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.
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