"submitted" (read stolen... hee hee hee) from my friend Heather a.k.a. Super Mom
so i'm feeling a bit introspective this morning...the sky looks like the bruises covering my thighs (from slinging boxes of veggies into and out of the box truck) and the wind reminds me that the time has come for sweaters, root vegetables cooked in fire and long revolutionary conversations inside rather than out.
my littlest girl started "school" this week. she is going to the evergreen childcare center (yay for academic subsidized institutionalization). she seems to like it almost too much for my tastes. "pick me up after my sisters get home so i can play with my friends after rest, mom" uh...okay. so i find myself at a loose end for the second day in a row.
today i am going to sort through the massive box of dress up clothes in my girls room (perhaps finding a few new things for my own meager wardrobe) and if i have the energy after that i'll start in on the massive piles of paper scattered throughout my house. all in the name of order, movement and autumn...
i'm thinking a lot about love these days...how intensely important it is and how hard to imagine. i had two conversations last night, both with men i admire and was struck by how courageously they admit to the damage done by a culture that doesn't permit men to feel emotion other than anger or rage and then only towards folks less powerful. these men are sensitive and caring and both definately fascinated by women and sex.
this seems to be one of the few outlets we have for creating love: making love. and i think that we have it backwards. when i know and love someone and then have sex with them it is powerful and delicious, afterwards i am full and have much to share with my lover and others. when i try to have sex as a means of creating love i am left feeling hollow and bruised...and resentful and scared. perhaps this is just the ghost of past trauma, but then who doesn't have some sexual truama in their past?
even if you have personally escaped rape or incest we all find our roots in violation, appropriation and oppression. and men were not the original holders of power!! matriarchal cultures had no idea that men were a part of the creation of life and so property and power (leadership) was passed through mama's line...this left men without a place to hang thier hat if you will. so from this perspective patriarchy was men's response to matriarchy and so we all share a piece of the collective responsibility to heal this fucking mess!!!
from the perspective of my male buddy women are healing at a profound and rapid rate and men are lost and hurting and don't know where to start. our old models of love come from a ownership model, where basically we as women have been holding men's emotions; as i heal myself i am no longer willing to do this . i think the emotional crisis that men are facing is in part the result of many women choosing to feel their own pain instead of their mens'. i hope that this will push men to do the same. out of the void and all that...
but i also know that an essential part of my healing is my community: people loving me in spite of my damaged heart, friends calling me on my bullshit and loving me anyway. perhaps that is what women are finding inside of themselves: accountability with compassion. love from the inside out.
men need women. women need men. without one another we cannot create life. we must find a way to rebalance. gender is genital not archetypical. to me this means that we all have masculine and feminine potential inside of us and our task is to cultivate that inate potential.
i believe that men are beginning to face that reality and as they begin feeling, things could get messy...women are much more adept at feeling because we have been conditioned to be. now we have several generations of being strong and active as well. we need to share what we are learning with the men in our lives and we need to listen. we need to believe in thier innate ability to heal themselves and we need to offer support that doesn't drain or damage us or enable them to be numb or abusive...we need to find ways to work together and believe that love is real.
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