Sunflower Voices

Fears and doubts arise about whether our communities can ever be free of sexual abuses. Why bother making the effort? This reflects our crisis in confidence about humanity. It’s tough to think of victory over woman-hating violence if we think of society as a thin veneer over a brutal human nature. If we take the view that humans are fundamentally rude, crude and unpleasant to be around, we are locked in constant struggle. There will be many things and persons to wall ourselves off against. It is very exhausting. If that’s how we feel, no wonder we just want to brick ourselves up inside our apartments. (But even then, we keep reaching out to each other on line…)

 

Fundamentally, through it all, we want to experience love, tenderness, communication, simplicity and peace. At the core of the core of our being we don’t believe we are stuck with selfishness, hatred or defeat. That is fertile ground for creating a caring society, one that recognizes women’s full humanity, and prevents misogynist violence.

 

Because the world is so thoroughly dominated by patriarchal cultures at this time, it can feel out of reach to connect to something different. The part of our heart that cries “No!” to abuses can feel like a fragile ember. Woman-loving cultures with powerful women leaders seem like a faraway dream. The last such culture in ancient Europe ended over three thousand years ago. But for some nations in the Americas, Africa and the Pacific, such balance is just a few generations ago. Even now, some societies exist that do not define women as subordinate to men. Not surprisingly, these are low-rape cultures.

 

How can we reconnect to our deep inner respect for each other, and our confidence in community? We can’t time-travel, and we can’t all visit the remote pockets of humanity without patriarchy. But there is something that all of us can do right this minute.

 

We can sit quietly. We can allow the workings of our inner heart to speak. We can listen to how we really feel. We can drop our shoulders from their place around our ears. We can walk in the fresh air, and we can breathe.

 

We might find that our full humanity is available in the present moment, regardless of history, culture and obstacles. Our confidence as women and men, equally human, is available right here right now. In fact we might find we are having constant flashes of respect, of tenderness, of awakeness. Usually we ignore, dismiss and discount such moments. Regardless of what feels “lost” culturally, we might find that our essential goodness never left, if we stop spinning so fast.

 

In Halifax, El Jones is working hard to daylight the bravery and dreams of prisoners. As anyone who does that kind of work or has lived through that situation can tell you, even in the worst of the worst circumstances, amazing humanity shines through. This was true in the Nazi death camps, it is true in prisons, and it is true in refugee encampments, war zones, and in the wake of tsunamis and earthquakes.

 

Sometimes misogynist violence, including prostitution, is treated as inevitable, insurmountable, just the way things are. “Boys will be boys.” Or it is minimized, normalized, treated as “not so bad” or “no biggie.” In a strange twist, in contemporary western culture, being a consumable object of pornographic focus is reconstructed as “empowering.” All this stems from disconnection from our own hearts, and a bitter, defeated view of humanity.

 

But it doesn’t have to be that way. If we are willing to simply look with openness and curiosity at who we are, we will find out we’re not so bad, not so calloused, not so bitter. We don’t have to rely on all sorts of dehumanization and power games to feel OK. We can notice that our bodies feel good when we are kind and relaxed.

 

In order to cut through the fabric of lies about humanity’s supposed fundamental brutality, and this so-called dog-eat-dog world, we have to know ourselves. We have to know the sensitivity, the toughness, the brilliance of our own nature. When we have that, the complex web of reasoning that leads to rapaciousness, dominance and the destruction of women just falls apart. We don’t need it and we can help others not need it.

 

In the turmoil of modernity, we may feel we have lost our grandmothers’ wisdom. But it never left, and is available right now – in our heart beat, in an open gaze toward the colors of our world, in gently holding someone’s hand.

 

If a community truly connects with these things, what could we expect to see for women? Sitting here and listening inside, this is what I hear:

 

Look and look again

This life is soaked in goodness.

If there is an illusion about that, pull it away.

All the needless heartache, the grasping, the harms, so empty.

This moment now when we are all together

Must be guarded like a precious jewel.

 

 

What is your inner voice telling you about community, about your life as a woman or a man, about the future? Other humans would like to hear.

 

Photo: fnchng