the ones who held.

"POSSIBILITY.

Gravity.

We dealt with hunger. We dealt with cold. We were the ones who held things together. Knit one, purl two. We were the ones who, after working all day, made the meals. And the beginning. We made sure everybody ate. And the end. We were the ones who, if the cupboard was bear, faced the open mouths of our children. And the way we thought grew from what we did. And the end and the beginning. We were the ones who nursed the dying through death. The wheel. The ones who birthed, who had blood on our hands, the ones who suckled. We fed the calves and milked the cows. We worked in the fields. We wrung the neck of the chicken, and tended the fire that cooked the stew. The double ax. These labors shaped our thinking. We were the ones who watched the wearing down and the daily mending and did what had to be done with the lost. We were the ones who knew what it all meant. Each breath. The cost. The years. We knew the limits. Gravity. And what had to be done. We knew the length of caring. The weight. We felt children come to life in our bodies; even if we had no children we knew what the necessities were. The pull. Our hands made decisions we knew had to be made The motion.  when there was no more caring, when there was no more food. The end and the beginning. Our bodies knew loss. The circle. Our bodies knew limitation. We were weary. The gravitational pull. Our limbs made the decision to move. Day after day we kept things going. Knit one, purl two. We were the ones who held things together. Purl two, knit one. And we were the ones who unraveled the patterns. Who refused to move. The centrifugal force. We were the ones who resisted. We were the ones who decided this can go on no longer, and placed our bodies in the way. The curve of light. What we thought came out of what we did. The lens. And we learned by doing. The focus. Necessity forced us to act together. The reflection. And we were the ones who learned from closeness. We smoothed the way from one to another. We saw the pulling away and the cleaving. We balanced the weight of needs in our hands. Knit one. And we waited for the right time. The bread rising. So if one of us was brave purl two all of us were filled with courage. The circle of motion. We did what they called impossible. The verb. We existed in ways they called unreal. The word. But our ideas came from what we did. And that is how we imagined The pull what we could do. And doing made us imagine more. And so our thoughts were grave the double ax and yet we laughed together. Knit one, purl two. We were the ones The beginning who held the dying and the grieving and the end and the birthing and the born. The weight And this is why we hold each other. The weight of this earth. And this is how our thinking has formed."

--Susan Griffin, from Women and Nature

yeaaaaaaaaa

“Feminism requires precisely what patriarchy destroys in women: unimpeachable bravery in confronting male power”

- Andrea Dworkin

Speaking True

I just started reading Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, which was Cam's most-perfect Christmas gift (also including an all-expenses paid trip to Wolf Haven Sanctuary with anyone!) It's the perfect follow-up to Women and Nature by Susan Griffin. During and after reading that I couldn't write for weeks, I could hardly carry on polite interaction with most people, and I certainly couldn't think about picking up another book. It shattered my world, in a lot of ways, though the crumbling of my worldview has been happening for about 11 years now (and has accelerated significantly in the past 3 years, and even more quickly in the past year). And actually, the process of reading Women and Nature was not only a dismantling of beliefs, it was an awakening, and, most accurately, it was a birthing. Reading it killed many parts me, and let new ones begin to breathe. It deconstructed reality, let me fall into blackness, and then opened my eyes to something more whole and beautiful than I've known. 

I felt new afterwards. 

New and alone.

(Slowly I am finding my tribe, my sisters, the people who understand, but I am still so disconnected from them in my daily life).

I don't think the book would have had this impact on me except that this process was already underway, and I happened to be at the point in it where Griffin's writing was exactly what I was ready to hear. Had I read it a year ago when I got it (when I serendipitously walked into The Free Book Incident on opening night while I was waiting for Cam's train to come in from California, and happened to be lucky enough to stumble across it amidst the stacks, and decide it might be worth it's weight to give a chance), I wouldn't have understood it. Just like I wouldn't be ready to read Women Who Run With the Wolves having not read Women and Nature. But, this process hasn't been linear, really, like it seems as I am describing it. It has been like a constellation of experience, reading, interaction, reflection, dreams, realizations, etc that has been going on my whole life. And... well, I could go into the connections and process and what it's all looked like and how it all came (is coming) together for me (now if only the same would happen for my "professional" life), but mostly I just wanted to post this poem, and say that I am feeling more of a sense of roundedness and wholeness in my beliefs. A lot has come full circle, and still I am feeling unable to really put it to words. But anyway, here are some words, not mine, that I am finding a lot of power from:

Speaking True

by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

When someone says, "We're saying the same thing."  Say, "We are not saying the same thing."
When someone says, "Don't question, just have faith." Say, "I am questioning, vato, and I have supreme faith in what I think."
When someone says, "Don't defy my authority."  Say, "There is a higher authority that I follow."
When someone says, "Your ideas are seductive."  Say, "No, my ideas are not seductive, they are substantial."
When someone says, "Your ideas are dangerous."  Say, "Yes, my ideas are dangerous, and why are you so afraid, hombre o mujer?"
When it is said, "It's just not done."  Say, "It will be done."
When it is said, "It is immature."  Say, "All life begins small and must be allowed to grow."
When it is said, "It's not thought out."  Say, "It is well thought out."
When they say, "You're over-reacting."  Say, "You're under-reacting, vato."
When they say, "You're being emotional."  Say, "Of course I have well placed emotions, and by the way, what happened to yours?"
When they say, "You're not making any sense."  Say, "I don't make sense, I am the sense."
When they say, "I can't understand you when you're crying."  Say, "Make no mistake, I can weep and be fierce at the same time."
When they say, "I can't understand you when you're being so angry."  Say, "You couldn't hear me when I was being nice, or sweet or silent, either."
When someone says, "You're missing the point."  Say, "I'm not missing the point, but you seem to be missing my point. What are you so afraid of?"
When someone says, "You are breaking the rules."  Say, "Yes, I am breaking the rules."
When someone says, "That's not practical."  Say, "It's practically a done deal, thank you very much."
When it is said, "No one will do it, believe you, or follow it."  Say, "I will do it, I will believe in it, and in time, the world may well follow it."
When it is said, "No one wants to listen to that."  Say, "I know you have a hard time listening to that."
When it is said, "It's a closed system, you can’t change it."  Say, "I'm going to knock twice and if there is no answer, then I am going to blow the doors off that system and it will change."
When it is said, "They'll ignore you."  Say, "They won't ignore me and the hundreds of thousands who stand with me."
When they say, "It's already been done."  Say, "It's not been done well enough."
When they say, "It's not yet time."  Say, "It's way past time."
When they say, "It's not the right day, right month, right year."  Tell them, "The right year was last year, and the right month was last month, and the right day was yesterday, and you're running behind schedule, vato, and what in the name of God and all that is holy are you going to do about it?"
When they say, "Who do you think you are?"  Tell them ...tell them who you are, and don't hold back.
When they say, "I put up with it, you'll have to put up with it too."  Say, "No, no, no, no."
When they say, "I've suffered a long time and you'll have to suffer too."  Say, "No, no, no, no!"
When they say, "You're an incorrigible, defiant, hard to get along with, unreasonable woman..." Say, "Yes, yes, yes, yes! And I have worse news for you yet.  We are teaching our daughters, and our mothers, and our sisters... We are teaching our sons, and our fathers, and our brothers...to be just like us."

breaking the silence

"I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language.

I began to ask each time: 'What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?' Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, 'disappeared' or run off the road at night. Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever.

Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end.

And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, 'If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.' And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking."

~ Audre Lorde