Words Words Words. . . Are More Than That
Yesterday I attended a women's circle meeting for the first time. (I've sat in more than a few women's circles over the years, of course. This was my first meeting with this group.)
The other members seemed to all be lovely people: present, committed, really striving, friendly, warm, and quirky. I felt very comfortable there, like I had found a previously unknown pocket of my tribe -- a rare occurrence. I'd had a phone conversation the night before with one of the leadership team, and had been delighted by the resonance between her use of language and my own.
But when the circle actually got underway, I struggled a lot.
The language, the references, the style of the circle were the kind of vaguely-goddess-y, we-are-connected-to-our-female-ancestors, oh-our-lovely-women's-bodies sweetness that I've never been able to relate to. Their group is centered around the Maiden-Mother-Crone model (to which I've never been able to relate), but the theme this year is the Guardian, which they "discovered" and are all excited about. (No one seems to be aware of 5-stage models that include the Warrior and Priestess.) There was acknowledgement given to the fact that these stages overlap and co-exist, but the overall cultural perspective of the group was that we start as maidens and move through the cycle as we age.
There was a handout providing an overview of the stages and associations, and I choked when I saw that they had associated Inanna and Ishtar with the Mother phase. One of the things I like about the group is the use of archetypes -- but I've reached a point in my spiritual life where I start to choke when I see deities reduced to archetypes. It's even worse when deities are mis-assigned to archetypes. Inanna and Ishtar are many powerful things, but they are not Mothers!
I quickly realized that I had a choice to make. I could allow myself to feel irritated and alienated by the (to my sensibilities) overly sweet and painfully non-grounded approach to women's spirituality, and spend four hours being uncomfortable, or I could let their language wash around me and focus on what I experienced that was of value, including the potential for fellowship with women who seem to be authentically striving for wholeness, growth, and connection. I chose the latter -- and let myself be at peace with the realization that if I join the group, my perspective will become part of the culture over time. It's not my job to "correct" their impressions of goddess lore.
Then there was the singing. I used to love singing in church, but I've had a mixed relationship to singing in these groups, usually because -- again -- the lyrics are often so foreign to my own language and sensibilities, and I get very uncomfortable with repetitions that go on and on and on. I was pleased that the drummer-leader explicitly said things like "four times through".
But for all my struggles yesterday, I was also experiencing an amazing sense of newness after emerging from the underworld, and one song in particular continued that sense of opening:
I am a woman of radiance, radiance
Buffalo Woman's kin
I am a woman of radiance, radiance
The double helix spin
Like a lightning arrow or a galloping mare
I'm drawn to the center of life
Shedding the old I don wings of magnificence
The eagle and I take flight
Typing the words now make me a bit twitchy. I don't feel any kinship to Buffalo Woman. I don't know Buffalo Woman. But the second-to-last line made up for everything else and drew me in.
So. . . one of the things I've always had challenges with is my either/or tendency (note Queen of Swords icon, which relates to this as well as to the rest of the post). That's an even bigger challenge when it comes to community. As I mature, I begin to understand more deeply that community is in part about compromise and accommodation. We have to find our personal boundaries around how far we can compromise and accommodate and remain true to ourselves, but it's unrealistic to expect or demand that everyone in a community match our exact beliefs, preferances, etc.
For now, I'm choosing to accommodate the culture of the group in the hope that I will find that I have more important things in common with these women and their individual journeys and the group's overall mission than I have frustration with their fuzzy goddess archetypes and "sweet women's bodies" language. And maybe, over time, if I become authentically part of the group and its culture, I can mix things up a bit.
The other members seemed to all be lovely people: present, committed, really striving, friendly, warm, and quirky. I felt very comfortable there, like I had found a previously unknown pocket of my tribe -- a rare occurrence. I'd had a phone conversation the night before with one of the leadership team, and had been delighted by the resonance between her use of language and my own.
But when the circle actually got underway, I struggled a lot.
The language, the references, the style of the circle were the kind of vaguely-goddess-y, we-are-connected-to-our-female-ancestors, oh-our-lovely-women's-bodies sweetness that I've never been able to relate to. Their group is centered around the Maiden-Mother-Crone model (to which I've never been able to relate), but the theme this year is the Guardian, which they "discovered" and are all excited about. (No one seems to be aware of 5-stage models that include the Warrior and Priestess.) There was acknowledgement given to the fact that these stages overlap and co-exist, but the overall cultural perspective of the group was that we start as maidens and move through the cycle as we age.
There was a handout providing an overview of the stages and associations, and I choked when I saw that they had associated Inanna and Ishtar with the Mother phase. One of the things I like about the group is the use of archetypes -- but I've reached a point in my spiritual life where I start to choke when I see deities reduced to archetypes. It's even worse when deities are mis-assigned to archetypes. Inanna and Ishtar are many powerful things, but they are not Mothers!
I quickly realized that I had a choice to make. I could allow myself to feel irritated and alienated by the (to my sensibilities) overly sweet and painfully non-grounded approach to women's spirituality, and spend four hours being uncomfortable, or I could let their language wash around me and focus on what I experienced that was of value, including the potential for fellowship with women who seem to be authentically striving for wholeness, growth, and connection. I chose the latter -- and let myself be at peace with the realization that if I join the group, my perspective will become part of the culture over time. It's not my job to "correct" their impressions of goddess lore.
Then there was the singing. I used to love singing in church, but I've had a mixed relationship to singing in these groups, usually because -- again -- the lyrics are often so foreign to my own language and sensibilities, and I get very uncomfortable with repetitions that go on and on and on. I was pleased that the drummer-leader explicitly said things like "four times through".
But for all my struggles yesterday, I was also experiencing an amazing sense of newness after emerging from the underworld, and one song in particular continued that sense of opening:
I am a woman of radiance, radiance
Buffalo Woman's kin
I am a woman of radiance, radiance
The double helix spin
Like a lightning arrow or a galloping mare
I'm drawn to the center of life
Shedding the old I don wings of magnificence
The eagle and I take flight
Typing the words now make me a bit twitchy. I don't feel any kinship to Buffalo Woman. I don't know Buffalo Woman. But the second-to-last line made up for everything else and drew me in.
So. . . one of the things I've always had challenges with is my either/or tendency (note Queen of Swords icon, which relates to this as well as to the rest of the post). That's an even bigger challenge when it comes to community. As I mature, I begin to understand more deeply that community is in part about compromise and accommodation. We have to find our personal boundaries around how far we can compromise and accommodate and remain true to ourselves, but it's unrealistic to expect or demand that everyone in a community match our exact beliefs, preferances, etc.
For now, I'm choosing to accommodate the culture of the group in the hope that I will find that I have more important things in common with these women and their individual journeys and the group's overall mission than I have frustration with their fuzzy goddess archetypes and "sweet women's bodies" language. And maybe, over time, if I become authentically part of the group and its culture, I can mix things up a bit.