all the way around the circle from creation to destruction. For something new to come, something existing must die. This is threatening to those who want to pretend that they continually feed structures based on perpetual growth, never ending profits, unlimited and unsustainable consumption.

There is no such thing as perpetual growth without eventual decay. We know this in our bones and in our cells. When something grows wildly, feeding on itself to keep growing, it is cancerous and eventually leads to its own death.

We can pretend half of life’s cycle doesn’t exist, yet pretending doesn’t make it go away.

In the same way, we can pretend our erotic nature, our power as women, doesn’t exist. We can hide it away thinking we’re fooling everyone, especially ourselves, but this doesn’t make it go away.

Our erotic nature is nature. It doesn’t disappear; we just keep it down. Or, we share it in a small sliver of the way in which it is meant to be shared. Or we allow it out in acceptable ways – acceptable to those who want to control eros.

Keeping our nature down hurts us all, men and women, for no one is happy, truly happy, when life is being controlled, when our hearts our closed, and when our bodies are seen as objects rather than living, breathing creations.

But, the erotic is not simply for sexual pleasure – it is the force that animates all of life and eventually destroys it as well.

The force that through the green fuse drives the flowerÂ Â Â
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of treesÂ Â Â
Is my destroyer. ~ Dylan Thomas

Destruction eventually happens anyway. We all die. But while we are living, if we tuck our fullness and power away into the dark., the power to create, to love, to voice, to serve, we over and over again destroy our own capacity to be fully alive vibrant beingsÂ here to offer to life what we’ve been created to bring forth.

What does it really mean to serve life?

Just as the leaf doesn’t refuse to fall from the tree in autumn, so, too, must we let go of the need to hold on.

To make an offering of your life to life is to live. Â Allowing what you really are to become, to flow, to die…while you are alive, is to serve.

And, by the way, it is here in the allowing that we rediscover and live theseÂ wispy tendrils of wildness, this eros and joy.

Image is Tendril: LicenseÂ Some rights reservedÂ byÂ Hamed Saber

July 23, 2010July 27, 2010

The Nature of Power

In the 21st Century, power will not change the nature of women, women will change the nature of power. ~ Bella Abzug

Power is only a Word

Power is only a word, but it’s a word with a sordid past…and a very sordid present. It has a lot of baggage.

Power, as we know it today, dominates. Silences. Abuses.

Power is abused, too. At some point, power became power-over.

Somewhere, at some time, in the ‘rules’ of the human world, a rule was written about power, men and women. A rule was made that says, men have power over women. Somehow we, men and women, seem to believe in this story.

The recent, deeply disturbing, widely broadcast story of Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani’s imminent death by stoning, once again, brought the tyrannical abuses of power-over into the bright light of our awareness.

A few days after the international outcry about both her death sentence and the method the Iranian government threatened to use, the archaic practice of stoning, I still couldn’t shake the visceral anger, sadness and powerlessness I felt. This was such blatant, abuse of power; power so egregious, that I shudder to contemplate just how often and how much this kind of sadistic power is used against those who are completely vulnerable to it.

In the swirl of these emotions, I felt a very real sensation of complete vulnerability as a woman. Here was this beautiful woman, waiting in an Iranian prison for a death sentence to be carried out in a most barbaric and painful way. And, here I was, sitting safely in my home, but acutely feeling an intense vulnerability, as if there was no separation between us.

Then it hit me, there is no separation between us. In a very real collective sense, what is done to any part of life, is done to us all. If we are aware of the deeper feelings that move through the human soul, we know this.

On this same level, we all feel the pain of abusive power, oppression and misogyny whether we are the abuser or victim.

As I sat with these feelings, I suddenly felt a tenderness open up that was deep. It was painful, vulnerable and raw. It filled every part of every thing.

I wrote about this tenderness, about a revolution of tenderness in the first post of this three-part series on Tenderness, Power and Grace.

Soft Power

I know many women who push their power away because the only power they’ve known has been used against them. I’m one of those women.

And yet, my power keeps pulling me to it. This is a different kind of power than power-over. It comes from deep in the bowels of my femaleness. It feels rooted to the earth. It feeds my soul. It nurtures my creativity. It is the source of my deep and abiding love for all of life.

There is an unwritten, unspoken, yet very palpable threat of violence against women if we do step fully into the power we know is contained within our beings.

I feel this threat of violence. Yet, this power must come to life, regardless. This is soft power, a tremendous tenderness toward all of life. It is a great compassionate love. It compels me to drop even more deeply into this place of fierce tenderness.

Of course we’re coming to the brink of extinction of so many forms of life, including our own – our way for so long has been to dominate, control and destroy the life principle, namely that of woman. She is the embodiment of the life principle.

What would life be like if power-over, once again, became simply power, the power to be able – to express, to create, to be, to act? I don’t know, but I do know it will have something to do with love. It will come from not rejecting anything, because what we reject and condemn in another, is the same as rejecting ourselves, and no peace can ever come from that.

The Power of Woman

This is the power of woman: to love everything, without exception. As the embodiment of the life principle, she holds it all, without division. This power can only come when she no longer believes she must be everything to everyone. It can only come when she comes home to herself, with love for all the beauty she is. When she sees the value of herself, she can know the fullest power that is available to her as woman.

How does woman do that when she faces the immensity of oppression, degradation and misogyny?

By turning to look at another woman, to look deeply in another woman’s heart, to see within her what she can’t see in herself. By turning to the earth, to look deeply in the earth’s heart.

By opening our hearts to earth, to feel the incredible suffering this beautiful, living, pulsing beauty is enduring, and at the same time seeing her strength, her capacity to heal, her desire to continue to provide a home for all of life.

Woman is tied to the earth more deeply than man. When we open to her power to heal and regenerate, we can know our own capacity to heal and regenerate.

Anne Baring speaks of women:

There is a danger that in seeking power and equality with men in order for her voice and her creative gifts to be recognised, woman may unconsciously reject the very foundation which gives, through her millennial experience as custodian of life, something of supreme importance to say.

Can we…

There is no question that women are changing the nature of power. We see it occurring everywhere. As we do…

Can we encourage each other to come forth into our power?

Can we hold each other in supreme love and compassion as we travel this sacred path together?

Can we stand firm in the knowledge that we are worthy of the sacred nature we know is at the core of our womanhood?

Can we love those parts of ourselves that feel so difficult to love?

Can we know, in our experience, that we are all mothers to all the world’s children?

Can we love others with the fierce tenderness that might melt the deepest darkest hate into the most brilliant light of love?

And, you?

I’d love to know your feelings and thoughts about power and women; about what is emerging through us; about your story with power.

This is the second post in a series of three on tenderness, power and grace. All three posts are part of the Summer of Love Invitational, where the lovely Mahala Mazerov has invited bloggers to write about loving kindness.

December 21, 2009

Put Down That Project

Best of 2009 Blog Challenge: Day 21: Project. What did you start this year that you’re proud of?

This year, I began again to write the book I stopped writing five years ago. I stopped writing it when I realized I still had to live much of what the book was to be about. I put it down. It was not time.

Since then, many things have transpired. Life has been full of many twists and turns. My mother was diagnosed with cancer. After a two-year journey with cancer, she passed away last year. My two daughters have given birth to two new grandchildren. And, as I look back, I now can see I have lived into the book. The book is so ready to be born.

This is my project. And, the funny thing is, part of the book has to do with realizing that we must, as women, put down ‘the project’ – that project that keeps us on the never-ending treadmill of trying to be better, more beautiful, sexier, younger, thinner, more perfect, more successful, more fill-in-the-blank if we are to discover who and what we really are underneath all the beliefs that we aren’t enough. I call it ‘the project’. So, when I read Gwen’s prompt, I chuckled at the irony, at least for me.

â€œWoman is the radiance of God; she is not your beloved. She is the Creator â€”you could say that she is not created.â€ ~Rumi

When we put down that project of not being enough, something that has always been within begins to move and stir and reawaken.

I am excited to birth this book, and to begin to teach the course that is directly intertwined with it. It has to do with women’s creativity, with the life-giving mystery that is within you, and within every woman, and how you and I and all women can awaken, and step into, this natural power, a power that is serves all of life.