I am trying to come up with another way of saying ‘this is it’ without sounding too cliché but I am coming up blank so, this is it. And truly, fucking really this is it. This is the moment, there’s a different energy in the air. Let us be ready for change because we are going to need it. All of us are depended on it.
Looking back now when I half consciously and half subconsciously embraced a new year I closed a certain time period and I shifted my energy to all I want and all I find scary (and of course they go hand in hand). But it seems like not only did I shift my energy, the mass energy seems to have shifted also. Everywhere I look there is such a strong energy running through the air. But my mind is battling from time to time. I am aware of such a big understanding going round while at the same time there is a huge gap between people. Somehow at a certain point in time it turned into us and them and it has never been anything but us. All of us.
Never before did I feel such a ‘rightness’ in being female, in being a woman. It seems I, without any hesitation, dove right into a warm but powerful pool I wasn’t so much aware of before. Where I found an unity, an understanding; which sparked a strength within me which surprised me. Since then I’ve been witnessing that link by link a chain is being created. I was part of ‘a women circle’ one afternoon and these are the words I wrote about my experience;
Self grown and dried tobacco was being rolled inside a dried corn leaf together with some other home grown herbs. The week before I had rolled and bundled the big dried leafs up with a thread after I noticed them hanging down from a self improvised washing line to dry. Now the ‘cigarette’ (for my lack of a better word) was being passed around the circle one by one.
There I sat, ten other women surrounding me, on the Earth’s floor with trees surrounding us, providing us with shade. A soft bonfire burned between all of us. Here in South America, as seen from her indigenous people both smoke and the tobacco plant are sacred. When the cigarette was passed down to me I remembered the words with which they explained what I had to do next. “Think about what you would want (to achieve, do… anything. You could see it as a prayer.), now take a drag and when you exhale and the smoke goes up, it is seen as your prayer going up to the universe.”
I closed my eyes, spoke my prayer out loud in my mind and lifted the cigarette up to my mouth with my left hand. I inhaled deeply, noticed the tobacco’s flavor tasted soft and exhaled. ‘There it went’ I thought, ‘my words swirling up with the smoke’ and I passed down the cigarette to the woman on my right.
Later, after our women circle had ended I told Tom “there is such another energy when it is only women. Very interesting, very powerful also.” He nodded in agreement, “but of course” he replied. I was trying to put my finger on the presence of feeling a certain empowerment I had not ever felt in such a way before. When women come together and truly bond, sit together and talk other fields are explored. A space is created where we all know each other simply because we’re all women. An understanding, a caress, a motherly warm love for one another I felt passed through all of us.
A big, bright yellow sunflower was passed along the circle and the person who held it had the opportunity to speak what was on her heart if she wanted to. The only and simple rule for the others was not to comment or judge, only to listen.
Afterwards and in the days that followed I could not get out of my mind how strong the female body feels and in a little moment of clarity I wrote ‘Oh, how my body is the greatest temple of them all. She should be nourished, cared for and loved deeply all by me. And I should be so gentle with her, she is so gentle with me. She is the greatest gift of all.’
These last couple of days, with Trump really being in office now, I have read some really inspiring words and have seen some really inspiring pictures of the women marches such as ‘We march to turn that broken heart into art’, ‘Feel sad, feel mad, feel raw’, ‘feel loud, feel strong, feel bold, feel new but remember true strength comes now from what we do’, ‘you are hope’, ‘I believe in welcoming in those seeking refuge’, ‘we will overcome the fear and hatred that has poisoned our planet’, ‘we are the ones we’ve been waiting for’ and ‘hope not fear’ among so many others.
As if, now, all at the same time there is a fire burning in so many of us and we can’t be silent and we want to unite.
So let me cite another quote to end this post ‘Be loud. Stay loud. Change is not and never has been the thing that is quiet.’
IJsselvrouw 