meandering toward congruence

agreements for encountering the wounded feminine

Good morning, beloved muses

It is September and the mornings are colder and I'm recording this later than I usually do because I needed to have sunlight for the recording today

That is not always the case, but I'm at the “20’s” section of my cycle – day 25, I think – and everything wants to happen a little more slowly in my energetic system, and I'm finding that I cannot be too tender with myself at this point of my cycle

So I've got stuffed animals near me

I have had a beautiful, gentle morning: qi gong in the grass as the sun is rising, a little Pilates, a nice hot shower, a good grain bowl, and still …

Still, despite all that delicious tenderness and self-regard, I sit down to make this video and it's all I can do to not go, like, try to fix something about my appearance

I just … the conditioning of needing to be impressive or … needing to get it “just right,” that conditioning runs so deep;

And that's actually what I was hoping to talk about today.

So here I am, in all my tenderness and physical vulnerability, emotional vastness, and I want to talk to you about the wounded feminine. You know, no big deal.

Last week I posted Life without terror, this piece that I wrote for CEG (Creative Expression Group) at Jeanne Geiger and I got really beautiful responses - a few in the comments, but more like phone calls and emails and texts - and some of you wrote essays about your experience of terror, and it made me willing and open to be receptive to more of the untangling of wounded energies that I have access to.

So, last week there were a couple of nights where I was up in the middle of the night journaling, and what I found coming through really powerfully was the energy and the voices of my lineage, the female energies in my lineage: the voices of grandmothers, aunties, mothers, sisters

And simultaneously to journaling some of that, which is not exactly what I'm going to share today, I was also encountering in other places in life energies of what might be called the wounded feminine. I think most people are aware of the ways in which women can try to contain each other, ways in which … I’m gonna quote my friend and muse Laura, the tendency to say to, like, a daughter: “Don't be this way so I don't have to feel this way.”

I want to name that my own mother, Kathie Lynn Nyman Mell, and I have done so much work around healing in our specific relationship, and I want to say very clearly this is not something I was encountering with my own mother recently. The woundedness of feminine energies in our society often come in the form of wanting a younger generation to toe the line, to conform to systems, because I myself had to do those things, and it's only right and fair that now it's your turn.

I think the possibility… ohh, and I wanna name that that's often offered in the name of keeping the younger generation safe or “doing what is right” or “correct” and there are deep currents of grief that flow with maybe cold waters of guilt …

And what we lose in our own living, we sometimes want to snatch away when we see it in someone else, because it is too painful to encounter our own unlived life.

I have been a perpetuator of the wounded feminine energy on this planet plenty, almost entirely unconsciously, and I can't point a finger “out there” to others and say this is all about other people, because freedom and risk-taking can be scary: scary for ourselves and we can see the danger both for ourselves, but also in the lives of others;

And when we are given the stewardship of a younger person, whether that be a daughter or a niece or a student,

when we encounter someone who we have a responsibility to provide some kind of care and containment for,

it is understandable that we are not in full consciousness, and as a result the impact we have on that person may be a harmful impact without our ever intending such a thing.

So, all of this has been very abstract so far, and I want to get a little more concrete, because one thing I worked with over these past few days is encountering in myself what I am willing to agree to, what I will consent to in relating to the wounded feminine when it comes face to face with me.

And so I've written some agreements that I'm willing to make, because one thing I'm noticing is that as I have stripped away layers of positioning and perfectionism,

it's threatening to the status quo in some spaces and not everyone likes it.

I'm OK with that, and also I've been so conditioned to curate other people's experience of me that it's also a little scary sometimes. I'm saying “No thank you” to the  thinner, stripped-down, diluted version of myself, and I'm saying that more and more clearly, unabashedly, and brazenly, and I recognize that it's going to drive some people crazy, but I won't let it stop me.

(So now I’m kinda into my journal here)

The kind of care-full energy - full of care - that is offered in the wounded feminine begins in the headwaters of Love, and then it becomes something hard and unrelenting. What starts as a desire to protect and contain becomes a compulsion to direct and restrain.

(Again, I just want to name, this has been me in relating to others out there, not just me experiencing this put upon me.)

I have spent a lot of energy caring for the care-full mother in my life, and I do not begrudge her love and nourishment, but neither am I willing to placate her; neither am I willing to tear off my own flesh to feed her.

(I wanna name again, Mom, this is not about you. It's actually not about anyone who is related to me in any way, I am grateful to say. All right.)

I asked myself, What will I agree to in my relating to the care-full mother, the mother who is full of care, that energy, which maybe another name for that is the wounded feminine

·       I will honor and investigate/ask about your intention while being open and honest about your impact.

·       I will speak to my own experience of you without claiming authority to speak for others.

·       I will feel fully that which is mine to feel.

·       I recognize that it is in relating to you that I can most effectively and efficiently heal the fear-full energies that hinder my full expression, so I will choose again and again to receive you as Gift, as teacher.

·       I shan't shrink back from your shadow.

·       I won't spring forward to smooth over mussed/wrinkled/messy emotions. I will feel what is mine to feel; you get to choose what you are willing to encounter in yourself.

·       I will honor flow, freedom, Spirit-spark-speak-easyness, easefulness, over the forces of containment and care.

·       I will take myself lightly. I will look for the softness in us both. I will be tender without sacrificing my truth.

·       I commit to this work insofar as it is in resonance with the undercurrent of delight that I know to be my birthright. I do not consent to self-flagellation, martyrdom, or perfection. When I catch a whiff of those energies, no matter how subtle or soothingly familiar, I shall pause/retreat/take space.

·       I am meandering my way toward congruence. This was a learning that hit me most at the Lazy J Horse Ranch equine therapy training that I was super fortunate to drop into a couple weeks ago. The horse with her vast heart - five times the size of ours, electromagnetic energy - can feel what we are feeling. She isn't bothered by particular emotions, but she is bothered by a mismatch between our inner reality and our outer expression. That blew my mind.

·       In relating to you, beautiful sister/mother/auntie/friend, I will practice congruence and invite you to do the same. We have the invitation to feel our own vast hearts, and I choose to return to the headwaters of Love and be OK with it if we drench ourselves from time to time. I want you to know it is safe to sob with me, safe to stumble over your words, safe to mess it up and try again.

·       In this life, I'm committed to true, full expression of this beingness, this manifestation of humanity, this fractal of divinity that I AM. I honor that your experience of life may not be about full expression. Whatever you've come to the planet to learn, I honor you as fellow student. I bow to the Great Spirit who brought us together in this Earth School.*

Muses, I thank you for listening.

I invite you to consider whether it is a wounded energy or a particular person or place or space in your own life… maybe even some aspect of yourself that you are encountering on the regular.

Perhaps it's time to draft some agreements of your own in terms of how you're willing to relate to particular energies that are presenting themselves to you.

I will be so curious to hear people's agreements and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Be tender,

blessings,

Have a good week.

*Shout out to Gary Zukav & Oprah for my first introduction to the concept of “the Earth School.”

A feather found at Lazy J Ranch on 29 August, birthday of my beloved maternal grandmother Marjorie MacMillan Nyman. For me, finding a feather is an invitation to breathe into deepening freedom.