I'm out in the garden the other day, harvesting the tomatoes. I have planted about 6 of them, 3 Romas plus a grape plus an early girl plus a beefsteak, so there were a LOT of tomatoes needing to come in. When I went outside, I was not prepared to find that many ripe so I had no bucket -- only my tunic shirt, which I pulled up and started to use as a makeshift basket.
As I'm kneeling on the ground, filling the pouch of my shirt, I had this image of a group of primitive women out gathering while the men are away hunting. In my mind's eye, they are mostly naked like Bushwomen, save for skirts, which a few of them are using as baskets when they find a particularly full bush of berries.
In that moment, the idea of a skirt being 'women's clothing' suddenly made sense. I mean practical-as-dirt sense. I think of those cultures who developed the overskirt like 2 layered skirts, one remaining down for modesty while the other can be used to help carry, as well as those which developed a long tunic shirt over pants, like I see in Vietnam and areas along the Indian ocean.
Huh. Seeing what I'm taking as being a perfectly viable and reasonable ancient source for the practice of women wearing skirts or long tunics, I am surprised to feel much of the rejection of that style of clothing draining away. I own a number of skirts, and I never wear them. I guess I was subconsciously too plugged into the rejection-of-all-things-traditionally-feminine to feel comfortable in them, or something.
I know I've talked about inhereted ideas, both cultural and familial, which we are born into and absorb, even if we're not consciously aware of it. My grandmother and greatgrandmother are from the Sufferagette and corset-burning eras. My mother is from the post WWII era, and I'm from the 70s and 80s, when the War Between the Sexes became the source of sitcoms and common terminology.
I never really realized just how much of that I had absorbed and was carrying forward until I encountered someone raised in the 90s and 00s. A very different perspective! It was interesting to me to go back and take a look at ideas that I had, and then try to trace their source. Too many times the ideas I have are never questioned, never asked "where did you come from? why are you here?" As a result those ideas just run around unchecked, guiding my actions and beliefs and leading me decisions which surprise me.
One of the ideas which I had no idea was in the subconscious soup was the rejection of many things traditionally feminine. I've been working to reclaim them, such as cooking and sewing, and it seems I was ready to reclaim another one -- clothing choice. I often wondered at the mild, background sense of shame or even betrayal that I had when I wore a skirt, even if it was one that I loved. Now I understand it, see the source of as the inhereted attitude of my immediate previous generations.
--> Warning: astrological tangeant which assumes a great deal of understanding, can be skipped <--
*lol* Of course, my astrological training kicks in, pointing out that I have both Uranus and Pluto on the decendant, making those active energies within my chart. Both of those planets are also generational planets, the furthest ones out. Uranus being my own generation, and Pluto encompassing the previous one or two. From that symbolic sense, that I am plugged into these old ideas definitely makes sense -- but in the position both those planets are in within my chart also means that all those ideas need to be processed and re-examined for current validity. That is the entire point of my journey into the Lioness. Interesting.
--> End astrological tangeant <--
Now I know what I'm looking for, that background sense of shame or betrayal, I now have another tool available which will help me to identify those buried notions which are helping to guide me. Can you think of some confusing ideas you may have, where you think one thing but feel another?
- Lioness (in training)
Monday, August 8, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
The Power of a Story
Been thinking about this anger/fear issue and wondering what it is that I'm truly angry at. In replaying the post-writing events, one aspect came up over and over again, so I focused on this.
One person read what I had written a couple days ago (before I edited it) and went in a direction that literally never crossed my mind. At the time, I did not know that. When she was talking to me about it and mentioned some aspect of what she thought I was talking about, she assumed my 'I'm upset, but on that point you completely lost me' expression was an 'I'm not listening to you anymore' expression. I later on figured out what she thought I was talking about, and I must admit I was stunned.
This was the opening to digging into the source of my anger. This scene replayed itself over and over in my mind's eye. Because I was stuck on this moment, I knew something was there. After replaying it for about an hour of quiet time, it finally hit me: what pisses me off in an instant is a perceived abuse of the Story.
In order to make sense of this particular statement, I have to be within the archetypal mindset. I have the StoryTeller in the Third House, the house of self-expression. I express and understand myself through the medium of Stories. My StoryTeller is tied to my ShapeShifter sitting in the 9th House of spirituality. Both of these areas of my life are extremely active, and tied together. The Story becomes the medium for not only self but also spiritual expression. It becomes something Sacred, and I intuitively understand the tremendous power that it wields.
What I didn't realize was just how strongly I felt about the Story, until I started to unravel all of this. In the last post, I confessed a rage at organized religion. I can see now that everything I've ever said or thought about that topic is tied to what I viewed as an abuse of the Story. A story can be used to inspire, uplift, motivate, and support a person or people as they move through life. At its best, it can empower and energize and comfort. This is the positive side of the story, the power that the storyteller wields. The negative side is when that story is used to degrade, suppress, beat down and weaken a person or people so that they can't move through life with grace. At its worst, it can disempower and deflate and shame.
I quite honestly do not give a crap about religious *expressions* or self-*expressions*. Wear or don't wear whatever you want. Shave your head or never even trim your hair. Beared or beardless. Neon yellow robes or tattered rags. Pray kneeling or standing, 5 times a day or never. Jeans or skirt or mumu. I do NOT care. What I care about it whether those choices are made because the Story that supports the religion or the person or the culture is empowering the individual, or disempowering the individual. (See? A third-chakra statement right there!!) What I'm finally starting to see is that the relationship to the Story is actually as individual as it is cultural or societal or familial. (Moving out of a first- or second-chakra understanding!) One person will make expression choice A because they are ashamed of something, and another person will make the exact same expression choice because they are proud of something. What I care about is the source of that decision, NOT the decision. It's a subtle distinction, and can be easily lost, especially when I make the assumption that everyone else sees this and so mistakenly think it's not necessary to point it out. Anyway, the source of that decision is usually related to the individual's or family's or society's relationship to the Story which supports their way of life.
I've been looking solely at the societal/cultural (first-chakra) relationship to the story and completely missed the individual (third-chakra) relationship. As a result, I completely missed that they are not necessarily the same relationship. This realization is like a hammer to the head: wake up! So then if I want something to change, the choices simply in my mind to 'either change the story, or change the relationship to the story'. My next-to-last post was all kinds of 'change the story!' (pre-edit) when what I really need to do is just change my relationship to the story.
I've been listening and reading to a lot of stuff on working with our Jungian Shadows, the disowned parts of ourselves, and the statement which has come up over and over again as flagged in my mind's eye is basically: any area of my life which has a strong charge to it is an area of myself that I am projecting onto others. I've been looking for those areas which are highly charged for me, and literally never considered this one. Suddenly now seeing it a bit more clearly, the question that immediately followed the revelation is: "If I'm so charged up over the perception of the abuse of a beautiful and powerful Story to disempower others, where I am doing this in my own life that I'm not recognizing?" In other words, since I'm projecting this outside of myself, where I am doing inside of myself?
Since my StoryTeller is in the house of self-expression, I take this question in the direction of "what story am I telling myself in order to keep me small and weak? Where am I abusing the Story in order to justify being disempowered?" Where am I victimizing myself based on the story that I'm using to guide my world view?
I wonder now if the entire point of this Lioness blog is for me to find for myself another Story, or rather change my relationship to the Story so that I give myself permission to be the empowered me.
In order to test whether or not this observation of myself is true, I'm now revisiting all those private thoughts over the years in which I raged against religion. Since I haven't yet identified my own Story, there's still some charge here, ie more to discover, but I'm delighted to also discover that the level of emotional heat has dropped considerably. I'm excited by this breakthrough! I also know it will require a great deal more work to realize, but I figured I'd share with you the process of self-discovery. Maybe there are other Lionesses who can find the hidden source of what angers them so that they too can own all of themselves and empowered.
- Lioness (in training)
One person read what I had written a couple days ago (before I edited it) and went in a direction that literally never crossed my mind. At the time, I did not know that. When she was talking to me about it and mentioned some aspect of what she thought I was talking about, she assumed my 'I'm upset, but on that point you completely lost me' expression was an 'I'm not listening to you anymore' expression. I later on figured out what she thought I was talking about, and I must admit I was stunned.
This was the opening to digging into the source of my anger. This scene replayed itself over and over in my mind's eye. Because I was stuck on this moment, I knew something was there. After replaying it for about an hour of quiet time, it finally hit me: what pisses me off in an instant is a perceived abuse of the Story.
In order to make sense of this particular statement, I have to be within the archetypal mindset. I have the StoryTeller in the Third House, the house of self-expression. I express and understand myself through the medium of Stories. My StoryTeller is tied to my ShapeShifter sitting in the 9th House of spirituality. Both of these areas of my life are extremely active, and tied together. The Story becomes the medium for not only self but also spiritual expression. It becomes something Sacred, and I intuitively understand the tremendous power that it wields.
What I didn't realize was just how strongly I felt about the Story, until I started to unravel all of this. In the last post, I confessed a rage at organized religion. I can see now that everything I've ever said or thought about that topic is tied to what I viewed as an abuse of the Story. A story can be used to inspire, uplift, motivate, and support a person or people as they move through life. At its best, it can empower and energize and comfort. This is the positive side of the story, the power that the storyteller wields. The negative side is when that story is used to degrade, suppress, beat down and weaken a person or people so that they can't move through life with grace. At its worst, it can disempower and deflate and shame.
I quite honestly do not give a crap about religious *expressions* or self-*expressions*. Wear or don't wear whatever you want. Shave your head or never even trim your hair. Beared or beardless. Neon yellow robes or tattered rags. Pray kneeling or standing, 5 times a day or never. Jeans or skirt or mumu. I do NOT care. What I care about it whether those choices are made because the Story that supports the religion or the person or the culture is empowering the individual, or disempowering the individual. (See? A third-chakra statement right there!!) What I'm finally starting to see is that the relationship to the Story is actually as individual as it is cultural or societal or familial. (Moving out of a first- or second-chakra understanding!) One person will make expression choice A because they are ashamed of something, and another person will make the exact same expression choice because they are proud of something. What I care about is the source of that decision, NOT the decision. It's a subtle distinction, and can be easily lost, especially when I make the assumption that everyone else sees this and so mistakenly think it's not necessary to point it out. Anyway, the source of that decision is usually related to the individual's or family's or society's relationship to the Story which supports their way of life.
I've been looking solely at the societal/cultural (first-chakra) relationship to the story and completely missed the individual (third-chakra) relationship. As a result, I completely missed that they are not necessarily the same relationship. This realization is like a hammer to the head: wake up! So then if I want something to change, the choices simply in my mind to 'either change the story, or change the relationship to the story'. My next-to-last post was all kinds of 'change the story!' (pre-edit) when what I really need to do is just change my relationship to the story.
I've been listening and reading to a lot of stuff on working with our Jungian Shadows, the disowned parts of ourselves, and the statement which has come up over and over again as flagged in my mind's eye is basically: any area of my life which has a strong charge to it is an area of myself that I am projecting onto others. I've been looking for those areas which are highly charged for me, and literally never considered this one. Suddenly now seeing it a bit more clearly, the question that immediately followed the revelation is: "If I'm so charged up over the perception of the abuse of a beautiful and powerful Story to disempower others, where I am doing this in my own life that I'm not recognizing?" In other words, since I'm projecting this outside of myself, where I am doing inside of myself?
Since my StoryTeller is in the house of self-expression, I take this question in the direction of "what story am I telling myself in order to keep me small and weak? Where am I abusing the Story in order to justify being disempowered?" Where am I victimizing myself based on the story that I'm using to guide my world view?
I wonder now if the entire point of this Lioness blog is for me to find for myself another Story, or rather change my relationship to the Story so that I give myself permission to be the empowered me.
In order to test whether or not this observation of myself is true, I'm now revisiting all those private thoughts over the years in which I raged against religion. Since I haven't yet identified my own Story, there's still some charge here, ie more to discover, but I'm delighted to also discover that the level of emotional heat has dropped considerably. I'm excited by this breakthrough! I also know it will require a great deal more work to realize, but I figured I'd share with you the process of self-discovery. Maybe there are other Lionesses who can find the hidden source of what angers them so that they too can own all of themselves and empowered.
- Lioness (in training)
Monday, August 1, 2011
Recognizing the Fear is Step 1 of Owning It
I have to admit, the further I go on this particular path, the more anger is surfacing. Anger at men, anger at women, anger at 'society', anger at myself. I've had a very long standing rage at organized religion, and in my mind there is only The Church, as if somehow my mind is locked into the idea that Christianity is the same now as it was in 1300. I know that's not true, but then this emotion isn't 'rational'. That rage has diffused considerably over the years, but it's still very much there.
I know that anger is a mask worn by fear, so my anger is actually fear. Fear that everything can be undone in a heartbeat. Fear that all the 'equality' we like to believe we have is just an illusion. Stark terror that the barbarians at the gate will indeed topple Rome, and we'll return to the Dark Ages and spend another thousand years in ignorance. That idea is near paralyzing it's so horrifying to me.
I'd love to argue and say 'this isn't MY fear, it's the inhereted gender shadow' or something -- as if attempting to disown it will do any good whatsoever. No, it's my fear now, inhereted or otherwise. And it's very real.
Until I can get a handle on it, until I can face it, understand it and own it, it will continue to color everything I see. But than, that's the point of this journey for me. In order to become the empowered Lioness, I have to trust in my own strength, and value that strength on its own merits. I'm not there yet. But seeing the anger and fear displayed so obviously has been helpful in making me see it.
Now to handle it constructively...
- Lioness (in training)
I know that anger is a mask worn by fear, so my anger is actually fear. Fear that everything can be undone in a heartbeat. Fear that all the 'equality' we like to believe we have is just an illusion. Stark terror that the barbarians at the gate will indeed topple Rome, and we'll return to the Dark Ages and spend another thousand years in ignorance. That idea is near paralyzing it's so horrifying to me.
I'd love to argue and say 'this isn't MY fear, it's the inhereted gender shadow' or something -- as if attempting to disown it will do any good whatsoever. No, it's my fear now, inhereted or otherwise. And it's very real.
Until I can get a handle on it, until I can face it, understand it and own it, it will continue to color everything I see. But than, that's the point of this journey for me. In order to become the empowered Lioness, I have to trust in my own strength, and value that strength on its own merits. I'm not there yet. But seeing the anger and fear displayed so obviously has been helpful in making me see it.
Now to handle it constructively...
- Lioness (in training)
On Chakras and Societies
It's been a long time since I've done a post tracking my Lioness journey, but that means I've simply been too busy to post. It's interesting how, when I take a break for a while, all the threads I've been collecting start to weave together into something that I was not expecting.
I've been taking a class on the Chakra system at a local metaphysics bookstore. In conjuction, I've been reading a book on the Subtle Energy Body -- of which the Charka system is one method of perception/awareness. While the class isn't particularly good in terms of education, it is good in that it's got me thinking of everything else I've learned about the human energy system over the years. I particularly love Caroline Myss' interpretation of looking at the development of society and the Self through the chakras and what each chakra is ready to handle.
The root chakra is the connection to tribe and clan and religion -- the fundamentals of cultural life. For people and cultures living within this chakra, life is about survival of the tribe or the clan or the religion -- not the family per se, and certainly not the individual. This is the most primal way of being, the most grounded in raw survival. Those societies which carry grudges against another group for generations, centuries even, because one person did something to another one ages ago and they are STILL fighting over it -- they live right here. When my husband was in Bosnea on deployment, he encountered a man who was raging against another man because that other man's great-great-grandfather had stolen a house from his family, and they were still fighting over that house. Needless to say, my Western husband literally could not connect to this idea -- he was not raised in a society that lives in the root chakra. Likewise, that man could not fathom in the least the idea that where he came from is less important than where he might go. I think that a great deal of the world's societies are still right here, grounded in the root chakra, living from these ideals and ideas and archetypes. This is also the level of being and society which moves the slowest, because EVERYBODY in that tribe is connected. Uploading a new idea means dissemminating that idea to a lot of people. Can you think of any societies around today which you would describe as a first chakra one?
The second chakra is our connection to family, creativity and fertility. This is where family starts to become more important than tribe, and that idea is obviously very threatening to the tribe. Why? Because something else might be more important, which means tribe might be the thing which is sacrificed! Tribe doesn't like that. But for societies living here, the Family is the all important thing. Disgraced or dishonored family members are killed or kill themselves to preserve the family sanctity. The individual members are not individuals, they are members of the family, and must always act with the Family in mind. The energy of this society moves a little faster than in the first chakra one, since it only has to connect to the family it ties together rather than the entire society. Can you think of any societies around today which you would describe as a second chakra one?
Getting to the third chakra, this is the center of personal power and self-esteem -- where the individual starts to emerge. As with Tribe not liking Family, again Family is not particularly keen on the emergence of the I. It is the I which decides that the life they have to lead is more important that the life the Family wants or expects. To second chakra societies, this is a horrible crime. This is where the charge of 'selfishness' becomes a crime. By and large, Western culture has been a third chakra society for several hundred years. We value individual freedom to choose the path we individually wish to take in our life. The Cowboy and the Pioneer and the Entrepreneur are archetypes that we look up to and laud. We look ahead, not behind. For societies in this energy center, it's not where you came from but where YOU are going that is important. These ideals to first chakra societies are ... horrendous. Terrifying. Threatening in the extreme. Second chakra societies at least somewhat understand it, but they don't like it. It's in this third chakra where energy can start to move very quickly.
What's a fourth chakra society look like? Well, the fourth chakra is the heart chakra, It's the one that enables us to connect to others, to love unconditionally. I think this is where we are trying to go. We've gone through our extreme materialism phase, a child trying something on saying "does this have meaning? Do I like this?". I see the rapid growth of the consciousness movement, a revitalization of a non-dogmatic spirituality, all as expressions of our societal growth. It'll take some time, probably another century or so, to get there, but we're on the path.
The danger comes in not recognizing the vast gulf that now exists in this world between the awareness levels of the societies which are now interacting on a daily basis. This is not a judgement call, simply a recognition of the reality. The bare bones emergence of a 3rd chakra society was beginning with Rome, but it faltered, and was wiped out by 1st chakra societies. It took more than 1000 years to recover from that. Fortunately, we're not exactly Rome in terms of being isolated, but nevertheless the barbarians are at the gate. Will we fall into another Dark Age?
Now we finally start getting into why the Lioness is needed now more than ever before. I belief at this moment that it is this feminine principle which is the only one who help bridge that gap. I've said elsewhere that I view the true power of the Feminine as being the foster energy of creation, civilization, society. She is the networker, the caretaker, the one who builds the strong bonds which make community a reality. The image that I have in my mind is that of a woman who can love earnestly her fellow humans enough to reach out to them from her heart center has the capacity to instantly change the energy of those she connects with.
When I say 'she' or 'feminine' here, don't get literal. Men have an inner woman, just as women have an inner man. The famous analyst Carl Jung even named this the Anima in men and the Animus in women. For me, I'm learning that I have a less than ideal image of own inner Animus, and that is a reflection of my image of myself as a woman. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, absorbing a great deal of the resentments and hostility of the changing cultural norms. This is what I'm trying to work through within myself, to find the Lioness, the sacred Feminine buried deep within. How can I hope to help bridge any gaps if I'm still so terribly at odds within myself?
-- Lioness (in training)
Note: I edited this post rather severely shortly after it was initially published.
I've been taking a class on the Chakra system at a local metaphysics bookstore. In conjuction, I've been reading a book on the Subtle Energy Body -- of which the Charka system is one method of perception/awareness. While the class isn't particularly good in terms of education, it is good in that it's got me thinking of everything else I've learned about the human energy system over the years. I particularly love Caroline Myss' interpretation of looking at the development of society and the Self through the chakras and what each chakra is ready to handle.
The root chakra is the connection to tribe and clan and religion -- the fundamentals of cultural life. For people and cultures living within this chakra, life is about survival of the tribe or the clan or the religion -- not the family per se, and certainly not the individual. This is the most primal way of being, the most grounded in raw survival. Those societies which carry grudges against another group for generations, centuries even, because one person did something to another one ages ago and they are STILL fighting over it -- they live right here. When my husband was in Bosnea on deployment, he encountered a man who was raging against another man because that other man's great-great-grandfather had stolen a house from his family, and they were still fighting over that house. Needless to say, my Western husband literally could not connect to this idea -- he was not raised in a society that lives in the root chakra. Likewise, that man could not fathom in the least the idea that where he came from is less important than where he might go. I think that a great deal of the world's societies are still right here, grounded in the root chakra, living from these ideals and ideas and archetypes. This is also the level of being and society which moves the slowest, because EVERYBODY in that tribe is connected. Uploading a new idea means dissemminating that idea to a lot of people. Can you think of any societies around today which you would describe as a first chakra one?
The second chakra is our connection to family, creativity and fertility. This is where family starts to become more important than tribe, and that idea is obviously very threatening to the tribe. Why? Because something else might be more important, which means tribe might be the thing which is sacrificed! Tribe doesn't like that. But for societies living here, the Family is the all important thing. Disgraced or dishonored family members are killed or kill themselves to preserve the family sanctity. The individual members are not individuals, they are members of the family, and must always act with the Family in mind. The energy of this society moves a little faster than in the first chakra one, since it only has to connect to the family it ties together rather than the entire society. Can you think of any societies around today which you would describe as a second chakra one?
Getting to the third chakra, this is the center of personal power and self-esteem -- where the individual starts to emerge. As with Tribe not liking Family, again Family is not particularly keen on the emergence of the I. It is the I which decides that the life they have to lead is more important that the life the Family wants or expects. To second chakra societies, this is a horrible crime. This is where the charge of 'selfishness' becomes a crime. By and large, Western culture has been a third chakra society for several hundred years. We value individual freedom to choose the path we individually wish to take in our life. The Cowboy and the Pioneer and the Entrepreneur are archetypes that we look up to and laud. We look ahead, not behind. For societies in this energy center, it's not where you came from but where YOU are going that is important. These ideals to first chakra societies are ... horrendous. Terrifying. Threatening in the extreme. Second chakra societies at least somewhat understand it, but they don't like it. It's in this third chakra where energy can start to move very quickly.
What's a fourth chakra society look like? Well, the fourth chakra is the heart chakra, It's the one that enables us to connect to others, to love unconditionally. I think this is where we are trying to go. We've gone through our extreme materialism phase, a child trying something on saying "does this have meaning? Do I like this?". I see the rapid growth of the consciousness movement, a revitalization of a non-dogmatic spirituality, all as expressions of our societal growth. It'll take some time, probably another century or so, to get there, but we're on the path.
The danger comes in not recognizing the vast gulf that now exists in this world between the awareness levels of the societies which are now interacting on a daily basis. This is not a judgement call, simply a recognition of the reality. The bare bones emergence of a 3rd chakra society was beginning with Rome, but it faltered, and was wiped out by 1st chakra societies. It took more than 1000 years to recover from that. Fortunately, we're not exactly Rome in terms of being isolated, but nevertheless the barbarians are at the gate. Will we fall into another Dark Age?
Now we finally start getting into why the Lioness is needed now more than ever before. I belief at this moment that it is this feminine principle which is the only one who help bridge that gap. I've said elsewhere that I view the true power of the Feminine as being the foster energy of creation, civilization, society. She is the networker, the caretaker, the one who builds the strong bonds which make community a reality. The image that I have in my mind is that of a woman who can love earnestly her fellow humans enough to reach out to them from her heart center has the capacity to instantly change the energy of those she connects with.
When I say 'she' or 'feminine' here, don't get literal. Men have an inner woman, just as women have an inner man. The famous analyst Carl Jung even named this the Anima in men and the Animus in women. For me, I'm learning that I have a less than ideal image of own inner Animus, and that is a reflection of my image of myself as a woman. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, absorbing a great deal of the resentments and hostility of the changing cultural norms. This is what I'm trying to work through within myself, to find the Lioness, the sacred Feminine buried deep within. How can I hope to help bridge any gaps if I'm still so terribly at odds within myself?
-- Lioness (in training)
Note: I edited this post rather severely shortly after it was initially published.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Dreaming In The Dark - A friend's blog I enjoy and thought I'd share
It's been a while since I've posted. Not because I haven't been working on this topic, but because I haven't been able to find anything close to a precise statement or idea to blog about. It's been rather frustrating.
We have a unique household, I think. It consists of 3 adults, all of whom are actively pursuing personal growth and development. In the majority of cases, this manifests through either spiritual pursuits or through management training. Ironically, the two overlap far more frequently and complimentarily than I would have ever thought. Our evening conversations range from new interpretations of the Book of Job to discussions on medieval and renaissance alchemy, to insightful uses of archetypes and the Joseph Campbell material, and on and on.
When our housemate first moved in with us last summer, she would just stare at my husband and me as we carried on our normal conversations. I knew she was vastly intelligent, but she had never really been in company that would accept her unique insights or encouraged her to participate actively. Not to mention, casual discussions on archetypes and whatnot is a learned language and she was learning a whole new language which takes a bit of time. Now she does speak it fluently, and she is not only a participant but a valuable contributer to the household mission of continual growth and development of the Self through conversation, exploration, support and study.
Our housemate has a blog of her own in which she shares her own path. Her latest blogpost is a Lioness post in that she's seeing the changing face of the Feminine, seeing the new archetype and feeling the oldest ones. I rather enjoyed it and am linking it here to share it. I hope you enjoy it as well.
We have a unique household, I think. It consists of 3 adults, all of whom are actively pursuing personal growth and development. In the majority of cases, this manifests through either spiritual pursuits or through management training. Ironically, the two overlap far more frequently and complimentarily than I would have ever thought. Our evening conversations range from new interpretations of the Book of Job to discussions on medieval and renaissance alchemy, to insightful uses of archetypes and the Joseph Campbell material, and on and on.
When our housemate first moved in with us last summer, she would just stare at my husband and me as we carried on our normal conversations. I knew she was vastly intelligent, but she had never really been in company that would accept her unique insights or encouraged her to participate actively. Not to mention, casual discussions on archetypes and whatnot is a learned language and she was learning a whole new language which takes a bit of time. Now she does speak it fluently, and she is not only a participant but a valuable contributer to the household mission of continual growth and development of the Self through conversation, exploration, support and study.
Our housemate has a blog of her own in which she shares her own path. Her latest blogpost is a Lioness post in that she's seeing the changing face of the Feminine, seeing the new archetype and feeling the oldest ones. I rather enjoyed it and am linking it here to share it. I hope you enjoy it as well.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
What we resent in others...
I've learned something invaluable while working through the resentments that I have toward only 5 of the many people in my life. I've even only done one of them and this was realized. I was blabbering away at lunch today and this statement fell out of my mouth. My conversation partner commented on it and I suddenly realized what I had actually said. I had to run home and write it down! Ready for it??
What we resent in others are actually aspects of ourselves that we don't yet have the courage to own.
You want to know where you are hiding from yourself? Do this exercise, and be open to the truth of the above statement. It will transform those people from folks that we resent into folks that we can emulate as guides while learning to claim and own those aspects they have illustrated to us.
It's actually quite liberating to see this. I'm now extremely eager to work through the other 4!
- Lioness (in training)
What we resent in others are actually aspects of ourselves that we don't yet have the courage to own.
You want to know where you are hiding from yourself? Do this exercise, and be open to the truth of the above statement. It will transform those people from folks that we resent into folks that we can emulate as guides while learning to claim and own those aspects they have illustrated to us.
It's actually quite liberating to see this. I'm now extremely eager to work through the other 4!
- Lioness (in training)
Starting Down the Rabbit Hole
It's often been said that, despite appearances, many women in Western culture tend to disregard or ignore their own wants and needs in favor of the wants and needs of those around them. In all reality, I'd imagine this trait is ingrained within Woman from an evolutionary standpoint. I mean how else is she going to raise kids and see to the needs of an entire tribe if she's not inherently at some level willing to put the needs of others ahead of her own? At some point, however, her own must be tended to. I think therein lies the challenge that many women face, of which I am no exception. The problem though is that this precept is one that has as many foundational underpinnings as any other relationship with the Self, and finding our own personal connection to this is our own challenge. This post is me trying to explore this concept in a way that opens doors for future or deeper exploration. It's a model, one that I've found helpful even though the process demands that I be willing to listen to the emotional surges which are my guideposts. Here goes...
Precept: I shouldn't have any personal wants or desires for myself.
Problem: I have a very hard time even recognizing, let alone articulating, any deeper wants beyond "I want dinner" or "I want to do this today". Without giving any recoginition and thereby conscious validity to deeper wants, they find hidden or even destructive ways of being satisfied.
Digging around in this problem, I felt an emotional reaction when I revealed something that I wanted which had to be darn near dragged out of me. That reaction was an extreme discomfort to being vulnerable, to being open to rejection. Now I've done a few posts on receptivity and vulnerability and how these relate to what men respond to within the Feminine, and in those posts I admitted that I had a problem with this facet of myself. I didn't quite realize just how large that problem was until I felt as if I were naked at Grand Central Station after finally admitting to something important to me that I didn't even know was in there.
Alison Armstrong uses the example of women being afraid to need something of their own because if those needs are rejected then she's left alone to be eaten by lions. That a woman's placing others before herself is a primal condition. Remembering this, I wondered if perhaps my own relationship with this aspect of the feminine was that same thing.
Anyone remember those logic problem of if A then B, if B then C so therefore A then C? I tried that to see if there was some emotional response. If want then rejection, if rejection then death, therefore want equals death.
As I typed those words, I paid very close attention to how I felt about them, to how I emotionally reacted to them. For 'if want then rejection' I definitely felt a response, so I'm taking that to mean correct. For the rest of it, nothing. The primal and emotional minds were both unmoved by the words, so those aren't correct for me. I went back to the drawing board, changed out a few words and came up with: If want then rejection, if rejection then alone, therefore want equals alone. Now THAT got an emotional response, and a rather strong one. This is the right track for me.
Using my emotional awareness as a guide, the idea of being alone is the one that needed to be explored. What came out was "if I am alone, then I'm alone with myself" and that statement literally had tears coursing down my face. Clearly I have a problem with that idea.
My first thought was to ask "What's wrong with me that this is the case?" I think it's a very basic response that women have, the tendency toward negative re-enforcement, and it's one I've talked about before. This question though also invites a downward spiral of self-blame, recrimination and rejection. I'm trying to accept who I am, good and bad, pretty and ugly. Acceptance and blame are counter-productive, so this question has to be thrown out the window.
Since I'm not really good at that sort of thing, I turned to my husband for a positive way of addressing this problem. True to form, he had an excellent suggestion: "What is it about myself that I'm afraid to be with?" I knew this was on the right track because even just typing the question had my chest burning. You see, this question isn't looking for blame. This question is opening doors, inviting me to look at myself. It should be noted that the previous question had zero emotional impact -- my emotional self can handle the blame game, but the open exploration game caused a surge of almost panic.
Besides this one question, there are a great many more than could be asked, but because this one had such a powerful reaction I started there. Other questions include those of the relationship between my own self-worth and the feeling that I deserve or don't deserve to be happy and therefore don't recognize my wants; taking a look at whether or not I place value judgements such as 'legitimate or not' on desires before they are even consciously recognized. Of course, once all these are considered, I need to go back and find out if my non-recognition of my own heart even related to the idea of "What is it about myself that I'm afraid to be with?" What if want and alone are actually unrelated, and the upwelling of emotion is triggered by 'alone' and unphased by 'want'? But the question highlighted above is where I'm starting for now.
While I won't be posting all the gorey searching, I will share the most useful tool that I used to dig around in myself for this intensely honest and frankly painful but oh-so-liberating inner exploration. That tool was to look at my own resentments towards other people. The initial response to this question was an interior innocent batting of the eyes and a "but I don't resent anyone" denial. Blatantly untrue, but this is the face that social conditioning likes to wear, the face that my ego self likes to pretend is true. Alas, it is not. I wrote down the names of 5 people in my life that sprang to mind, and then spent about 20 minutes just writing about them. Since this is for me, I cut loose. It started out with really nice verbage, couching all the perceiving wrongs with innocous wording. Eventually, something broke and out poured all this genuine emotion.
Now, the absolute hardest part of this process but CRUCIAL is to just let it flow. My social conditioning was trying desperately to put the brakes on this process because it was 'bad' and I was admitting to myself for the first time just how 'bad' I was. Folks, resentment is a poison, and like poison it has to be purged if healing is to take place. Letting it fester in the deepest part of myself while I pretended to be all goodness and light and forgiving was only killing me, leaving them utterly unaffected. Even afterward, when I had filled page after page with a level of rage I had NO idea was even there, those folks are still unaffected and yet I feel so much lighter, freer. I can now see them in my mind's eye and finally there is no inner lip curl at the sight of them. I am free to finally see them.
What came to me during this process is that I chose the symbol of the Lioness far more appropriately than I could have imagined. Why? A Lioness is, above all, true to herself. She knows who she is, and accepts it. There's no "a lioness should be this" in her thinking. She just IS. She is a killer, and is fine with that -- indeed, relies on it to feed her sisters/mother/aunts/cubs. She is also a caretaker, a loving and loyal member of her family. Good and "bad", she just is. I'm starting to realize that in order to fully embrace the Feminine, I have to be just like her, I have to embrace all that I Am without judgement (tricky tricky!). Here goes: I get angry at people. Phew!! You'll just have to trust me when I say that finally admitting to that was like pulling out teeth. Ultimately, since I want to be majestic and powerful and feminine, I first have to know all that I am so that I can accept who I am. Eventually, I'll be able to drop the (in training), but I'm far from there yet. Until then, I remain a striving
- Lioness (in training)
Precept: I shouldn't have any personal wants or desires for myself.
Problem: I have a very hard time even recognizing, let alone articulating, any deeper wants beyond "I want dinner" or "I want to do this today". Without giving any recoginition and thereby conscious validity to deeper wants, they find hidden or even destructive ways of being satisfied.
Digging around in this problem, I felt an emotional reaction when I revealed something that I wanted which had to be darn near dragged out of me. That reaction was an extreme discomfort to being vulnerable, to being open to rejection. Now I've done a few posts on receptivity and vulnerability and how these relate to what men respond to within the Feminine, and in those posts I admitted that I had a problem with this facet of myself. I didn't quite realize just how large that problem was until I felt as if I were naked at Grand Central Station after finally admitting to something important to me that I didn't even know was in there.
Alison Armstrong uses the example of women being afraid to need something of their own because if those needs are rejected then she's left alone to be eaten by lions. That a woman's placing others before herself is a primal condition. Remembering this, I wondered if perhaps my own relationship with this aspect of the feminine was that same thing.
Anyone remember those logic problem of if A then B, if B then C so therefore A then C? I tried that to see if there was some emotional response. If want then rejection, if rejection then death, therefore want equals death.
As I typed those words, I paid very close attention to how I felt about them, to how I emotionally reacted to them. For 'if want then rejection' I definitely felt a response, so I'm taking that to mean correct. For the rest of it, nothing. The primal and emotional minds were both unmoved by the words, so those aren't correct for me. I went back to the drawing board, changed out a few words and came up with: If want then rejection, if rejection then alone, therefore want equals alone. Now THAT got an emotional response, and a rather strong one. This is the right track for me.
Using my emotional awareness as a guide, the idea of being alone is the one that needed to be explored. What came out was "if I am alone, then I'm alone with myself" and that statement literally had tears coursing down my face. Clearly I have a problem with that idea.
My first thought was to ask "What's wrong with me that this is the case?" I think it's a very basic response that women have, the tendency toward negative re-enforcement, and it's one I've talked about before. This question though also invites a downward spiral of self-blame, recrimination and rejection. I'm trying to accept who I am, good and bad, pretty and ugly. Acceptance and blame are counter-productive, so this question has to be thrown out the window.
Since I'm not really good at that sort of thing, I turned to my husband for a positive way of addressing this problem. True to form, he had an excellent suggestion: "What is it about myself that I'm afraid to be with?" I knew this was on the right track because even just typing the question had my chest burning. You see, this question isn't looking for blame. This question is opening doors, inviting me to look at myself. It should be noted that the previous question had zero emotional impact -- my emotional self can handle the blame game, but the open exploration game caused a surge of almost panic.
Besides this one question, there are a great many more than could be asked, but because this one had such a powerful reaction I started there. Other questions include those of the relationship between my own self-worth and the feeling that I deserve or don't deserve to be happy and therefore don't recognize my wants; taking a look at whether or not I place value judgements such as 'legitimate or not' on desires before they are even consciously recognized. Of course, once all these are considered, I need to go back and find out if my non-recognition of my own heart even related to the idea of "What is it about myself that I'm afraid to be with?" What if want and alone are actually unrelated, and the upwelling of emotion is triggered by 'alone' and unphased by 'want'? But the question highlighted above is where I'm starting for now.
While I won't be posting all the gorey searching, I will share the most useful tool that I used to dig around in myself for this intensely honest and frankly painful but oh-so-liberating inner exploration. That tool was to look at my own resentments towards other people. The initial response to this question was an interior innocent batting of the eyes and a "but I don't resent anyone" denial. Blatantly untrue, but this is the face that social conditioning likes to wear, the face that my ego self likes to pretend is true. Alas, it is not. I wrote down the names of 5 people in my life that sprang to mind, and then spent about 20 minutes just writing about them. Since this is for me, I cut loose. It started out with really nice verbage, couching all the perceiving wrongs with innocous wording. Eventually, something broke and out poured all this genuine emotion.
Now, the absolute hardest part of this process but CRUCIAL is to just let it flow. My social conditioning was trying desperately to put the brakes on this process because it was 'bad' and I was admitting to myself for the first time just how 'bad' I was. Folks, resentment is a poison, and like poison it has to be purged if healing is to take place. Letting it fester in the deepest part of myself while I pretended to be all goodness and light and forgiving was only killing me, leaving them utterly unaffected. Even afterward, when I had filled page after page with a level of rage I had NO idea was even there, those folks are still unaffected and yet I feel so much lighter, freer. I can now see them in my mind's eye and finally there is no inner lip curl at the sight of them. I am free to finally see them.
What came to me during this process is that I chose the symbol of the Lioness far more appropriately than I could have imagined. Why? A Lioness is, above all, true to herself. She knows who she is, and accepts it. There's no "a lioness should be this" in her thinking. She just IS. She is a killer, and is fine with that -- indeed, relies on it to feed her sisters/mother/aunts/cubs. She is also a caretaker, a loving and loyal member of her family. Good and "bad", she just is. I'm starting to realize that in order to fully embrace the Feminine, I have to be just like her, I have to embrace all that I Am without judgement (tricky tricky!). Here goes: I get angry at people. Phew!! You'll just have to trust me when I say that finally admitting to that was like pulling out teeth. Ultimately, since I want to be majestic and powerful and feminine, I first have to know all that I am so that I can accept who I am. Eventually, I'll be able to drop the (in training), but I'm far from there yet. Until then, I remain a striving
- Lioness (in training)
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