Tag Archives: patriarchy

No authority is higher than your own holy heart.

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Arrow tattoo on woman's wrist showing true north

Have you ever tried really hard to believe something that you knew in your heart wasn’t true? I’ve been trying to make myself believe a very important untrue thing for most of my life. I didn’t know I was doing it. I just felt wonky and off, a feeling I ignored for decades. I felt unaligned, and I thought all I needed to do was try harder to believe this thing that, deep down inside, I knew was untrue. Everyone around me believed it, or at least they said they did, so it must be true.
 
I thought the fault was in me, not the untrue thing.
 
I’ve known since I was a little girl that much of what I was hearing about God from church and family and culture just wasn’t true. Experience upon experience upon experience didn’t line up with what the people around me said about “God.” I thought that the remedy was to discount my experience of holiness, and cut off the parts of me that didn’t fit into the “God” box.
 
I’ve had this backwards all along. I want so passionately to articulate the importance of this shift that I’m struggling to find the words. Your experience of the sacred is the starting point for the stories and myths and theologies, the symbols and metaphors, that attempt to contain the sacred. If your heart-felt experiences of “God” don’t fit the theology your head is striving to believe, it’s the theology that’s wrong, not your experiences.
 
Sisters, we will never fit into the myth of monotheism—one God for everyone, invented by Abraham thousands of years ago, the source of so much suffering in the world today. We will never find a home for ourselves in worship of a disembodied, unearthly, solitary Father God. We will never be lovable and whole in a theology constructed to shelter a male, celibate, lone ranger lawgiver and arbiter of holiness. Men have a hard enough time, but women? Women will never measure up. (I imagine that queer folk struggle even more.)  
 
If “God” is ethereal, heavenly, and orderly, what do I do with my embodied, earthy, messy experiences of Holiness? What do I do with sacred dreams, making love and birthing babies, deep grief and soaring joy?
 
We swim in monotheism like fish in water. We don’t even notice it anymore, it’s such an assumed fabric of our lives. I see now that even as I scrape off and root out the patriarchal Father “God” from my being, I’ve been subconsciously searching for another monotheistic “God” to take His place. I’ve been disbelieving in that “God,” not understanding that I have gotten the cart before the horse. I’ve been searching for a pre-existing myth into which I can fit.  
 
What I need to be doing is to make my experiences, beliefs, and values primary before finding, or creating, a myth that fits ME.
 
I cannot overstate the importance of this shift.
 
The three pillars of my mending ministry (aka “coaching”) are remembering who you are, reclaiming your authority, and recommitting to your priorities.
 
To reclaim my authority, I now see, means to honor my experiences of holiness. I am NOT limited to what others have already created. I must take seriously the values and beliefs that grow out of my experience – of embodiment as an Earthling, of friendship, of love and sex and marriage and motherhood and aging, of words and images, and more – and weave them into a theological garment that fits ME.
 
I can give up this exhausting search through the already-created for an existing temple I can tolerate. I can create a structure into which I fit as a flesh and blood woman on this beautiful earth. I can build a shelter for myself and maybe for you, too.
 
Any theology you now inhabit was made up by someone. Just because you were raised in it and four billion people believe it doesn’t make it true.
 
There really is nowhere to land but in your own holy heart.
 
All the goodness and wisdom you need is within you. When you go into your heart deeply enough, you’ll find that you’re connected to all the other hearts in the universe.
 
If you’ve been cutting off parts of yourself to fit into the patriarchal monotheistic myth, these steps could be the beginning of reclaiming your authority.
 
1. Make a list of your holy experiences. Remember that our English word “holy” shares a root with “healthy,” “healing,” and “whole.” When, where, how, and with whom do you feel or have you felt whole, healed, and holy? In what do you experience holiness?
 
My list of objects, moments, and memories is quite long. Here are a few, in no particular order: Pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing babies. Sitting on a rock with my feet in a river. Swimming in high mountain lakes. Standing in front of Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” The companionship of cats, dogs, and horses. El Hospital del Alma in Castrojeriz, Spain, and my Camino vision of the deep heart. Hikes with Jed. Listening to wind in Ponderosa Pines. Mary Oliver’s poetry. Going to church with my grandparents. Water fresh from a spring. Granite and sandstone. Dippers. The night sky.
 
What’s on your list? Please take five minutes to start one.
 
2. Honor your experiences as holy. Ritualize the quotidian, everyday items and events. Reverence your holy moments. Remember your holy experiences deliberately, with intention. Pick a few items on your list, and find or make symbols of them for your altar.
 
4. When it feels right to you, begin to play with myths, spiritualities, theologies, symbols, and metaphors that contain your experiences of “God.” Let yourself roam in the wild unknown. There are no rules.
 
If you feel like you need a starting point, here are a few ideas. Perhaps Celtic spirituality, the pre-Roman Catholic version, works for you. Maybe Goddess spirituality is your jam. Maybe it’s Wicca. Maybe it’s even progressive Christianity. Or a little of this and a little of that to begin with. Since those are already invented, maybe your call is to invent something completely new, and invite us to join you. I don’t know. Only you know. If you do explore an existing theological structure, pay attention to how it feels in your body. Ask yourself if it feels true enough to contain your experiences of the holy.
 
As for me, I’m going to dwell in this wild openness for as long as it takes, which may be a lifetime. These roots go deep. It will take time, attention, and perseverance to disentangle myself from Father God’s possessive grasp.
 
No authority is higher than your own holy heart. Trust your good, strong, wise heart. Follow its yearnings, whether or not they make sense to your head.
 
Remember who you are. Reclaim your authority. Recommit to your priorities. This is the work. This is the call. This is the journey. This is the dream.
 
(Dara Molloy’s Reimagining the Divine: A Celtic Spirituality of Experience was a rich source of inspiration for this post.)

PS. If you enjoyed this heresy, you can subscribe to my weekly-ish newsletter for up-to-date heresy and coaching offerings. Thanks!

Image credit: Natalie Rhea Riggs on Unsplash

Foundation #1: Embodiment

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Baby held in big hands, Anne Geddes

Your body is the only thing you have for your entire life. Know your self as embodied. Know your body. Honor your body. Listen to your body. Celebrate your body.

You come into this world in a little wrinkled body, and you leave in a large wrinkled body … if you’re lucky. ~Wayne Dyer

But gosh, sometimes it’s hard to feel lucky, isn’t it?

Embodiment is the first foundation of my Coaching Intensive for a reason.

The process of disconnecting ourselves from our body begins at birth. We learn not to trust our body’s messages as we’re socialized in a capitalist culture. What your body wants is damned inconvenient for a product-driven, resource-draining patriarchal economy, so you’re taught not to listen to it.

This body-vacating, head-driven way of living is especially true for those of us socialized as women.

As women, we’re taught to be pleasing, which means small, quiet, helpful, compliant, and outwardly-focused. We’re taught that our bodies are not ours to do with as we please, but as others please. Our parents, our teachers and pastors, our husbands, Congress and the Supreme Court, the random dude on the street who ogles our breasts, the plastic surgeon who tells us we should want our pre-baby vagina back — all presume to take ownership of our bodies. After a while, our bodies never feel like ours, except in secret.  

Our body’s voice becomes the enemy’s voice, a voice we have to resist and tame. So we diet, we exercise hard, we ignore our sexual preferences, we hate on our wrinkles and folds. We fit into the small, quiet, helpful, outwardly-focused box labeled “feminine.” This process of disconnecting us from ownership of our bodies has been going on for so long it’s invisible. It’s the air we breathe.   

Abdicating ownership of your body is how you’ve learned to stay safe in a culture which only values your body as a commodity. It’s not your fault.

Stop reading and take a moment. Feel into your body. Is my bleak description accurate to you? Are you angry? Are you sad?

Again, vacating your body—seeing it as an enemy to be vanquished through self-criticism, diets, over-exercise, ignoring its cries for help—is how you’ve stayed safe in a culture that wants your body for its own uses and occasionally uses violence to get it. Being disembodied is not your fault. But, now that you see what you’ve been taught as the lie it most assuredly is, reclaiming your body is your responsibility.

Here’s what’s actually true.

Your body is yours to care for, direct, and enjoy. Yours, and no one else’s. Embodiment, being embodied, fully inhabiting and adoring your sweet pod, is necessary for healing.

Your body doesn’t lie. It only tells the truth. You came into this life only capable of telling the truth. Lying is a skill you acquired as your brain matured, and you became more savvy about how to get along in our sick culture.  

Our minds tell our bodies that only our minds know the truth, and over time we believe the lie. What’s true? When you “let the soft animal of your body love what it loves,” you will turn toward home.

Underneath decades of accreted socialization and associated untruths, there you are. The real you. The embodied you. The you that carries who you really are and what you really want.

That’s why this is where we start. We re-center our knowing in our bodies, because our bodies are where joy, wisdom, and truth live.

Your body is waiting for you. Go home. Go home.

PS. The Body Compass tool is the first thing I teach new clients, and we use it throughout our work together. Contact me to schedule a free no-strings-attached Clarity Call where we can explore how to access your body’s truth-infused wisdom. 

Photo credit: Anne Geddes

The Feast of Barely Beginning

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Crocuses emerge in snow

I heard a lesser goldfinch sing his spring question and answer melody today. Waking up? he asks. Oh, do, he answers.

Crocuses, daffodils and tulips quicken underneath the snow.

Buds swell on bare trees sturdy as sculptures, though it will be many weeks till tender leaves emerge.

The feast of barely beginning is here!

Weeks of winter left, yes. Yet … Have you noticed the sun rising just a little earlier, shedding golden light on surfaces untouched for months by her rays? Have you noticed her just a little higher in the winter sky? Have you felt the lengthening days?

Earth, barely pregnant with new life, dances in snowy meadows and along forest trails, arrayed in festal white, silver, and the barest hint of spring green, holding her barely bulging belly.

Women walk riverbanks, gather new green willow branches and weave Brigid’s crosses to mark thresholds in this fresh year.

Melt, just a little, in the warmth of Brigid’s fire. Let go. Let yourself dream, dear child, of what could be. Dream, daughter, of what you want to create in the coming long summer days. Courageously dream into being the world you want to live in. And dream, Braveheart, of your heart’s companions in this work.

Bake bread. Make space. Speak true words at the right time. Bravely create the world you yearn for, one seed at a time. One furrow at a time. Row by row.

Set your holy intentions.

Tend your taproot. Feel your roots deep in the Mother wake up and slowly, so slowly, stretch and reach to touch your sisters all around you. Feel how everything you need is here. Feel your immense quiet power, slowly waking, held, supported, nourished by Earth—rich dirt feeds you, fresh cold snowmelt trickles down between your roots, warm sun limbers your branches, bright air infuses every leaf and needle. You have everything you need. Everything you need is here. You are perfectly placed. Be who you are. All will be well.

The Feast of Barely Beginning is here. Be here now, a creature of this glorious barely waking Earth. Be where you are, and come.

Let yourself be moved, just a little. Let yourself be warmed, just a little. Just a little. Let yourself be a peaceful slowly burgeoning miracle, waking, swelling, singing softly, rooting, growing. Just a little.

Just a little.

Just a little.

This poem is about Imbolc. Imbolc is one of eight Celtic celebrations rooted in Earth’s cycles – four solar festivals of solstices and equinoxes, plus four pastoral festivals: Imbolc in February, Beltane in May, Lughnassa (or Lammas) in August, and Samhain in November. These Earth-centric celebrations affirm the birth/death/rebirth cycle in which women especially are embedded by virtue of our menstruating bodies, and for which we have been shamed by patriarchal culture.

Celtic rites are an antidote to Earth-denigrating, patriarchal Christianity which is hostile to women and girls, and not all that kind to men.

At Imbolc (Candlemas, Brigid’s Day, Groundhog Day, the Feast of the Presentation), celebrated at the beginning of February, we begin to see the first stirrings of rebirth after the darkness of Winter Solstice and the longest night. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, days lengthen perceptibly. In Bend, today is an hour longer than it was on December 21st, and the sun is just a little higher in the winter sky. Bird behavior is just beginning to change, as the males begin to preen and sing and vie for female attention, and the females begin to consider their mating options. Buds on trees begin to swell in the growing daylight, although it will be weeks before leaves emerge. Bulbs begin to sprout in the dark dirt under the snow.

The energy of Imbolc feels like beginning. A gentle beginning, not raucous and full of fireworks, but slow, steady, almost imperceptible. Imbolc feels like the first little belly bulge of a new pregnancy. (Imbolc may derive from the Irish Gaelic word for “in the belly,” although the etymology is uncertain.)

Some Imbolc rituals have survived in Ireland for centuries and are rooted in pre-Christian history. Some are probably just invented because they help Earthlings ritualize the passage of time and ground them in Earth’s rhythms. February 1st begins the Feast of Brigid, also called Bride, one face of the Celtic triple goddess composed of maiden, mother, and crone, adopted by the Christian tradition as St. Brigid. Traditional Imbolc celebrations center on Brigid, an icon of holy change.

Imbolc celebrations in Ireland, and around the world for people who have adopted these Earth-honoring practices and made them their own, include some common elements:

  • White, green, and silver in cloth and candles.
  • Weaving Brigid’s crosses from local grasses, reeds, and willow branches, hung over doorways to mark thresholds.
  • Deep cleaning and space clearing, in preparation for new life.
  • Literal seeds: bake seeded bread or cookies or cake.
  • Seeds of intention: Make a vision board for 2021. Choose your word of the year if you haven’t already. Let the gentle spaciousness of Imbolc feed your vision, and you may come up with something more whole and healing than what you would have on January 1.
  • Sheep’s milk or wool: Imbolc in Ireland is when ewes begin to lactate in preparation for giving birth, so eat some ewe’s milk cheese. Tie off your Brigid’s cross with wool.
  • Light candles. Sit by a fire. It is still winter, after all.
  • Bird feathers, especially those of the swan, can be used on your cross or your altar.
  • Snowdrops are the traditional flower of Imbolc, but any white flower will do, if snowdrops are in short supply.

Go easy with yourself. Let the gentle energy of just beginning permeate your February. Sit with what feels good to your barely burgeoning roots and shoots. Brigid won’t mind if you weave her cross next week, or make a vision board later in the month. Be gentle. Watch for rebirth, yours and the Earth’s, barely beginning.

Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash

How do you create a new life when you’re still living in the old one?

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House being demolished

How do you create a new life when you’re still living in the old one?

How do you change your life and live from your heart without destroying the things you love about the life you’ve already created?  

How do you stand tall and strong, when the structure you’ve built up till now wants you to stay crooked and small?

Three things:

1. Courage. Heart-based radical trust in your inner wisdom and goodness. Trust your unhappiness, boredom, frustrations, longings, desires.

2. Clarity. Get just a little clearer on the next thing. Maybe the next two things if you’re an overachiever. You don’t have to have the whole vision. Ask yourself: What tugs? What delights? You know what’s next.

3. Conflict. It’s gonna happen. Learn to manage the inevitable conflict that arises when you change how you live your life.

It’s tempting to just move out of the house. And sometimes that’s necessary and it’s what you know you want to do. You could be the woman who seemingly out of the blue divorces her husband and moves to (Santa Fe, Seattle, New York City, a farm in Iowa, fill in the blank) to follow her passion for (ceramics, whales, the theatre, organic fiber, fill in the blank) and no one saw it coming.

We’re so afraid of causing conflict. Making trouble. Rocking the boat. We’re so convinced the life we’ve built is real – immutable, rigid, solid – and if we wiggle and stretch it’ll all come crashing down. Maybe it will.

If the life you’ve built is that fragile – if all that’s holding the structure of your life together is your precious energy and power, then it might need to collapse. If you’re holding the foundation up like the Incredible Hulk while your people upstairs walk around oblivious, then you might want to stop doing that.

Over and over I hear in my clients a deep fear of talking honestly about their frustrations, anger, and yearning with their husbands.

Sometimes they’re fearful because they made a commitment x number of years ago to this man. I hear these women say, “He hasn’t changed, so why do I have the right to be unhappy? I just need to get over myself and wait out this frustration. My kids would be devastated if I left him.”

Sometimes they’re fearful because their husbands are fine with things as they are. I hear these women say, “He’s perfectly happy. I must be wrong. I must be the one who needs to be fixed. I’m being crazy and hysterical.”

Sometimes they’re fearful because they’re afraid of being dismissed by their husbands. I hear these women say, “What if he doesn’t listen? What if he blows me off? What if I’ve opened this can of worms and nothing changes?”

All of these reasons are a variation of the belief that they need permission from someone else to know what they know, feel what they feel, say what they mean, and do what they want. (Words lifted from Martha Beck’s forthcoming book, The Way of Integrity.)

We’re so well-trained by this patriarchal culture in which we live, move, and have our being, that, as women, we need to look outside ourselves for authority. That we’re irrational and we can’t trust our inner wisdom. That the only things that matter are the things we can measure.

My friends, this is bullshit. I don’t know why it is that women seem to need to to grow and change more than men. Maybe it’s because we live in cycles. We embody change. We are rooted in a deeper reality than patriarchal culture.

Why ultimately doesn’t matter.

What matters is that you trust your courageous heart’s voice, you take the next step that delights you even if it’s scary, and you learn to manage the inevitable conflict. Let me know if I can help.

Photo by Haley Hamilton on Unsplash

“Put Down the Duckie”

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See the cage for what it is, and unlock it.

“The trees are about to show us how lovely it is to let the dead things go.” That’s a quote from Maya Elious, and how poignant it is. We had snow last Saturday here in Bend, and now the trees are letting go with a vengeance, dropping leaves and fruit all over the place.

Do you remember the song Sesame Street’s Hoots the Owl sings to his friend Ernie, who desperately wants to both play his saxophone and keep ahold of his beloved rubber duckie? Hoots sings, “Put down the duckie. Ernie, put down the duckie. You gotta put down the duckie if you wanna play the saxophone.” (Watch it here.)

I grew up in a family with alcoholism and physical violence. My parents eventually divorced. When I was in high school, my mom married a man, a family friend of many years, who touched my body and said things to me that no stepfather should say to a stepdaughter. When I protested, he told me I was wrong. My mom did not protect me.

What do falling leaves, Hoots the Owl’s song to Ernie, and growing up have to do with each other?

As a daughter in my family, a student in the public schools of the 60s and 70s, a girl in a persistently patriarchal church and misogynist culture, I picked up a few beliefs. They might sound familiar to you.

  • Be small, hidden, camouflaged.
  • Be silent. Stay quiet.
  • Do as you’re told.
  • Keep your wants, opinions, thoughts, and feelings to yourself, because they don’t matter.
  • Whip yourself into shape.
  • Be who we want you to be.
  • Look to others for direction, validation, affirmation, approval.
  • Put others’ needs ahead of your own.

Be nice, sweet, cute, pleasing, funny, smart but not too smart, helpful, compliant.

In short, be a good girl and don’t bother us.

It was safer, when I was a child, to just go along with this. I wasn’t big or brave or powerful enough to go it alone. And after a while I forgot who I was. It was easier to forget than to keep feeling the pain of remembering.

I’m remembering now. I’m learning to truly see the ways my visibility, clarity, voice, value, integrity, intrinsic motivation, self-compassion, self-regard, and self-trust were taken offline, uninstalled by my family, my culture, and my church.

Now that I see, I’ve gained the ability to choose what to do. I can choose the discomfort of reinstalling those original blessings and rewiring (unf*cking) my brain, or I can continue to stay small quiet nice cute sweet reactive other-focused because that’s more familiar and feels safer. I can hang on to last year’s leaves, or I can choose to let the dead things go.

Wholeness, healing, and new life lie in the direction of putting the damn duckie down. Relearning is uncomfortable and scary. But staying locked up in this cage of smallness, silence, and compliance is no longer an option for me.

Now that I see the cage for what it is, and I know I hold the key to my freedom in my own two hands, how can I choose to remain a prisoner?

If you’d like some Bible alongside Sesame Street, here’s Paul writing to the church in Corinth: “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” (I Corinthians 13:11)

Holiness wants us to grow up. Holiness wants us clear and articulate and powerful.

We gotta put down our childish duckies if we wanna play our grown-up saxophones.

You may not want to play the saxophone, but I know you have dreams. Goals. Desires that just won’t let go. And if you haven’t achieved them or let them go, there’s something stopping you. There’s an obstacle in the way, almost certainly a belief or a cluster of beliefs that no longer serve you, if they ever did.

I can help you see where your childish beliefs are holding you back so you can change them and be the grown-up woman you want to be. Contact me for a free consultation.

Photo by Peter Conlan on Unsplash, edited on Canva

Postscript – God’s letter to her daughters who observe Lent

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Dear friends,

God’s letter to her daughters who observe lent has received over 30,000 views in the three days since it was published. I’m astonished by the response. Many readers commented, most expressing gratitude. Some commenters criticized my post, calling my words unbiblical, ungodly, and “evil.”

Although I don’t enjoy criticism, I am learning to handle it. But the criticisms, by extension, are leveled at readers for whom the post resonated deeply. These readers’ comments shared their pain, brokenness, and vulnerability, and they did not sign up for critique. So I’ve turned off comments today, although you can still read the ones previously posted.

Some of you have asked permission to share and quote in sermons and articles. Thank you, and yes.

Now, on to a few common themes expressed in the comments and on Facebook.

Where’s God’s letter to his/her sons?

That’s not the letter that’s mine to write. I am a woman, speaking to women in a patriarchal culture and patriarchal church. As several of you pointed out, the letter’s message applies to men and other genders as well, probably. I can’t speak to that with integrity. If God has given you words for her/his sons, please share them in the comments. I’ll collect your responses for a future post.

My husband, an Episcopal priest, is considering using “a letter from God to her daughters … ” as a starting point for his sermon this Sunday. He may preach about cultural burdens placed on men in the context of Jesus’ temptations in the desert. If he does, I’ll link to the recording here. You can also read a summary of his sermon on his blog.

Thank you to those of you who have asked permission to substitute non-gendered language and repost. I am grateful.

The hubris of “putting words in God’s mouth”:

First of all, this was a literary device. I tried writing this piece several different ways, and the words eventually told me they wanted to be a “letter from God.” This may only make sense to other writers. The device was evidently effective, given the response. Some readers referred to the piece as poetry, which is a good description, I think.

Secondly, I am not delusional. I do not think I am God’s ordained mouthpiece. I do not believe I speak Truth with a capital T. That said, I do believe that, through our soul’s connection to the One and to each other, we receive messages for others as well as ourselves. I don’t think this communication with God is weird or mystical or uncommon. Communion with the Source is what prayer is, and creativity. It’s actually very ordinary. We connect to the Heart of Life, and then we flow with what It gives us. I simply shared what was given to me in a way that worked for the words. Please share what is given to you, as well. I am not special in this regard.

My words are “evil” because they depart from God’s inerrant revelation as given us in the Bible. Therefore, I’m leading people astray.

Ouch. What can I say? I respectfully disagree. I’m not leading anybody. I’m just following Jesus.

I think we are, some of us, following Jesus in a different way. Some of us don’t identify as followers of Jesus at all. We have very different beliefs about the Bible and its interpretation. We have very different beliefs about and experiences of the nature of the soul, ultimate reality, and truth. We will never agree, and that’s okay. As long as we are kind.

I ask that, when we feel the need to point out the error of another’s ways and to tell them how to live correctly, we consider whether our words are compassionate.

To those of you who shared dissenting opinions carefully and thoughtfully, thank you. To those of you who responded to the criticisms carefully and thoughtfully, thank you for stepping in to protect your sisters and defend me.

Going forward, I will delete comments that I judge to be disrespectful and unkind, in order to create a safe and healing space.

Clearly the message in “God’s letter to her daughters who observe Lent” was a balm for many of you. I’m glad. May we accept the healing that’s always offered, knowing the Holy One is within us, holding us, and yearning for our wholeness.

I’m wishing you all a blessed Lent.

Peace,

Barb

  • Photo credit: Ahna Ziegler on Unsplash