Caitlin Clarkson, Wolf & Coyote Folk
A – Z Challenge – Day 14
Celebrating Our Divinity
“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.” ― Nora Ephron
OK, so it should be pretty obvious that I am a feminist.
If you don’t know the definition, a feminist believes in the equal rights of women. A feminist is not a ‘man hater’ or in any way, shape or form, dissing men.
Let’s be clear. I think women and men are wonderful creatures – different creatures – but I believe that they are equal in their contributions to life on earth and should be treated as such. Equal pay. Equal rights. Sovereignty over their bodies. Access to education and healthcare and emotional support.
Women are rockin’ awesome and helped build this world from the ground up.
Nobody got here without the help of a woman. And nobody got here without the help of a man. We need both to make the world balanced and whole.
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Acknowledging Our Gifts
However, today I celebrate women. I laud the natural woman, the woman at the root of the root in our souls – the one who keeps swimming even when we are dead tired. I give a shout out to the divine feminine.
I celebrate the maidens, mothers and matrons, the goddesses and shamans, the witches and scribes, the writers and painters. I celebrate the absolute grit and creativity of women. I celebrate my own mother who could make the most incredible handmade gifts for all my friends and cousins — beautiful, sun-dappled things — with nothing but a few scraps of fabric and some rickrack. (I only found out as an adult that she used to have a budget of, maybe, $20 to do this.) She made something lovely out of nearly nothing. And she’s not alone.
Women have been doing it for centuries.
They’ve been cooking and birthing babies and making quilts and planting gardens. They’ve also been attending college and writing books and getting PhDs and running companies. There is nothing that a woman cannot do.
“The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it. ” ― Roseanne Barr
Returning to Our Roots
Eve’s gotten a bad rap, in my humble opinion.
I’ve always thought so. As someone who was thirsty for knowledge my whole life, I often wondered why we have to slut-shame our girl, Eve.
After all, what did she do that was so bad? She just wanted to take a bite of that juicy red apple.
In her book, The Secret Dowry of Eve, Glynda-Lee Hoffman unpacks Eve’s story:
[The author] examines the Genesis myth in the bible, mining it for symbolic meaning based upon her two and a half decades of study of Qabalah (Jewish mysticism). Her take on the actual meaning of the verses (as opposed to what has been passed down as their meaning) unpacks layer upon layer of symbolism, language, and sacred geometry to reveal the powerful, empowering message that Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel were meant to impart. Along the way, she examines the interplay between the four areas of the brain, two masculine and two feminine, for their “take” on the world. She contends that it is the rejection of the divine feminine that has been the cause of much of the sorrow in the world. Instead of viewing Eve through the lens of sin, she sees her as the ultimate empowering force in human consciousness. She represents the need to develop an inner life. Adam represents life out in the world. Together they form a complete, holistic, conscious whole. (Goodreads, my review.)
I find Hoffman’s notion regarding the roles of men and women heartening and inspiring. Each gender has something to offer that is unique and necessary. Neither can succeed without the other. We need a conscious, balanced whole. Nothing less will do.
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Celebrating Our Return
Jane Austen. Jane Goodall. Maya Angelou. Flannery O’Connor. Anne Sexton. Frida Kahlo. Susan B. Anthony. Hillary Clinton. Harriet Tubman. Tina Turner. Sylvia Plath. Virginia Woolf. Marie Curie. Florence Nightengale. Mary. Kuan Yin. Kali. Marianne Williamson. Meryl Streep. George Eliot. Dame Daphne Sheldrick.
These are my sisters, my mentors, my inspiration.
After 3,000 years in exile, the true, bedrock Divine Feminine is returning to the world. Make way.
© 2014 Shavawn M. Berry All rights reserved
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