What If?

Am I all that you project
and expect of me?

Am I

a good girl
and vicious brat?

a selfless oracle
and manipulative witch?

a perfect partner
and selfish cunt?

a great mom
and controlling bitch?

a clueless child
and wise woman?

WHO AM I?

What if I fit
all of your labels
and none of them
at all?

What if you see
what suits your reality
instead of
who I truly am?

What if
I am who I am
and no one really
knows me at all?

What if I am here
to be my own truth
without needing
you to agree?

What if I allow myself
to be free
to simply
be me?

~Nancy L

Occupy a Steady Place

Women Singing the Earth by Mary Southard

From the Great Council of the Grandmothers, November 12, 2016:

“The time you are living in is called the age of destruction – the Kali Yuga. It is the lowest point. At this time evil rises to the surface to be destroyed. This dark-age takes place just before the arrival of the incoming Golden Age, so today you are watching out-of-balance Yang energy creating destruction all over your planet. This IS the Kali Yuga. This is what is happening on earth now and because it is, you must learn to cope with this energy. You cannot reason with it because it is entirely destructive. Instead, you must hold steady within yourself and observe its wild behavior from a position of power. If you do this, it will not be able to feed on you. Your steadiness will help contain its rapacious energy and it will not be able to do as much damage as it would otherwise.

Call on the Net of Light and hold Sacred Space. Be mindful of who you are!

You are here on earth to occupy a steady place in an unsteady world. At this time reach out to one another in service. Many are suffering now. Feed the hungry, visit people in hospitals and prisons, provide shoes to those who need them, help the animals. If each of you plunges into one activity of service, together you will do great good, turning many hearts to light. Find a service project for yourself. We ask this of you because we know who you are. You are our hands and hearts on earth.”

Be WILD

Be wild.

Let your hair down
feel the life in your breath
embrace your animal body
laze in the sun
ground in the moist earth
flow with the rivers
run with the wind.
Get to know your inner wildness
the internal springs,
caves,
nocturnal beasts and invertebrates
the forgotten place where you hide
your wild self
the creature of instinct and intuition.
Be wild.
Let yourself go
where your heart wanders
when you sleep
dream about flying high
and diving deep
and finally realizing who
you really are.

– Alissa Wild

I’m with Her… and Her and Her

Women's March on Denver
Women’s March on Denver

Lots of women are online today lecturing the women who marched in one of the Women’s Marches across the country. Apparently, lots of women feel the need to dictate to other women exactly how they should protest… even telling them not to feel happy about a peaceful march, insisting that the peace and joy the marchers experienced was all bogus because the crowd was “too white.”  Lots of women are also lecturing other women about the best way to support minority women. Lots of women are judging and guilting and dismissing other women today…  Is this really helpful?!

Sorry ladies, but you don’t get to define me. You don’t get to dictate what my protests look like. You don’t get to guilt me simply because I’m a middle class white woman. You don’t get to tell me what kind of sign to carry or hat to wear when I protest. You don’t get to dismiss me because I marched with a smile and didn’t scream in rage and burn shit. You don’t get to poo poo my commitment because I don’t protest the way you do.

I will choose when and how I take political action. I will choose when and how I speak out and act. It is MY choice, NOT YOURS!

When one group lectures another about how to behave and how to feel, it sounds suspiciously like old patriarchal Bullshit to me – even when women do it to other women.

EVERY woman needs the space to take political action and express herself in the way that’s most appropriate to her WITHOUT being judged and lectured by other women – and that includes white women from the suburbs!

We won’t fix this mess by telling one group of women to shut up and stuff their feelings, their needs, their wisdom in order to serve another group of women who now take precedence.

We want change, right? Real change? That requires creating a space where ALL women can dialogue with each other and be heard with respect and love. That’s true inclusivity.

“The language by which we have been taught
to dismiss ourselves and our feelings as suspect
is the same language we use to dismiss and suspect each other.”

~Audre Lorde