Power & Light

Inspired by International Women's Day

I honor the beautiful, indomitable spirit of woman.

I honor us as the life givers, and the many ways we support and light up this world, the many ways our creative, generative, nurturing essence make it all possible.

These times beg us to step into leadership, stewardship of all that is worth nurturing in this world. But a different kind of leadership than the ‘power over’ that we were taught makes leadership. A power with, a power for, a power motivated by the greater good, by our commonality.

To lead from our hearts, with reverence for life, fueled by our deep body and soul knowing.

Of course I pray for and affirm that kind of leadership from men too, but women are the ones to show the way at this time.

I have been working with women since 1999 and the depths of our resilience, our capacity for love and growth, our longing for a voice, for freedom of expression, to express our full width and depth, the joy and laughter, the comfort, the exhilaration of our coming together, the power of our witnessing each other—my appreciation and awe keeps deepening.

I reflect on my own journey of empowerment as a woman……growing up as a daughter of a fierce feminist in the 1970’s, I am of a generation that had unprecedented freedoms…birth control and access to legal safe abortion my entire childbearing years, the exhilarating but very mixed bag of entering the corporate workforce in numbers in the 1980’s, access to credit and other economic benefits. The right to vote, the ability to drive, to own a house as a single woman…..I am very grateful for all of this and I know I am part of a fortunate and relatively small cohort, if we look at the status of women around the world.

It is beyond sad…better words are dismay, shock, outrage that so many freedoms that were fought long and hard for, are now teetering on the edge of being lost again.

Yet, we have changed, and we have far more awareness, and tools, and yes, power, at our disposal. Earning power, buying power, and other conventional markers of power, yet…but I believe our true power as women is much more than that.

It’s our coming together, knowing we are more together than alone. We are wired for connection. The two sides of our brains work better together than men’s do—we don’t think in boxes, our logic and feeling, knowledge and intuition are naturally more integrated.

The feminine rising is a wave that cannot be stopped.

We continue to hold the vision of the world we wish to see. We continue to gather, to sing, make art, plan campaigns, create community, dance and wail and keen, to forge new ways. Let’s keep the flame burning….as the fracking of the patriarchal shadow continues, as the ugliness of this backlash, the brazen blatant display of such openly regressive, suppressive forces continues.

We are called to move and act in different circles and at different levels. For myself, the call is to life, to creativity, to coming together, to amplifying the strength, beauty, courage and aliveness I see in you and in myself, to community. To embodying and teaching the art of living unapologetically.

What is the call, what is your way of empowering yourself and inspiring others to stand in their truth and power? I would love to hear…

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