What is a Powerful Woman?

Sacred Dinner: What is a Powerful Woman?

A woman who meets herself is ungovernable. She doesn’t need saving. She starts changing things. Without that inner compass, people get blown around like leaves in the fall. Jailbirds in Flight, Nicole Daedone, p. 273.

Feminine “… A dimension of unique, knowing, access to vision, and connection with the force of what we would call genius.… Depth that cleanse and hydrate. A slowness again to moving in the deep aquatic accompanied by a dissolution of boundaries… Clear, vibrant, and concentrated , like a well struck note from a lower register“

Sutras for the art and practice of Eros, p. 58

Yin qualities

Night

Dark

Cold

Negative

Passive

Female

Solid

Stillness

Tranquility

Receptivity

Moon

Midnight

Wetness

Hidden

Internal

Nature teaches us how to suckle the great mother Earth. Born out of her continuously, fertile womb, the plants and trees are proud to show us what the natural juice of our mother taste like and how invigorating and empowering it is to rely on what she gives. Every person with a little spiritual awareness will recognize that earth is our mother. They will also find it easy to understand that nature is the most loyal child of mother earth. Where this is the case, such as in indigenous cultures, mothers are a true reflection of mother Earth. They feed their children, the same way that the Earth feeds nature and us. Their children are constantly tucked to their body, cycling their breasts. This is how children discover their intimate connection to the mother.

Malidoma Patrice Some, The Widsom of Africa page 265

How would it be to celebrate the cycles of what it means to be a woman? What in our culture would have to change? Here are some of the cycles birth, naming, menses, marriage, children, menopause, elder ancestor.

Women are responsible for creating community, and in our presence communities allow them to thrive, gardens, thrive, connections, thrive.

Sobonfu Some, Women’s Wisdom from the Heart of Africa.

There is one instruction, so simple we skip it: relax. Really relax. Loosen the clinch you’ve been holding since you were told, directly or between the lines, that your desire is dangerous, silly, too much. What you fear will escape if you let go - is precisely what the world needs you to spill. That inner wealth – rapture, tenderness, appetite, generosity – has never been touched by anyone’s hands. It does not need to be earned. It does not need to be explained. This is not a summons to recklessness. It is an invitation to sovereignty. Your radiance is not for sale, not for ransom, not for proof. It’s for lighting rooms, where shame has kept women small; for flooding the fields that have gone fallow; for nourishing those who have forgotten, they, too, are made of honey. When you free what lives within you, you don’t just for yourself. You loosen the locks on the whole world. Jailbirds in Flight, Nicole Daedone, page 157

Your Wisdom:

We recognized that so much power is lost through competition between woman. When we do, we buy into the false reality that life is scarce – that there is not enough for us all and we all fail in a certain way. Never relaxing or connecting with one another.

We recognized and felt through this dinner that so much power is gained when we come together and support one another. We get to support one another making each one stronger through our connection.

We talked about how engaging in the experiences of life allows us to learn and trust ourselves even when what we want to do seems impossible. That our willingness to trust ourselves and make big changes in life even when we can’t see the other side is important for our dignity and self-worth.

Sexual expression is important, even and maybe especially when there are so many messages which cause us to close and fear this energy. It is our creative life force. And so we choose to learn and hold it with appreciation, responsibility and curiosity.

Speaking up and using our voices is an essential component of a powerful woman. The reclamation of the voice is directly tied to belief in yourself and belief in yourself is a choice. It is a practice to be honed over time and not forgotten.

Soft vs. Strong vs. Vigilant. We talked about the power of listening, nurturing and of being present. We talked about being well-boundaried and able to make choices about how we interact with the people in our lives. We distinguished this from vigilance which has the feeling of meeting everything with fear and an expectation of needing to fight.

Quotes from The Ethical Slut:

In his lecture to young communist in Germany, during the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, psychologist, William Reich theorized that the suppression of sexuality was essential to an authoritarian government. Without the imposition of anti-sexual morality, he believed, people would be free from shame and would trust their own sense of right and wrong. They would be unlikely to march to war against their wishes or to operate death camps. p. 11.

Here are words to consider: the enemy of shame is curiosity – the same curiosity we might have been punished for when we were too. Curiosity that wants to be playful, to explore what feels good: curiosity that lets us wonder why our tongues get tied and our cheeks burn when the moment comes to tell a person who loves and accept us what, precisely, we dream of doing with them. p. 91.