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."
