I danced with two hundred others this morning at V-day, 14th of February. Eve Ensler’s dream of One Billion Rising, one billion people around the globe standing up to say NO to the ongoing violence against females that has become our transgenerational status quo. I danced for the women, the mothers, the children, the Earth, the men, for all those without the freedom or legs to dance. I danced my strong legged prayers into the earth and out to the horizon. I danced beside those whose courage had transformed their unspeakable violent histories. I danced beside the scarred men, social workers, sisters, grandmothers and children who have smelled those wounds; and it stung their throats. A raw vulnerable truth tore at my heart, but together we danced with the contagious power of solidarity.
Activism is alive. It demands effort; bold, patient, hopeful effort. I can’t be certain that anything will change from One Billion Rising, but those who gathered together were sustained briefly by the power of community, concern, and compassion.
All of humanity is woman borne. Who ever said,‘You’re born alone, you die alone.’? A blatant fallacy dismissive of every mother who birthed a baby, a perpetuated capitalistic falsehood designed to breed ‘individuals’ and empty consumers. Poignantly symbolised in the mother-child relationship is the quintessential human need for interdepence, kanyini, the principle of connectedness through caring and responsibility that underpins Aboriginal life.
Historically there is a direct correlation between a culture’s treatment of women and their treatment of the earth. Women are inherently connected to Nature, Natural Law and kanyini. The V-day movement highlights the known statistics that somehow we have resgined ourselves to. One out of three women will be assaulted or raped in their lifetime. That’s one billion people on the planet, that’s one-third of all mothers.
The female body is a symbolic representation of the Great Mother Earth. As the Mother Earth feeds and nourishes our most essential human needs of air, food and water, so do women provide all the essential ingredients for life for every human being that grows in their uterus. Sacred Woman, Sacred Earth.
The unstoppable creative force of the Feminine is changeable, cyclical, and often chaotic. She is the vast underground realm of the mystery, not to be harnessed for anyone’s use or possession, but rather a humbling and awe inspiring force that leads me to seek relationship with my inner faith. She is of the realm of the immeasurable, the mystical, the miraculous and the transformative.
‘A woman remembers that she can be both fierce and generous at the same time….’-
‘We want to use anger as a creative force. We want to use it to change, develop, and protect. So, whether a woman is dealing with the aggravation of the moment with an offspring, or some sort of a searing lengthy burn, the perspective of the healer is the same: When there is calm, there can be learning, there can be creative solutions, but where there is firestorm, inside or out, it burns hot and leaves nothing but ash. We want to be able to look back on our actions with honour. We want something to show for feeling angry.’
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run with Wolves
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Sad I missed this event, especially lately seriously struggling with the after-effects of daily childhood abuse — at the hands of he who should have been my protector, and just as sadly, not protected by the woman who brought me into this world. Will the abused ever be healed?? Thank you dear friend, and all those women who care enough to STAND UP and SPEAK OUT. Love, MM