The Re-Birth and Rise of Feminine Power

One surprisingly beautiful aspect of life is that on any given day, any person can unexpectedly enter our life and serve as a catalyst for change.

This is what happened when I met Megan.

First things first, Megan isn’t a superhero. She doesn’t hold highly sought after self-improvement classes that cost thousands of dollars to attend, nor is she a self-proclaimed guru.

She’s just like you and me.

She responds to her own emails, washes the dinner dishes, meditates and hopes to find her true offering to be of service in the world.

The thing about Megan is, a few years ago she worked in public relations in San Francisco and had been a successful businesswoman in the software industry. After experiencing the death of her boyfriend and two other family members in the span of three weeks, Megan knew she could not go on with business as usual.

There was a profound internal longing and unsettling awareness stirring within Megan. She knew something was not right. Something important was missing from her life.

She knew she had to figure out another way of being in the world.

According to Megan, “For years there was this deep sense of insecurity inside…or rather a wrongness about my existence that I did not know how to describe. I tried to live the values of the culture, follow the road map to success imparted to me through community, family and school. I was determined to be an “acceptable” kind of woman. I got educated, went into business, wore suits, thought rationally, competed against others and was successful for a time, but then my life fell apart.”

The question of what was missing in Megan’s life called to her on a deep level.

She knew that in order for anything to happen in her life, for a change to her way of being in the world, she would have to understand the idea of the feminine.

The first time I spoke with Megan about this was the first time I had ever spoken about it. And it wasn’t until I spoke with Megan that I realized how much the feminine aspect of myself had been ignored, undervalued and well, discarded.

I had a wake-up call. And like Megan, I also knew some things would have to change.

Throughout the many years I spent lodged in the chasing of goals, obtaining of things and doing to gain merit, there was simply no place for sacred femininity. There was no place for being soft, showing vulnerability, uncertainty, self-doubt or weakness.

When, where, why and how I came to view sacred femininity as something I equated with vulnerability, uncertainty, self-doubt or weakness was disturbingly eye-opening.

Unfortunately, I am not alone.

Many aspects of our individual lives, as well as structures within our society, have placed distortion onto what femininity should be, what it should encompass, how we should approach it and what it should look like.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Sufi mystic, says “Women have been sold something that within them isn’t true for them or the sacred feminine. The freedom women have been given is a masculine freedom in its ideals, values and behaviors.”

Not only was I on the same path of feminine negation as Megan, but many aspects of our society are also on this path.

As we are “most acutely aware of that which we most intimately know,” this distortion of the sacred feminine has led to the imbalance we now see reflected from within us as the world around us.

With challenging events unfolding in our lives, the lives of those we love, the lives of those we observe from afar and within political and social structures, similar to the unsettling awareness that stirred Megan into awakening, we too are being stirred into a collective awakening.

A great unraveling has begun.

“We can no longer afford to continue the present patriarchal story that tries to dominate nature, exploit the Earth and its people through power and greed. We need a new story, based upon our shared human values, our interdependence and unity.”

In May, the Charter for Compassion Women and Girls Sector will host the third Reaction to Response monthly webinar call to address the re-birthing and rising of feminine power and the creation of a world of gender equality, where men and women can rise to full empowerment.

The theme for the month of May is Women and Men Rising.

The first webinar call topic of May entitled, Transforming the Male-Centric Ethos, will begin on May 3rd at 8 a.m. Pacific Time (US)/11 a.m. Eastern Time (US).

Transforming the Male-Centric Ethos will be will be led and facilitated by Ellen Antonelli, speaker and author of the forthcoming Dancing on Our Fathers’ Feet.

Ellen life mission is to “empower women: questioning the discrimination and violence women suffer at the hands of men; researching and teaching women’s studies to high school juniors and seniors; recognizing the inconsistencies within our Christian society — the hawkish xenophobia, the racism, the homophobia, the blatant misogyny — that religion paradoxically seemed not only to support but to inculcate.”

The second May webinar call topic entitled, Working in Partnership for Equality, will begin on May 17th at 8 a.m. Pacific Time (US)/11 a.m. Eastern Time (US).

This call and topic will be led and facilitated by Riane Eisler, JD, PhD(h). Eisler is President of the Center for Partnership Studies and internationally known as a systems scientist, attorney working for the human rights of women and children, and author of The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future, and The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics.

Dr. Eisler has received many honors, including honorary PhDs and peace and human rights awards. She lectures worldwide, with venues including the United Nations General Assembly, the U.S. Department of State, Congressional briefings, universities, corporations, conference keynotes, and events hosted by heads of State.

“Without the sacred feminine nothing new can be born.”

“We see around us the sad plight of a masculine culture destroying its own ecosystem, unable to even agree on the steps needed to limit global warming. We all need to reclaim the living power and transformative potential of the sacred feminine, to feel her connection to the soul and the earth. And we desperately need the ancient wisdom of the soul of the world to help us at this time of global crisis. Many times before the world has been through an ecological crisis, and the world soul carries within her the memories and wisdom we need. But if we remain cut off in a mindset that sees this a problem that we need to fix with the same masculine attitude that has caused the problem, we will just compound the crisis. Only through working together with the sacred feminine can we heal and transform the world. And this means to honor her presence within our bodies and our soul, in the ground we walk on and the air we breathe.”

It is now clear to me that the sacred feminine has nothing to do with vulnerability, uncertainty, self-doubt or weakness.

Instead, what it is really about is collaboration, giving, compassion and sharing, all of which we all long to see expressed in our world.

To register for the Webinar Series you can log onto the Reaction to Response page.

This is a “pay from the heart” series in which there are suggested donations, but no one will be turned away.💚