The key to success for this collective process is to not go backwards by demanding to be treated like a child again, which is what I'm starting to see in some women. As I see it, this entire energetic leap that Western Woman undertook is invaluable to the maturation of our entire species. Without honest and genuine maturity, wisdom is flat impossible. And if there's one thing we need it's wisdom!
Okay. I think I'm starting to get too abstract for the average person and I think this perspective is too important to lose people. In order to understand this post and the concepts I'm working with, you have to mentally zoom out, like a camera lens has the capacity to zoom in or out so that it can focus on just one thing or include a great many things in the picture. There is no single woman who embodies the Western Woman. I am A Western Woman, just one manifestation out of millions. My life span will likely be between 80 and 95 years, yet the process I'm speaking about has already spanned multiple centuries. Again, zooming in too close to see just myself means that I can no longer see the bigger picture. I think I myself am actually fairly mature so then what am I talking about? What do I mean by the maturation of the Western Woman yet I'm talking about events that have spanned hundreds of years? That is the big picture, and I am just one piece.
Have you ever seen those pictures which are themselves composed of hundreds of smaller pictures? Zooming in allows you see that one picture, but zooming out allows you to see that all those tiny individual pictures combine to create, for example, the Mona Lisa? It's called a photo mosaic.
I personally, individually, am just one photo within the massive photo mosaic that is Western Woman. My own tiny little picture will change as I change, but it's too small to really have that much effect on the composite image of the Western Woman. In order to change this image, it will take millions of women several generations to really change that big picture. So yes, you and I can be very mature and yet we're still a part of this larger image, and that image is of a young woman just learning about who she really is, and isn't.
In order to relate to this, I have to correlate her to my own growth and maturation process. This helps me to make that massive composite image something small enough, personal enough, that I can work with it and understand it. In the teen years, what is happening is that the individual is breaking away from the parental figures in order to learn about who they are. This is the time for experimenting with new hairstyles, different friends, etc. Eventually, if all goes well, the individual will find that sense of individuality that they are looking for, that they NEED. The 20th century was all about this phase of maturation for that Western Woman. She threw out everything she had been taught to value because she needed to find the value in those things for herself, in her own way, on her own terms. Only then can she really and honestly see the value in them! She also needed to work through a lot of anger and resentment at Western Man for trying to protect her from the trials of adulthood -- just as a teen sneers at her parents and chafes at the controls and restrictions. Eventually though, with experience and wisdom, the teens comes to understand what was really going on and comes to terms with things. I think that's where Western Woman is at this point, at the early stages of coming to terms with Herself more honestly, with her Man, and everything in between.
Looking back a few posts, I talked about the power of the Feminine being the force of Civilization itself, of woman as the civilizer of man, of an empowered woman as the inspiration source that allows men to become their empowered aspect. If my theory is correct and that Western Woman is herself finally ready to step into her role as a mature woman, though of course there are some growing pains and learning which has to happen first, what does this say about our culture? About our civilization? Indeed, about our entire species, about humanity as a whole? See, the Western Woman concept that I am just one tiny little piece of is herself just one image within the photo masaic of Humanity!
So if Western Woman is working toward stepping into her Empowered, Adult, Mature self, how will this change the world? How will her wisdom and strength of character affect those around her? Inspire those around her? I actually think that the heralding of the Energetic Age and the passing of the Fossil Age, as Caroline Myss talks about in a September 2008 Sacred Contracts radio show, is a direct result of this process!
I so want to be a part of that! I won't live long enough to see it in its full glory, but I am one who is making it happen. The more women who can see how their lives and their hardships and the lessons they've learned and passed on to their daughters will help shape this future, the less likely we will be tempted to retreat back into a known path of comfort. If we do that, if Western Woman collapses in her bid for maturity, the entirety of humanity will take a huge step backwards in terms of potential. It could take another couple of millenia or more to get the momentum back to try this again. I'm not sure the planet will have the patience with us for that.
I personally find this image and this guantlet of challenge to be exceedingly inspiring and empowering. I wanted to try to share this excitement with you, this vision of what the threshold that we collectively stand on really is and means. It's an awesome time to be alive!
- Lioness (in training)
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