Just the other day my husband (a lawyer who had been struggling with a legal problem) turned to me and said, with relief in his voice, “I think I just glimpsed a way to connect the dots to find a solution.”
And I felt my heart leap with yearning for just such an epiphany. Wouldn’t it be a huge relief if we could find a way to connect the dots in some way that would lead to a solution for our wounded humanity?
It seems no accident that this yearning sprang up just after January 6, a day when the profound depths of our American woundedness were written large for the entire world to see. Ironically, January 6 is also the Feast of the Epiphany for Christians around the world. This religious celebration, also known as Three Kings Day for Western Christians, marks the moment when Christ was first revealed as the Son of God to the three magi.
That day on Facebook my feed was full of dire news about chaos, violence and deep division in our nation. Sprinkled amidst those posts were Epiphany cartoons and memes about how things might have been different if three wise women had arrived at the manger that day. Instead of offering expensive gifts, they would have stepped up to help in feminine ways. They would have cleaned the manger, changed the baby’s diaper, cooked a hot meal and tended to the needs of a new mother. We women smile at this alternative narrative — and we know in our hearts it is very close to the truth. We women, if we are in touch with our feminine wisdom, are more likely to tend and befriend, to value relationship and community over power and control.
This is, of course, a cute and somewhat naively hopeful generalization. Not all women operate from feminine principles or even see value in doing so. Not all men reject community needs and norms in order to seek power over others. We cannot be blind, however, to the profound impact of thousands of years of patriarchy upon both men and women. Nor can we afford to live with any illusions that our culture has evolved beyond patriarchal domination. Several recent research projects seeking to discover what unifying beliefs and values define the diverse community of Trump supporters found that the one major factor is a belief in male dominance. Women are as likely to hold that value as men — and the paradigm is equally true across racial and ethnic differences.
It is important to note that Christianity and other of the world’s major religions affirm it to be a primary value as well. Not only have men dominated the leadership and messaging of religious institutions for millennia but the very essence of God has been defined and described as masculine. Women struggle to find a place to stand even in their search for a spiritual home.
I am profoundly relieved, however, to know a very large number of women who found a way to stay connected to their deepest feminine wisdom and to the healing balm of the sacred feminine. These women have dedicated their lives to building healthy communities, to nurturing compassion and unity, to holding space for another way of living together on this planet with all living things. I am relieved to have witnessed how women do that hard work in a million grassroots ways around the world. I am relieved to know there is a sacred planetary sisterhood of such women who show up with grace, love, commitment and dignity — and wait for the Divine Feminine to whisper their sacred marching orders for the day.
And I have faith that our sacred sisterhood will find a way to connect the dots to find solutions for humanity and for our precious Earth home.
One of our sacred sisters, Valarie Kaur, has been inspiring us and reminding us to ‘breathe and push’ since our first Alchemy gathering in 2009. Today she reminds us “We are a nation waiting to be born. This is our great transition.” WSF is one of many organizations supporting her latest project, The People’s Inauguration. She describes this movement as a celebration of what’s possible. “Sound government is necessary – but it won’t heal and transition America into a society where we are all free. This work belongs to us, the people. On January 21, 2021, we’ll come together to recommit to building a nation with liberty and justice for all.” We love her hashtag #RebuildingTheUnion. You can learn more and join this movement here https://thepeoplesinauguration.org/
Another wise woman, Rev. Cameron Trimble, recently offered these grounding words about how to connect with our inner wisdom in this new year in her ‘Piloting Faith’ newsletter.
My sense is that my job is to simply remain Open. In fact, as I think about this coming year, I don’t want to apply any agenda to it at all except to say “yes” to every opportunity to express compassion and love to myself and other people. Whatever this year has in store for us, I will ride the waves. What I accomplish doesn’t matter to me. Who I am in the midst of the journey is everything to me. Perhaps this is true for you too?
The world is so unpredictable at the moment that setting grand goals seems ridiculous. But setting grand intentions of how we show up – how we offer love and vulnerability to one another in the face of uncertainty – seems to be the most important thing we’ve done with our lives to date. Perhaps this is the year we don’t make resolutions. Maybe we don’t set out to accomplish eight million things. Maybe the point of this coming year is to deepen what we have learned instead of broadening what we can produce. Maybe the whole point of all of this is that we discover the height, width, breadth, and depth of unconditional, revolutionary love. Maybe this is the year that we deep in the lessons we learned from these past months, root them deeply in our bones so that we never forget the wisdom we have gained by coming this far.
My prayer for you is that if this is also your intuition, go deep instead of broad, slow instead of fast, gently instead of bullishly. Say “yes” to that call and “no” to the fevered demands already lining up to distract you from your own awakening. We are in this together.
We begin 2021 facing unimagined challenges in our country and our world. It is indeed a time to go deep within and bring your unique form of radical love to the world.
By Kathe Schaaf