Presence Process - Paradox -

  There is a wave of new consciousness coming.
And when I say a wave of new consciousness coming
I mean returning. 
Have you felt it? It's been moving towards us like a tsunami still far out at sea. Like nature detecting an earthquake before it happens, our subtle bodies, our collective unconscious is catching the coming surge before us. For so long the masculine energy has ruled over our systems from internal and personal to external in the form of communities, and state and government systems. It came by force and has remained through generations of conditioning.
     
   I was speaking to a friend yesterday. His grandparents and aunties and uncles tell him stories of his people. They tell him stories of the land and so he learns how to tend it. They tell him stories of his people and so he learns how to live.
 --- What stories have you been told? ---

When we look at the function of aunties and uncles in a traditional sense many of us may find that relatives or community members did not play this role in our lives, indeed, for many - humans did not play this role in our lives. For many textbooks determined who our people are, and so taught us the stories of how to live. Television watched over us and taught us what to value. A peer group who was also steeping in these cultural norms only reinforced these truths that were so hard to pick up as our own. And so today, despite our pantsuits and nose rings, our political rallies and tattoos, our church attendance and Facebook likes, despite even our extensive self help, and spiritual guide book collections - each of us may find in our pockets some beliefs of our culture that we did not intend to carry.
     This shows up in ways that may seem "part of life". Pushing hard to do more, know more, or have more. Telling our children - even sweetly - not to cry or not to be scared. Or telling our children to trust themselves while we ask someone else to teach us how to live. Not allowing time or space to deeply nourish ourselves. Not listening to our dreams or our tears. Not honoring our creativityor belittling it. These pocket values show up in community leaders who speak of honoring women and then only honor parts of them. They show up in feminine beings who allow the full kaleidoscope of their feminine to be expressed only as mother, obedient daughter, or adoring romantic. They show up in all of us who turn from our own inner knowing and reach for someone else's. Most of us have repressed or discredited our feminine for so long the masculine in each of us no longer knows how to protect our own feminine attributes. 
     Robert Bly has a beautiful way to speak of this. He says that when we are told, as children, some part of us is bad we put that part "in the bag". When we were told that boys don't play with dolls, or don't cry, or that we needed to grow up we put those parts in the bag. If you were abused your "no" may have gone in the bag, your self respect, your trust, your fierceness. Many of us put our own grief in the bag, or our authentic tree hugger, or our trust in our intuition. It is not just our parents or peers that help us fill our bags. Our bags have stuff in it when we arrive. The feminine value of deep connection to the rhythms of the earth for example was put into the bag generations before we came. Bly believes the stuff in the bag is trying to alert us to it's presence. It does is this by taking itself out of the bag and projecting it onto another human being. That person is only a hook to bring you back, to turn you back to your own material in your own bag. 
     Today, Americans, along with all of the world face a new era of leadership. On this day it no longer matters who you voted for. Whether you believe Trump will carry us to greatness or whether you fear he will be the riptide that sinks us, this election was about so much more than male and female or good and evil. The coming wave of a new consciousness was felt by us all.
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What we've stuffed into our bags has so graciously found its way out and Donald Trump is the now empowered projection of all of it.
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We cannot get through this by turning to our old ways of looking at it as other peoples bags. This is ours. It is our shared deep and inherent longing of balance that has brought us to this place. We must now seek that common ground. We must not allow ourselves to be divided.
​We must find our way through to connection.
     It is true that women have every right to be offended, scared, and down right pissed. We all do. This moment isn't asking that we, as a culture pull down our pants to see what we've got down there like a group of five year olds. This moment is asking that we own our maturity. That we look at all of our parts. It is time we embody the idealism that
 --- we are the ones we've been waiting for. ---
It's not enough anymore to say women are powerful beings. It is not enough to say women will not stand for abuse or disempowerment. What we need to explore is what does it mean to empower the feminine?
Right now - can we stand in the feminine qualities of
presence,
process,
and paradox?
  Right now - can we grow our own capacity to live in our bodies?
Can we listen to our own inner knowing?
Can we, yes, even now - remain receptive, listen, and reflect the inner knowing of those around us, and show up together. 

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