This week I am 51 years old.  Last year on my birthday I began what I imagined would be a yearlong adventure gathering up those elements of my younger self that I had left behind but which I wanted back in my life.  Much of my meandering took place in New York City, where I had lived in my 20s.  I took two trips back there and did indeed remember who I had been and who I still was. The year culminated in the very recent publication of a novel I wrote, The Temple of the Subway Goddess, that has within it elements of my time in NYC.

In any case, the year has ended and it is time for me to leave that task behind me and move ahead into the second (or so) fifty years of my life.  As I was thinking today about what that meant, I remembered one of my favorite stories, the Inuit story of the Goddess Sedna.  Here is the story as it was told to me:

Sedna was a beautiful maiden who lived with her father in the Arctic.  She married a Bird God and flew away with him to his nest, where she was very unhappy.  So, her father came to take her home.  As they were riding on the water home, the Bird God and his followers came after the boat.  Sedna's father knew that if they attacked, they would sink the boat and all would die, so he threw Sedna overboard.  When she tried to climb back into the boat, he cut off her fingers and then her arms, tossing them into the sea where they became the sea creatures that feed the Inuit people.

Sedna sank to the bottom of the ocean where she grew old and became a Goddess.  She took responsibility for sending up the sea creatures who willingly gave their lives that her people on land might live.  But when the people disobeyed Sedna's rules, her hands ached and she stopped sending the creatures and the people starved. Only when the people sent shamans-who had to go through many terrible trials to reach Sedna-to relieve the pain in Sedna's hands would she relent and send the sea creatures back to the land.

I should say that I did not grow up in the Inuit culture so I am not claiming to be able to interpret, or even tell the story, correctly or at all.  I am, at most, simply relating elements of the story in which I have found resonance for my own life.  Really, it could be said that I am not telling the Sedna story at all, since I'm sure it is quite different within the context of Inuit life and faith, but a story that is similar and meaningful to me only, and perhaps to you, too.

That said, those elements of the story that I have heard seem to me to be a wonderful way of looking at growing older.  It does not glamorize that stage of life, for Sedna has her disabilities in not only her painful hands (something that perhaps makes me identify with the story since arthritis also makes my own hands ache at times) but in her leg which she drags behind her.  However, I find within the story a tremendous and active, passionate strength and power that should come with later life and its experience. 

I sometimes look forward to my later years as a time of retreat and rest, of moving away from the maelstrom of life and sending out rays of good advice to grateful children and grandchildren when I choose. Later life is no time for such withdrawal, even for contemplation and meditation, according to Sedna. Sedna has retreated from the traditional roles, but is even more active in her world.  She does not simply nurture her family, but all human life. She not only guides her children, but all people.

Sedna brings order to her world.  She sets rules which, if followed, cause the people to live in peace with their world.  Sedna teaches me that, at this stage of life, I know what is right and I need to stand up for those values of peace, cooperation, and respect for all people as they are that I have taken as core to my life and work. I need not justify my beliefs over and over, especially to those who would insist on my behaving in a more mainstream way.  I have come to how I view the world through honest reflection on real experiences and my perspective is as valuable as anyone's.

Sedna nurtures and feeds the people.  Her hands and arms became the food that makes human life on the land possible and she sends it to the people that they may live.  Sedna teaches me that, because I have been given many gifts over my decades of life, it is time to give back those gifts in my time, talent, and counsel. I have work to do and retirement, if by that one means giving up one's role in the world, is not an option.  In fact, it is time for be to more active, more vocal, more involved in the daily lives of those around me and across the globe because I have more wisdom to offer than when I was younger.

Sedna protects herself and that which is sacred.  Not just anyone can approach Sedna, even to assuage her pain, but only someone who has the courage and intelligence to succeed at the trials that lie between the world above and her sacred realm.  Sedna teaches me that what I have found to be sacred-the art, the stories and literature, to relationships, the ideals-are truly profound and are to be defended and protected.  

Sedna becomes fiercer as she ages.  She does not just hang onto the boat, but makes laws and punishes the people when they disobey.  Or perhaps she states the laws that exist in nature and is no longer willing to sacrifice her sea creatures when the people flout those laws until they send their shamans as redemptive penitence. I look forward to perhaps even scaring people a bit with fierceness when I do what I feel needs to be done.

Sedna, when younger, did act from her naïve dream of a better life, as she did when she married the Bird God in her youth, but in later life surrounds herself with her reality and makes herself a Goddess of it. She does not hang onto the boat, pretending that her father who has thrown her overboard will help her back in, but lives completely in the ocean world in which she finds herself, making her own realm in it from which she comes to rule all humanity and sea creatures.  I, too, must look at my world with honesty, at what I can reasonably do and what I cannot, and what I cannot reasonably do, but must try to do anyway.

Sedna seems to me to be a near perfect model for older women of our time.  Just as we are active and have begun to work into our 60s, 70s, and beyond, so does Sedna.  She takes life as it is and stands strong for what she knows is right, and so is it also right for us to value our life experience and lessons learned from it and be strong advocates for what we believe in. Sedna knows who she is and, as I read her story, I feel that I also know a bit more who I am, too.

I am delighted to announce that my novel, The Temple of the Subway Goddess, has finally made it out into the world!  A free download has been available for some time, but anyone may now also purchase a printed copy if they like having a real book in their hands!

The Temple of the Subway Goddess is a novel of sisterhood, the quest for a modern woman's sacred spirit, and urban renewal, circa 5000 BCE. Banished from her own time when myth, magic, and a Creator in the form of a woman were part of daily life, 7,000-year- old priestess Mira flees to a forgotten neighborhood of a 21st century American city. There she allies herself with the dispirited and out-of-love ex-photographer Suzanne, bringing her new friend unexpected spiritual powers, troublesome instant celebrity, and a most peculiar mission. As Suzanne's husband, friends, and neighbors fall under Mira's spell, she desperately seeks to discover if they have all lost their minds or found their sacred souls.

If you would like to buy a copy or download one for free, please go here!

 

I recently took one of those tests which tells you which "intelligences" you possess, whether you are good at math, interacting with others, writing, music, or a host of other things.  One, which had just been included but, the testmaker said, may or may not be an "intelligence," was "nature."

To me, nature isn't an "ability," but a language. I walk into a forest or look up at the sky, and I experience a poem or symphony or insight. I scored high on "nature" but low on "music," which surprised me because I have always loved music.  Someone else who took the test scored very low on "nature" but high on "music" even though he has spoken eloquently about the beauty of landscapes.

What this made me realize is that our world is full of many different kinds of languages and some we understand while others we simply do not. The musician who also took the test hears a song and it mostly likely, to him, has many layers of meaning, opens up new emotions and ideas, expresses that which can only be understood through music. I think that I, who do not really speak the language of music, do not comprehend what he and others who know this language well hear. I may enjoy music, but others perceive aspects of music that I simply do not. Maybe I could, now that I understand that it is a language, learn that language, too.

Anything that expresses truth to you is a language. I know people who look at a mathematical equation and see their Creator and others who can talk to someone for two minutes and know them thoroughly just based on body language, attitude, word choice or whatever (personal interaction isn't one of my best languages, so I don't know what else that language includes).

I like the idea of viewing what might be thought of as "abilities" as "languages" because that perspective celebrates the interactions and connections we have with our universe. We aren't just skilled at teasing out the strands of harmony, but we are conversing with music. We don't just have the ability to identify different species during a walk in a meadow, but we are walking with the meadow and listening to what it is saying to us.

I wonder if use of this word "intelligences" rather than "languages" comes from our culture's emphasis on individual ability to produce rather than the capacity to understand and connect.  Maybe it reflects how our culture grades people on how they do on tests and other so-called objective measures rather than who they are as human beings, how we value production of commodities over relationship, how we find it easier to judge rather than reach out. Maybe if we thought in terms of the universe being made up of many languages, we might view the world and our place in it a bit differently.

When two people speak different languages, it doesn't mean that they will necessarily misunderstand each other, but that they can open up whole new worlds for one another. When the musician sings, I get a glimpse of what he hears when he listens to music, something that is a precious gift. I like to think that one of my descriptions of watching snow fall would offer him a small insight into what I experience, too.

Recognizing the "languages" that we speak and others don't can also help us communicate with one another and help each other better understand what we are trying to say.  I know that I will make a special effort to "translate" experiences more when I am writing or speaking with people who may not speak the "languages" I do.

I also think of the many languages spoken over the centuries frequently by women that have been lost. The language of healing herbs, of the women's arts that are no longer widely practiced, of traditions related to women that are no longer observed or remembered - what did these languages once express that we may never experience again?

I also wonder if many "languages" are not given their due because they are commonly associated with women's tasks and lives.  I think of a friend who can pack an entire life philosophy about finding joy in everyday pleasures amidst tragedy into one bowl of pasta. What other aspects of our lives would we dive into with gusto and learn from if we only saw them for the meaningful "languages" they are?

We are at a time in history when communicating not only with each other, but with the world we all inhabit, is essential.  We must take the time to listen to all that we can, even that which speaks in languages we may not understand as well. As in so many things, we are on this planet to work together, and remembering and honoring our many languages is one tool to use as we hopefully progress towards a more peaceful, sustainable, happy global existence.

Like lots of women, I imagine, I sometimes wish I could just leave all the aggravation of life behind and go start my own village someplace. Of course, American women have been doing that for decades with women's lands, but we haven't been the only ones.  I recently came across two places in Africa to share with you.

For at least 200 years, the Lovedu tribe living on a verdant land in South Africa has been ruled by a dynasty of Rain Queens who have passed the crown only from mother to daughter.  The dynasty was begun, according to tradition, when Dzugundini, daughter of a chief, was forced to flee with her followers and established her own village.

According to Ann Jones, who writes about her visit to this place in the amazing book  Looking for Lovedu  (Knopf, 2001), the Modjadji Queens are known both for their ability to make rain as well as valuing "cooperation, appeasement, compromise, tolerance, generosity, peace."  For generations, the Modjadji Queens have been deeply respected by other African rulers, including Nelson Mandela, and have good relations with them. To their people, the Queens were known as "She Who Does Not Fight." This valuing of harmony and cooperation extended also to the Lovedu children, who were raised with love and guidance, rather than punishment, and praised for generosity and peacemaking. 

Lovedu is not, however, a simple utopian women's paradise. Though the Queens had no husbands, they were traditionally served by about 20 "wives" who were not traditional spouses, but really servants who came to the Queens through the custom of "bride-giving" common in that time and place and were part of the diplomacy that was the hallmark of the Queens' manner of rule.  Each Queen had a Council of men who had considerable influence and decision-making authority, though they greatly respected their Queens and their authority.  The Queens' ability to travel outside their village and live life as they wished was strongly restricted by their position, but this the next to the last Queen, whom Jones met, viewed as a necessary sacrifice in order to serve her people.  There is, from what I can tell, no current Queen, for whatever reason.

Whatever the eventual fate of the Rain Queen's dynasty, the story of the Modjadji queens is important. Yes, a people can live in peace and harmony with their neighbors and be ruled over by a matrilineal succession of women for centuries. Yes, the values of the Modjadji queens can work to make lives better in the real world and women rulers who advocate for them can command respect from men and women alike. And I am amazed that in my 30 years of reading about women's culture, I had never heard of the Modjadji until I read Ann Jones' account.

Fourteen years ago, another African woman, Rebecca Lolosoli, also struck out and formed her own village.  Umoja is a small village in Kenya founded by Lolosoli and women who were homeless as a result of being rejected by their families for being raped. The village has only women and has become a haven for young women being forced into marriage and survivors of domestic violence and rape.  They have successfully created a cultural center and camping site for tourists to support themselves and withstood the attempts by a village men set up nearby to make them leave their home. When the men threw stones at Lolosoli, she, according to the article, would simply ignore them or ask "Are you okay? Are your children okay? Are your cows okay?" Not knowing how to respond when hostility is met with kindness, they were, she said, "disarmed." You can read about them here.

As we all make our way into the uncertain world of the future, may we seek out the wisdom of women like the Modjadji queens and the residents of Umoja. While each is different, and I do not pretend to have expertise in the cultures from which they come, I do recognize the universal lessons in both their stories.  Women can hold power and use it peacefully.  It is possible to overcome great obstacles and challenges through the use of cooperation and building relationships.  Women can join together and further these values while, at the same time, meeting their own material needs and those of their families and people. I celebrate all these women and those like them all over the world whose stories I have not yet heard.

I sometimes wonder what it must have been like to live in a time when the stories of goddesses and heroines were new, when the women portrayed in them did the daily tasks, had the relationships, and faced the same issues as real life women. “Myths,” “fairy tales” and the like are, of course, meant to be metaphorical tales that speak to our deepest souls rather than true stories. I do indeed find ancient stories to be full of meaning and many do, indeed, make me sit up and say “Yes! Now I understand! What an insight!”

But I wonder if the ones we have are really all that we need. I have tried, over the years, to write “new myths” that relate to challenges that I and other women I know face that were never imagined by mythmakers of old and some of these can be found in the Writing section of this blog. But the ones I wrote never seemed to have the illuminating connection to my inner self that I was hoping for from a “new myth.”

Then, a week or so ago, I read a real story by a young woman about an event that had happened to her years ago. She was a stranger living in a country torn by civil war and chaotic violence. One day, she was surrounded by a gang of young men, members of one of the country’s factions, who threatened to murder her. A group of women, native to the country, joined together and risked their own lives to rescue her. This story’s power rang in my bones and I knew that it was both a recounting from the writer’s memory and a vessel holding great meaning for women of many times and places.

I then began to remember other stories that had come to my mind over and over through the years. The story of Demeter and her daughter Persephone, whom Demeter mourns desolately, is one that poignantly speaks of the bonds between mothers and daughters. But so does the real story of my great-grandmother who, when left to raise my grandmother alone, spent decades bent over her needle making quilts and dresses to earn the money to send my grandmother to college. In the tale of Amaterasu, this Japanese Shinto goddess retreated into a cave only to be teased out by being dazzled by her own beauty as reflected back to her in a mirror. How like the true story of an elderly woman I know of who had been abused her whole life only to discover in her 80s that she was indeed sacred and worthy of gentle care, a revelation that caused her to “come out of her cave” and encourage other women in her community to stand up for themselves against their own abusers.

I love those inspirational stories, but, to me, the retelling of the young woman’s rescue leads us even more strongly to a more just and compassionate future. The world is completely different than it was when the stories of Demeter, Persephone, and Amaterasu came into being. Violence is worldwide and capable of devastating all life on earth. We have the technical capability of creating an earth that is a paradise of beauty, abundance and health compared to what those ancient people knew. But, our technology is also creating ecological suicide while we kill one another ever more effectively. We are, as a species, divided ever more deeply by nationality, religion, political ideology, race, gender, economic status, and geography. It is to this world that the young woman’s story speaks.

It is the story of real women. The women who saved the girl are not goddesses or superhuman. They are actual women who made a real choice for compassion and courage, then the next day went on with their daily lives. Like them, our decisions when faced with the opportunity to help overcome or walk away from violence and injustice have real consequences for ourselves and others.

This story tells of looking beyond the 21st century divisions between people to treat others as humans in need of love and protection. The young men had dehumanized the girl based on her nationality and race. The women saw her as an individual worth saving, though they did not know her and would never see her again. They didn’t think in terms of “my child” and “someone else’s child,” but as “our child.” It is only this attitude that can stop the conflicts going on right now, as you read this post, all over the globe.

This is a story not of one goddess or heroine on her own, but of women coming together for a common purpose. It is about how community can form in an instant when it’s needed and how groups of women can accomplish what one woman cannot. This is how we must face these catastrophic situations if we are to change them.

This is a story that has no resolution yet. The conflict is still taking lives in the country where this story happened. While this one young woman was rescued, somewhere in the world are many young women in similar situations right now who are suffering violation and death. This is not a story we can walk away from, satisfied that it all worked out in the end, because it has not. It gets us moving and does not let us stop. I hope that I live to see the day when this story has an end because the brutality that gave rise to it is unthinkable anywhere in the world, but I doubt I will.

I plan on holding onto this story tightly and not letting go. It isn’t likely that I will ever be in a situation to save someone’s life like these women. Still, how many times a day can I choose to step in and help or walk away? How often do I have the opportunity to risk my well being, in one way or another, by standing up for someone who cannot, at that moment, stand up for herself? How many times will looking beyond the divisions that divide us show me the real truth of a situation and encourage me to act? Like a profound “myth,” this story has significance far beyond its original narrative and I have just begun to mine its wisdom.

Stories like these show that all that we really need to build our ever-growing and ever-changing treasure chest of myths is within ourselves, playing out every day as we live our own lives. Each of us is, in her own way, her own anthology of stories that tell all we need to know if we will only honor them as the oracles that they are. What stories are you holding in your heart that can be the “myths” that will guide, teach, and inspire you and all women?

Helen Nearing’s influence on my life has been profound and I am honored to write this post to celebrate her and her husband, Scott. I grew up in the 1960s and 70s in a liberal university town where their works were widely read, so I have always just assumed that everyone knew of them and had a copy of “The Good Life” on their shelves. But a couple of days ago, I realized that this view was most likely wrong and that there are probably millions of women who have never heard of Helen. So, if this is the case with you, I would love to introduce you to one of my favorite women of all time, Helen Nearing.

Helen Nearing and her husband Scott moved to a farm in Vermont in 1932 and began a grand experiment in what would now be called “voluntary simplicity.” They grew their own food, built their own house, made their own clothes, and only made enough money to meet their most basic cash needs. (Until this time, Helen had grown up in luxury and done very little physical labor. Think of the faith, love, and courage it took for her to make the decision to do this!) They divided the day into four-hour blocks: one was for “bread work,” meaning what they needed to do to meet essential needs to sustain life, one was for community service, and one was for leisure and recreation.

The key was to reduce their needs to a minimum. No trips to the mall, no fancy clothes, no new cars, nothing that did not serve a useful purpose. In exchange, they got back four or more hours a day and the satisfaction of spending their time outside, doing honorable, healthy work, and being role models for people like me who were looking at non-traditional ways of living their lives.

To me, voluntary simplicity is less about doing things a certain way than in creating a new relationship between yourself, your work, and money. It is about not taking the media’s word for it that you really need 95% of what they are selling. It is the realization that if you do not needs gobs of cash, you do not have to give away your precious time and energy at a job that is extremely stressful and time-consuming instead of one that is fulfilling, requires fewer hours and serves others, but may be lower-paying. You can choose how you spend the days of your life and what you give your precious talent and energy to.

In 1953, they wrote their book “Living the Good Life” about their experiment and, over the years, until their deaths in the 1980s and 1990s, they were visited by literally thousands of people who came to their home to learn what they had to teach. They wrote more books and articles, lectured, and always lived what they preached. Scott was actually the more public face of the two, but he was more analytical and pragmatic, while Helen came from a more mystical, artistic, contemplative point of view and so it was she that I felt connected to, though I never met her.

I do not, of course, follow their lead exactly (as the Coldwater Creek catalog people can attest), but it is because of them that I bought an old house with few modern conveniences and have worked for 20 years with my husband to renovate it, grow many of my own herbs, shop mostly in consignment stores, and take jobs that don’t necessarily pay tremendously well, but pay enough for me to live and help support my family. And, I should say that I am not advocating that women stop fighting to be paid as much as men or that they live at poverty level. Of course women need to have economic equality – the issue is how much of our lives we want to spend making money, not that we should make less than men – and too many women completely underestimate how much they will really need in retirement. If you have children or parents to support or care for or have special needs yourself, your financial need will be substantially higher than people like the Nearings, who had no responsibilities other than to themselves and were in good health till their deaths.

What I have recently come to realize is how integral this view of how to make a living can be to women’s spiritual lives. Many women feel that their connection to the Earth is an essential aspect of their spirituality. The importance of not over-consuming and making your living in a way that does not exploit the Earth is obvious. “Voluntary simplicity” is one important way to reduce the amount of energy we use, garbage we generate, and pollution we cause. There is no better way to honor the Earth than to step away from destroying Her.

Voluntary simplicity is also key to a healthy global web of sisterhood between women. When food, clothing and materials for shelter are exported rather than used for the good of the women in other countries who make them and factories that make unnecessary goods pollute the environment, especially in developing nations, what we have here in the US really does reduce the quality of life for women around the world. Here is where “fair trade” can come in. If you buy goods that are made by women who are fairly paid and who work in safe, ecologically-sound conditions, you can have your imports and help women overseas support themselves in a way that benefits them, too.

Finally, voluntary simplicity is a grand way to express to yourself and others that you are sacred. Your time, energy and talent is worth more than a cashmere shawl or yet another knick-knack or fancy dinner out. If you spend the time you gain on “soul pursuits” like music, art, poetry, walks in the woods, reading, or whatever brings you closer to your Creator and your inner self, how rich will you indeed be. You have not only stated your sacredness, but taken back power over your life by being the one to determine how you spend your time and energy.

In the last few years of her life, Helen wrote a book titled “Loving and Leaving the Good Life” about her marriage to Scott and her thoughts about what their lives had meant. She chose to end the book with words that were not about economics or freedom or power, but about love. And this, to me, is the real spiritual message of voluntary simplicity: love yourself and your soul enough not to waste them, love others enough to spend time with them rather than in constant work, love the Earth enough to conserve it; love all beings enough to participate with them in this world in a responsible way.

But she says it much better than I do: “A network of love crisscrosses the globe… There are so many threads of love in the world, so much love going on, for and from so many people. To have partaken of and to have given love is the greatest of life’s rewards.”

To learn more about the Nearings and their work and lives, go to The Good Life Center, the organization that sells their books and continues to spread their message.

I love to think that women throughout time have left the women of our time clues about how to feel that our spirits are powerful, passed down to us little treasures learned over millennia just waiting to be excavated. Sometimes we look to the stories and artifacts about how powerful women have lived and still live; sometimes we can also look to what women have been forbidden to do. Our culture is peppered with little taboos, mostly that I remember from childhood, but some that are still common. As I consider these taboos, especially those concerned with dress, in relation to what I know about women spiritual leaders, I can see how each can be seen as a way to make women less powerful and how breaking these little taboos can be an avenue to feeling, looking, and being our strong, creative, confident selves.

Certain colors were never or rarely worn when I was younger, in particular, bright red, except as an accent, and black and white except for funerals, weddings, graduations, and other formal occasions. The association of red with “immoral” women was well-established for years and years. Remember the scene from “Gone with the Wind” where Scarlett finally gives up all pretense of respectability by going to a party wearing a red dress? Red, white and black are, of course, colors associated with goddesses all over the world. Fortunately and perhaps not coincidentally, red is now considered to be a “power color” and one that all job applicants should wear somewhere and black and white also have a power of their own as they are more commonly worn.

Clothing taboos have always divided women by class, making it possible to know exactly what strata of society a woman was from by looking at her clothing. Rich women from more aristocratic classes not only had better clothing, but also clothing for a wide variety of formal and informal events. Of course, being wealthy has not meant that women were more personally powerful, but by having women dress differently, it certainly helped keep them from seeing how they as a group lacked power and doing something about it. Dressing outside your assigned class has been taboo (“who does she think she is?”), as is mixing pieces of clothing from different class styles. How many times have you see any woman wear khakis and a silk jacket with pearls to a business meeting? When I was a teen, the owner of a consignment once gave me the fashion advice to wear rhinestone pins with my plain flannel workshirts. At the time I thought that was trendy, but maybe it is a statement about women’s unity as well.

Let’s talk hair. Traditionally, long, unbound hair has been considered to be powerful in itself. Medusa comes to mind. Young women were allowed to have such hair, but as soon as women began to come into their power as they grew up, taboos required binding it. Even now older women are supposed to cut off their long hair altogether and certainly never leave it long and loose. Gray hair, which could be considered to be a sign of wisdom, must be colored and covered up. Makes you want to keep your natural gray and let it grow long, just to see what happens, doesn’t it?

What about jewelry? We can see from ancient tombs of powerful women that those folks liked jewelry and had a lot of it. They seemed to wear tons of the stuff all at the same time. No one who studies the qualities of various metals and gemstones will be surprised that jewelry, especially beadwork, is supposed to carry a kind of spiritual power in itself. Too bad that real “ladies” are supposed to wear a piece or two only, unless they are royalty or really rich, that should match. And why is it that we aren’t supposed to wear two different kinds of metals or gemstones at the same time? Could it be that if we wear as much jewelry as we like we might just feel a power we are not meant to?

Ignoring society’s little taboos is certainly a statement of personal freedom, but I also wonder if it may also be a bit more. When something is repressed for centuries, it almost seems to gather energy over the centuries, just waiting for women to rediscover it. Breaking a clothing taboo feels fresh and new, a step into the future, simply because I have rarely dressed that way before. When I wear red, I not only enjoy the color itself, but it seems to hold the vibrant energy that I also sense in mixing up styles, wild hair, far too much jewelry and other broken taboos.

Maybe clothing taboos aren’t the only ones that are worth breaking. If we broaden our sights and think of other things that are considered not quite right for no real reason, perhaps we will find other avenues to power. One post that many readers seemed to feel a connection to is about being a hermit. Our society praises and encourages extroverts and discourages those who are more thoughtful and solitary. It isn’t hard to see why – if you think too much you may begin to think for yourself. Being by yourself, meditating and contemplating yourself and life is essential to the kind of self-knowledge that leads to inner illumination.

People who enjoy the night rather than daytime, who prowl around in the dark, are also considered not quite reputable. Now, let’s see, what is out at night that isn’t in the daytime? Oh, that’s right, the moon, that potent symbol of women’s spiritual power in the west. If we go and bathe in her mysterious, enlightening light, what mischief might we get into?

Can it really be this simple? Can we really uncover reservoirs of our own power just by doing those things we aren’t supposed to? Probably not. But they can help us recognize the hundreds of ways that women’s power is taken away, bit by bit. As we can see by how quickly red has been embraced as a power color, releasing the force of a taboo can be very freeing. Give it a try. Next I’ll be wearing white shoes after Labor Day…

In ancient Roman times, a woman’s soul was called her “juno,” after the goddess of the same name. A man’s soul was his “genius.” These weren’t simply two words for the same thing, but rather a “genius” had a masculine aspect and “juno” a feminine one. Well, we all know what happened. The word “juno” disappeared, leaving women without their souls. While the word “soul” is supposedly not for one gender or the other, the subservient place of women in many religions does seem to argue that perhaps the idea of our souls still lingers in obscurity.

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. I mean, we all know that we really DO have souls, and many of us do feel as if our souls do have a uniquely feminine aspect. But, when we lost the word for them, we also left behind perhaps outdated notions of what our souls are like and what we should be doing with them. And as long as no one was thinking about our junos, no negative connotations could be attached to them in the media or society in general, as they have to other feminine aspects of ourselves.

Which leaves us with an opportunity. We can imagine our “junos” in any way we wish, in any form that expresses our truest and deepest feelings about this essential aspect of ourselves. We can bring them into our lives however is most meaningful to us. We can give our daughters their “junos” from the youngest age as they watch us celebrate ours.

Let’s get started envisioning and celebrating our “junos” this coming month, June, the month sacred to the goddess Juno. Here are some things I plan to do:

Spend time thinking of an image or montage of images to use when I think of my juno. Of course, my juno already exists and I am quite familiar with her, having lived in close quarters for half a century. But sometimes, when we let our minds roam freely and pick up on what images wander past, we can find out things about parts of us that we did not consciously know. We might also want to periodically re-imagine our junos. I would think that my Summer Solstice season juno will be different from that I imagine on the Winter Solstice. For some reason, a butterfly has come into my mind this morning, so, for today, my juno looks like a butterfly. I’ll think about what that means.

Give my juno an opportunity to connect with other junos by going for a nature walk today. That way she can make friends with the junos of birds, animals, fish, and a wide variety of native wildflowers and trees. She will become part of them and they will become part of her, and thus me.

Express my juno’s passion for a better world by doing at least one activist thing (hopefully more). I do believe that most of our commitment to social activism comes from our junos. Our junos “hear the cries of the world” and need to do something. When we don’t answer their call to action, our junos become frustrated, sad, and depressed.

Celebrate the emerging junos of other women by going to a graduation party and a baby shower. I don’t have any June weddings to go to this month, but my friends and their daughters are making many new beginnings. Their junos are delighted and my juno wants to be part of the merriment.

Give my juno the mission of helping me get to know her better. As a 21st century woman who has just been introduced to the idea of my soul as a specifically feminine aspect, I haven’t had much time to contemplate all that this means. But the implications are vast – women are uniquely sacred (just as men are also uniquely sacred); women must be represented in all endeavors because we are the holders of the junos without which the world is unbalanced; when I explore my juno, I also come to understand my own spirituality and creativity in a way I could not have before, since both these come, I believe, from our junos.

If you have ideas about your junos I would love to hear them.

I have had very few times in my life when I have had what anyone might call supernatural experiences, generally coincidences or synchronicities, when it seems that some force beyond me is setting out little clues, or making obstacles disappear, or doing magic just for my own entertainment.  Usually I am what would be called "mystical experience immune."  I live in the plodding here and now and the other worlds do not push past those boundaries into my everyday life. 

Sometimes, though, I have had periods of several months when one coincidence or other unusual occurrence after another will happen.  Sometimes they are unrelated.  I have, for example, had three invitations to meet the same public official in the past two weeks, when I had only met the person holding this office two or three times before in the past 20 years.  Will I keep meeting this person until whatever is supposed to happen as a result does or is it just a coincidence or maybe some crossing of the destiny wires? Every few years I will experience a series of synchronicities that seem to be in a series and lead to some end.  I was once writing a piece for a number of months and just the book or movie or person would come into my life when needed to keep the project moving.

What I find that most of these periods of heightened intuition have in common is friendship.  Almost always, I will go through these periods as part of a relationship with someone else, whether that involves a collaboration on a project, a life transformation that I and a friend happen to be experiencing at the same time, or just a common interest we have.  It isn't that we conjure these experiences; they just seem to be a natural outgrowth of the relationship.  We will find that we have had or are having major milestones at just the same time, or we will both have the same coincidence or supernatural phenomenon happen simultaneously, or we will both have different synchronicities occur, but in the same aspect of life at the same time, or, as with the public official, we just keep meeting up. 

I believe that this is a clue, perhaps a statement from the universe even, about the meaning of such events.  They are not important in themselves.  The intuition they express is not part of my own personal power, but rather part of that force that connects us all.  In other words, friendship is more important than any psychic ability, and is, in fact so important that its power goes beyond time and space.  In the end, all we have is each other.  We are souls floating in a cosmic soup of time and space, and what is real is how we hold out our hands to one another.  When we join hands with one another, miracles happen. 

Here's a little footnote.  One of the friends with whom I have had a number of shared or parallel experiences is right here at Gaia.com. She is Diane, and one of the things we have learned together recently is the importance of trusting our intuition and accepting that unusual occurrences are sometimes part of our ordinary lives.  In fact, she is just about to begin using her intuition to read cards professionally after many years of not doing that!  You can meet her here.  

Among the Grail legends is the story of the Fisher King.  The Fisher King lives in the Grail Castle and has been wounded in the "thigh" (my guess is that this is a euphemism - move that wound over a few inches...) and, as a result, his kingdom is a wasteland, barren and full of sorrow.  Only when someone comes and asks "Who does the Grail serve?" will the King be healed and the land restored to abundance.  This story is said to express not just one man's wound, but a cosmic male wound that leads to despair and global destruction. 

When we consider all that the location of the wound means - regeneration of life, feeling, separation from the Creator and so much more - we see how it is, indeed, representative of the wound that all men suffer when they are told not to cry and not to feel, when we give them toy guns and teach them to make war instead of dolls to love and nurture.  It is clear how this wound does lead to despair and global destruction. 

But, if that is the male cosmic wound, what is the cosmic wound for women?  Where are the female versions of the Fisher King in folklore and literature?

The story of The Handless Maiden comes immediately to mind and has been paired with the Fisher King by others.  In a version of this story beautifully retold by Clara Pinkola Estes' Women Who Run with the Wolves, a young woman is sold to the devil by her father.  However, when the devil comes to collect her, he cannot get her because she has purified herself and stands in a chalk circle she has drawn.  Even when she does not bathe so she may become impure, her tears run onto her hands, purifying her and she is still out of the devil's reach. The devil insists that the father cut off her hands so that her tears will not run onto her hands and purify her.  The father does as he is told but the devil is still rebuffed.  When the defeated devil leaves, the father offers the handless maiden a home, but she, instead, walks off into the woods where she eventually meets a king who marries her and after a number of adventures, her hands grow back and they live happily ever after.

Many, many analyses of this story exist by people with more expertise than I have and some relate it to a cosmic wound.  Like all meaningful stories, it has many levels and many possible interpretations and these interpretations are valid.  However, I have another interpretation.  As mysterious and meaningful as this story is, it does not feel to me that being handless is the female cosmic wound from which all other wounds come.  It does seem like another, female, version of the Fisher King, in the sense that hands are the way we create and feel.  Losing one's hands is certainly a grievous injury and women do suffer from being severed from their creativity forces and emotions. But, to me, that is not the deepest wound I feel.  Women have found ways to be creative and regenerate life, and are not considered to be unfeminine if they express caring and compassion.  Also, the handless maiden's regrowth of her hands is almost incidental to the story.  It happens after she has already found happiness.

To me, the cosmic female wound goes beyond this.  It seems so profound that it is unnamed and cannot be visualized as a metaphor.  When women became wounded, the world did not just become a place of barrenness and despair, but so out of alignment with the paradise it was meant to be that the wound became almost unknowable.

While The Handless Maiden's loss of her hands may not be the cosmic wound in my interpretation, I think the story does hold the key.  The maiden's fortunes begin to turn around when she walks away from her father.  Until this point, she has passively accepted all that others have done to her.  She has allowed herself to be sold and to have her hands cut off.  She rejects her father's offer of a home and walks away into the woods.  It is at that point that her healing begins as she makes her own fortune.  She is free.

To me, the cosmic woman's wound is the loss of freedom: freedom to be who we are, freedom to do what we wish, freedom to live where and as we wish, freedom to marry or not and whom to marry, freedom to bear children or not, freedom to earn our living as we wish, freedom to dress as we wish, freedom to live in society or away from it as a hermit.  I sometimes wonder if any woman on Earth really knows what true freedom is.  Perhaps we have not identified it in terms like "the cosmic wound" because we don't know what it is like to not be wounded.

Stories do exist that talk about women's loss of freedom, especially those of mermaids or selkies/silkies who are forced to marry and live on land until they find some object, a pelt or bridle, that was stolen from them, leap back into the water and return to their lives of freedom in the sea.  Water frequently does represent our deepest selves, especially as women, and being forced to live away from the water, or that place where we have the freedom to be ourselves, does indeed cause profound despair. 

These are the stories that cause my heart and soul to ache.  When I think about what other women have expressed to me as their deepest wounds, this loss of freedom is what I hear.  I think of my grandmother who told me a story about her mother.  Her mother would say "Oh, Gladys, you'll do wonders" when my grandmother would tell her mother her hopes and dreams.  Her mother was not encouraging her, but was rather saying "Don't dream too high for you are sure to be disappointed.  You cannot do all that you wish."  Eighty years after she was told that, the bitterness was still in my grandmother's voice at the retelling. 

Women can also be a great source of healing and freedom for other women, however. The other stories my grandmother told me were of her mother's not remarrying for decades after my grandmother's father died and my great-grandmother, instead, making her own way in life as a seamstress.  Also, my grandmother told of how her mother supported her wish to go to college by moving near the college so my grandmother could attend.  In these stories, she showed my grandmother a freedom that my grandmother, and my other female relatives, in turn, taught me. 

Perhaps it is the task of this generation of women, and men, to name the wound and begin healing it before it is too late, before the Wasteland caused by all our wounds spreads to all of Earth.  What would our world be like if women had never lost their freedom that so many ancient civilizations seem to have offered women?  What would a world be like in which women, and men, were truly free to be the best, most caring and compassionate, creative, happy and joyful beings they can be?  May our wounds be our guide to healing ourselves, each other, and the Earth.