What a bizarre, tragic few days in regards to air travel. What a strange, strange time we are in.
One of the thoughts that got me up in the middle of the night is the nature of human power. Growing up in our culture, even I haven't always questioned the predominantly male notions of power (or having power) that, yes, "power" the world. This is largely power over other people, power over the planet, its environment and animals, financial power, power over women and children, acquisition of land and money, the power to hurt, use weapons, or declare war...well, the list goes on. We are seeing it in almost every arena. I've never been able to function well in this equation, and for a long time, I just looked at it as, "this is who I am not". I thus tended to see myself as "having no power". Certainly, that is how it felt, but that self-talk was utterly self-damaging. As you know, I've slowly but surely started to write about the Goddess words that came to me twenty years ago or so, words that express the qualities not only of the Goddess, but of all women. We women do have power, but what is it, really? In the night, I tried to define it more succinctly. I tried hard to feel it. If my woman power is not the above, what is it?
It is my ability to love. It is my ability to give birth, whether to children or ideas or art or music or other expression. It is my ability to feed. It is my ability to feel and empathize. It is my ability to heal. It is my intuition. It is my power of spontaneous understanding. It is my creative problem-solving. It is my connection to Nature. It is my understanding of what Nature is currently going through. It is my desire for harmony and peace. It is my ability to see clearly -- what has been, what is, and what is coming. It is my ability to express these things in words, as best I can.
It is still hard to make the u-turn into feeling powerful, but there is no question that these things are valid forms of power, the power of Love. If the world hasn't seen them as such, perhaps it will now start to, as non-Love stops working.
