The Miracle Gender

Sitting with Jane, in the home that she grew up in, the property she was born on, surrounded by family heirlooms. Sitting at her kitchen table, sipping ice tea with lemon, creating a space for a story of breathtaking power and integrity to be offered to the planet. This activity, the act of gathering a woman’s Truth, is so far beyond the English language’s paltry capacity to describe it.

Jane is in good company in a group of women who say something like, “well, I’m not sure what good my story can do...but I’ll offer it up if it will help the project.” And then she proceeds to tell a story of a life that has been lived (and will continue to be lived), with the most exceptional integrity, guided by the deepest fiercest Love; a story that has the power to unite the female gender.

There are moments in the story gathering process where the wisdom and Truth that is being offered is so full it feels impossible to speak about it. It just becomes one of those moments that must be integrated into each individual’s soul in her own time, in her own way. As Jane sat at her table, having quickly dismissed the Fear card, she spoke about the moment in her life when she went to her father to request that he (re)teach her how to shoot a gun. The first time he taught her it was because he felt strongly that she know this skill, just as he felt strongly that she know what the taste of squirrel was like. These are just things a Texas farm girl needs to know, according to her practical Dutch father. This time, however, she was seeking his help so she could protect herself from the aggression and abuse of her second husband, who had already broken into her home and raped her once. She knew that if he succeeded in breaking into her home again he would probably kill her. With four children to take care of she wasn’t about to let that happen. So, when the eventuality happened that he broke into her home again she grabbed the gun and stood her ground for a moment long enough to consider what it might mean for her to shoot and kill the father of two of her children. It occurred to her that she couldn’t shoot him. That shooting him wouldn’t be right.

In this moment, on this planet, the reality is that it isn’t a rare thought for a woman to imagine whether killing her intimate partner is justified. There are thousands of women behind bars in this country alone, imprisoned for the crime of protecting themselves against an ex-partner turned deadly aggressor. The most frequent cause of death for women globally is violent death at the hands of a man we have at one point been intimate with.

And here sitting with Jane I am offered a third definition of the Feminine Principle: the capacity to expand to Her surroundings, to continue to become what is needed in any given situation, despite being mortally threatened Herself, the ability to become something greater than what Her individual needs might dictate in service of those who are reliant upon Her for their survival.

This is where the mundane meets the magic...where it’s probably not possible to fully comprehend the miracle that is the female gender. This magic is probably sitting right in front of you in the form of your sister, your mother, your auntie or best female friend...I urge you to gather her story today...don’t wait. Don’t wait another minute...

Three Generations of Warrior Women

This morning we had the incredible honor of sitting with three generations of powerful Texas Hill Country warrior women. With just a little more planning (this gathering was organized at 6pm the night before!) we could have had four generations but Great Grandmother Annabel Lee (McClary) Pillow was in Fort Worth five hours away during this incredible moment. She and the littlest female among this power-clan (3 year old Maya who was sick at home with dad) were invoked early on in the interview. Throughout the interview two more females of the clan, Jessica's five-year old sisters, were dancing around the property, dipping in and out of the interview.

First we sat with Jessica, who is 15, daughter of Lisa, 40, and granddaughter of Kathleen who is 62. Jessica talked about dance and the connection with dance and perfection, nature and perfection. She spoke of women and nature, and at such a young age has already learned that, for her as for so many females we've talked with, nature is a profound resource for feminine wisdom. "Nature is perfect. It's almost the only thing that is." Later she adds to this short list: "Women are perfect too. And when I dance I get to remember that." We had the truly breathtaking opportunity to witness Jessica in her perfection: dancing middle-eastern belly dance on stage with her instructor/mentor and another elder. There is a righteous power waiting to spring into planetary action within the body of aware young women. I think of it as I think of this project; a filly with all the power of a team of thoroughbreds, but she's not ready to run in an all-out gallop, not quite yet. For this, to know when the time is ready, she has elders who see the power in her. For all those women who have, against all odds, insisted that women's empowerment goes hand in hand with women's embodiment, we say "yes!" because we've just witnessed it with our own eyes.

It's easy to see where Jessica gets her convictions. Jessica's mother, Lisa, a biology professor and basketball player (she's 6'2") got the 'proof' she was looking for, for the perfection and power of the female gender when she went to graduate school in the natural sciences. "Everything is labeled in the feminine. And the female chooses. She is always the one to choose....Women are powerful. Just powerful. Sometimes we forget that and that is a shame." When I ask what role men can play in the lives of powerful women she answers, without hesitation, "My husband protects me and my daughters. They feel truly safe. Protection is what men can offer us.”

Sitting with these three generations of strong warrior women you get a powerful dose of sisterhood – but there is a definite ‘leader’ of this tribe; Kathleen, who at 62 has become the one to bring indigenous wisdom, ritual and culture to the family. She has taken it upon herself to shift the lineage of her family to one that includes a space for deep female wisdom. When daughter Lisa speaks about spirituality and what that means to her, why it’s so important and how she is ready to merge a deep sense of spirituality into her marriage, Kathleen looks out over her property then offers (in a somewhat playful but quite serious tone) “We can have a ceremony here, a circle, we can all drum and dance; Jessica on horseback wearing a leather dress, barefoot with her beautiful bone necklace on.” Kathleen breaths sisterhood, really. She has come to her own deep well of female spirit and now considers it an honor and responsibility to live it. Yet she does this with humility, a ‘we’re all in this together...' sort of energy. Sitting with Kathleen is a rare chance to feel both like a sister and an apprentice at the same time. This has become another definition of the Female Principle to me: the fact that we are all ‘both/and’ all the time – both teacher and student all the time; without that understanding precious wisdom and energy fall through the cracks.

Nellie & Peg

We arrive in the Texas Hill Country just in time to put on clean shirts and trade in our very dusty trekking sandals for more respectable footwear, maybe some earrings and lipstick (while hunkering in our car in the parking lot). We're out front of Billy Gene's restaurant, where the Women's Interfaith Peace Dialogue is taking place. Today, in addition to spreading the power of peace through roundtable discussion and guided meditation, we are going to hear a woman speak about her experience in the Peacecorps, nearly 25 years ago. What a story...a beautiful story of an affluent young woman deciding to do things very differently and go to Panama to be of service. Because of her decision she has now started a trend in her family. In fact, her daughter now lives and works in Central America having also volunteered for the Peacecorps.

After the talk we sit down with two woman, Nellie & Peg, who have helped found a gospel group called Many Voices, One Soul. Nellie is a joyful African-American woman in her mid 70's. As far as I can tell she knows everyone within a fifty mile radius of Kerrville Texas and if they attend a Baptist church within that radius then she knows their extended family as well, regardless of where they live. Peg is an elegant Caucasian women in her 60's who has worked diligently alongside Nellie to create this community of interfaith voices. I am hoping, without ever having met them before, that we can somehow bring some of these women who are part of the 'Many Voices One Soul 'community together. It is very much a part of the vision of the GCW to celebrate Women's Wisdom in all its expressions, including dance, music, artistry and crafts.

The conversation goes like this:
CC: "It's such an honor to meet you. I know we're only in town for a week but I'm wondering..."
Nellie & Peg: "What do you need my dear? How about a gathering...a gathering of men and women..."
CC: "Well, actually, for this trip we're only sitting with women. Is that going to be ok?"
Nellie & Peg: "Just perfect dear. A gathering of women...hmm...what should we call it?"

At this point they confer with each other in a blur of suggestions arriving, after a minute or so, on "An Evening of Women's Song & Story". They confer again on which ministers will have to be notified so that no noses bent out of shape and also so that no men show up without warning. When women are speaking their Truth it's important to create a sense of safety. Then we all look at our calendars to agree on the date; the following Saturday from 7 to 9pm at the Doyle Community Center. Nellie says she's going to provide her famous lemon cake as well as a beverage and Peg says she's bringing her sandwiches. Since there's no piano at the Doyle Community Center they agree that the singing portion of the evening will be a capella and the story telling will be a la Global Culture of Women. "All filmed of course?" I ask hesitantly, ready to spring into action describing the incredible yoga of filming that Blythe has perfected, the way she can be right in the middle of the action and yet seem so unobtrusive, a sixth sense about filming. But, none of this is necessary. They're several steps ahead of me. They barely even look at each other as they shrug their shoulders and say "Of course!"

By the time the conversation ends, Blythe and I have known these two women no more than ten minutes yet they have agreed to not only participate in but also organize, host and provide food for this potentially very large all-woman's community event.

That's how it goes....

Sitting with Women...

We spend a good deal of time in the car on this trip, because as it turns out, at least compared to the New England terrain I grew up in, this state of Texas is a BIG place. To keep us occupied, to keep us grounded, we found ourselves a copy of Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire and we're reading it out loud to each other as we take turns driving, and driving, and driving to the next destination, the next community of women who are waiting to welcome us in and connect us to more.

As we were driving along through Big Bend National Park (after spending a night on our way from the Presidio border area to the Texas Hill Country), we read:

"If I had been as capable of trust as I am susceptible to fear I might have learned something new, or some truth so very old we have all forgotten it."

This trip is most assuredly about remembering a truth so very old many of us have forgotten it. The women we are sitting with seem somehow to have remembered, or perhaps they never forgot. I am so thankful to these women. I am spending these days in prayer that we listen to them as if our lives depended on our doing so...

Cowgirl Style

Last night, nestled in the heart of Texas Hill Country, we sat in circle with a woman’s group of cowgirls that has been meeting twice a month on Weds for years now. This group is tight; dedicated to each other and the cultivation of this woman’s community they are weaving. Their time is precious and they keep themselves on a schedule. They gather from 6 to 6:30 for socializing then they get down to business. Yet even their ‘socializing’ is focused on new discoveries that each of them have made, on checking in about anything that might have been relevant from the last gathering. They get together outside of the Weds night gatherings, do social things, teach each other horseback riding, new gardening techniques, share political activities, go out on the town together. Many of them are dedicated to localizing their community, interested in bringing the production of those goods and services that sustain our everyday lives back to the intimate community as much as possible.

Of course, being cowgirls, they know how to kick it up as well. Forever gifting each other with creative offerings, one of the women made Cowgirl fridge magnets for the group. “What, exactly, is a Cowgirl fridge magnet?” you ask? Well, it’s a thing of beauty. After hearing this you’ll undoubtedly want one for yourself. Each one is different sporting a sepia-tone archival photograph of a fierce Texan woman dressed in, of course, cowgirl boots, a cowgirl hat, a sensible yet frilly skirt and a cowgirl shirt. She’s got her leg up on a hay bail, a saddle or some other staple of the cowgirl lifestyle. And she’s adorned with a quote that speaks to the nature of these wonderful women: “I didn’t mean to shoot him, he just sorta fell into my bullet.” When these women laugh it is from the deep belly. They definitely don’t do anything half-way.

We were interested in having these beautiful women help us with a project. We wanted to create a DVD for women who offer us their stories, so that each woman who so courageously tells her story can see the impact her Truth and Wisdom has on other women around the world. We gathered as we always do, only this time we started with a Wisdom Card, so that each woman could experience what it’s like to speak her intimate story with other women. After each woman spoke about Coupling/Intimacy (the card that was drawn by our host, one of the founders of this woman's group), we got into the story reading segment. It was as if the stories, and the women who had spoken them originally, had been awaiting just such a moment as this: when their Truth would be in a bowl surrounded by women who do not balk at anything (at least, not that I can tell). The bowl is filled with stories of all colors and sizes; stories of first love, of last love, of nature and beauty, of heart break and desolation, of depression, frustration, death, torture, murder...they reflect women’s real lives from around the world. And yet, the stories that got chosen by random selection were almost all stories of tremendous pain: really, some of the hardest stories that have been offered to this project so far found their way into these women’s hands last night. And these women read them, honored them, cherished them...and they offered, on camera, from their hearts, such tremendous gratitude for the courage and Love within each story, within each woman whose story was read. It was more than we could have scripted...of course...it always is.

And, in case you’re curios, the definition of ‘Cowgirl’ turns out to be a lot like the definition of ‘midwife’. Cowgirl simply means ‘Company of Women’ girls...there is a trend here, one with the power to gracefully heal a planet.

Lilies of the Desert

We think of the desert as a dry, barren place; a forbidding environment where life is short-lived and tough; buyer beware, eat-or-be-eaten. Yet, for me, it feels like we have come home. This landscape seems to define female to me now; this from a woman who grew up in the Adirondack mountains of upper New York State, where water gushes throughout the year, where mountains are so old though still growing, rounded by time but ever-powerful. Certainly it's not either/or, yet now that we have had the opportunity to sit in community with women of all ages, disparate backgrounds, differing orientations, coming to rest in women's homes, I think of these hearts as the flowering lilies in this gorgeous dry fierce desert. As it has to this land, a lot has happened to the female body...many conquests, some failed, some successful, have taken place on the female landscape. Yet the flowering continues. The cultivation of gardens of community, of beauty, continues.

The gentle leader of one of these communities, Cammie, a woman in Las Cruces, NM who has been taking care of women for over 25 years, who is one of the founding midwives of 'The Art of Birth and Wellness', a midwiffery school, well-woman's clinic and of course, midwife practice, defined the word 'midwife' as 'with women'. "We're all midwives, every one of us who cares about women...even men. If you love women, you're a midwife." She described to us her definition of true community by offering an example of how they do things in her part of the world. The story goes something like this: a woman in their care had a beautiful home birth producing a healthy baby girl. All was good, until the mama began to hemorrhage. She was admitted to the hospital but because she didn't deliver in the hospital her brand new daughter couldn't accompany her. This mama was determined to breast feed. So, of course, the lactating women within this community took turns feeding the mama's new daughter. These women took this new babe home, bonded with her, kept her skin on skin in a sling, slept with her. And, when the time was right, they snuck her into the hospital so the mama could also bond with her new daughter. This is how it goes in this desert, down here. These women are fierce about this. They look straight into the camera and they say, "We are doing this to change the way women mother. We are doing this because this is the only way it truly works."

These beautiful women are as diverse and rooted as the lilies that inhabit this region; all the Yuccas and the Zotolin. Much like the tough desert flowers, you wouldn't want to cross these ladies. They've weathered a lot of storms, seen and done a lot. They've been on the 'front lines' and their dedication is fiery. And still, their hearts are as tender as the heart of the desert lily, tender, deeply sensitive, and vulnerable: fierce and vulnerable/tough and infinitely receptive. The more I sit with women the more this balance has come to define the feminine principle. These women are united within a set of values mostly unspoken. In fact, when we asked them to speak about it, they look almost confused, tears in their eyes and say, "We do things this way because, how could we not?" They took us in, connected us with their friends and relatives, made calls to women they barely know but whom they feel need to be a part of this vision: the celebration of Women's Wisdom across the planet in service of a world in which all life is sacred.

I will spend my life in a bow to these fierce lilies who seem to thrive in this desert, in a land where we all (women and men) face constant attacks, both intimate and public, on our fiercest fullest expression.

The Borderlands: "The Spaces In Between"

Today, as I spoke with women in Texas whom we are hoping to interview over the next three weeks, I listened to passionate voices fueled by fierce hearts. I listened as woman after woman spoke of her work, her family, her activism...her devotion. I had a conversation with a powerful mother of two daughters who, in addition to raising these girls in the world, is fighting against the legal detention of children in ICE prisons (I've heard these facilities also called concentration camps). She spoke for ten minutes literally without taking an audible breath. Finally she paused and I took the opportunity to interject that we, The Global Culture of Women, would want to hear about her, as a woman, the part of her that transcends the specific activism she engages in. I told her that we ask women to speak about the core values and wisdom that fuel their actions in the world. That we want to hear women speak about their sense of spirituality, of creativity, of mothering and partnership. Through the phone, for the first time in the conversation, I heard her take a deep breath. After a minutes she said, "Hmmm...It's been a long time since anyone has asked me about those things...I think I could talk about those things. "

We are taking this journey to weave an ever wider tapestry of universal female-hood. We have seen that, often, when a women is offered the opportunity to speak her Truth, she will talk about intimate thoughts, experiences and knowledge that serve to unite women. It is our belief that women have a unique power at this moment, a power to halt the speeding train heading for the precipice. And we believe this will only happen if we celebrate just as much as we protest; if we celebrate the beauty and wisdom of women just as fiercely as we use our voices, bodies and financial power in protest against all that has been made so horribly wrong.

"We are walking toward you. We are coming to honor the purpose of your existence." This Aboriginal Morning Prayer is our manifesto...It is our calling, our prayer, our honor, to sit with women from around the world and record their wisdom, creating ever-more inspiring ways to share that wisdom with each other - all women - until we all realize that women share one heart and one breath in service of a world in which all life is sacred.

Tomorrow we will drive from Boulder to Las Cruces, NM and from there we will head down into El Paso, Juarez, Alpine, Redford and Ojinaga, Terlingua, Kerrville, Austin, Del Rio, Acuna, Brownsville, Reynosa and McAllen. From there we will circle around and return to Boulder through Santa Fe, NM. Help us fill each moment with women's Truth! If you know women in these areas who would like an opportunity to participate in this global vision, email us at women@globalcultureofwomen.org or call us at 303-449-8590.

For a full description of the GCW mission and vision and to read the courageous and beautiful wisdom of women who have already participated, visit www.globalcultureofwomen.org