The beat of her drum resonated every cell of my sweaty body
and the chants of the people around me were united in a deep sense of
surrender. The mind could not compute, the body felt like it was melting and
all that was left was the breath inhaling air that singed the hairs of my
nostrils. Like a womb, darkness clothed us as we huddled together in the sweat
lodge; held together by the interwoven beats of her drum and her chants. It reminded
us to stay, to breathe and if we could, sing with her the songs of her indigenous
tribe. The excruciating heat was radiating from the steaming rocks facing me. As
if it couldn’t get any hotter, someone took the towel from my legs, more heat,
more sweat, I felt naked as I blinked through the sweat and saw the glow of the
red hot stones next to me. Our abuelitas
grandmother stones bringing us relentless fire.
 |
| Pat McCabe |
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| Charles Eisenstein |
The five day course was held by two phenomenal teachers; the
incredible Pat McCabe,
an inspiring woman from New Mexico who came to indigenous knowledge through
Lakota nation. She moves from the central knowledge that “We, The Five-Fingered-Ones, are born into Beauty, as Beauty, for
Joyful Life”, she has a powerful presence and brings the understanding of
Indigenous ways of knowing into discussion and inquiry. Alongside her was Charles Eisenstein, a visionary and author
of The Ascent of Humanity (2007), Sacred Economics
(2011), and The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible (2013).
Since 2010, he has spoken over three hundred times in over one hundred cities
around the world. His events are held voluntarily, organized by others who
invite him to speak. He generally charges people expenses but no fee, leaving
it up to them to give him something if they feel the urge. This appeals to his
ideal of generosity and “living in the gift.”
During my time at Schumacher the protests at Standing Rock
had begun and we were amidst the presidential elections in the United States.
There was something incredibly reflective in what the world story was showing.
Indigenous tribes around the world were uniting in peaceful protest against oil
companies penetrating their sacred lands. The protection of Nature, our
life-giving mother, that which sustains us, was embodied in the acts of those
tribes. And then like the flipping of a coin, stories of Donald Trump sexually
harassing women, a man who personifies the capitalistic system, standing for
one of the most influential positions in global politics was infiltrating my
consciousness and my Facebook feed. What could be a greater metaphor? I
wondered.
So humbly held by these two incredibly inspiring human beings thirty
of us sat in circle everyday, shared, absorbed, discussed, and debated. The
process itself was illuminating as all our realities and perspectives were
shared in the common union of space. And so over 5 days we commenced an inquiry
into the Masculine and the Feminine; exploring what might be the limitations,
opportunities and re-modelling necessary to empower the co-creativity of these
dual forces within us all and for the betterment of our world today.
During this course I became profoundly aware of the many layers
of pain in the relationship between the aptly termed “Men’s Nation’ and
“Women’s Nation”. The suppression of the feminine being a story I am all too aware of. I’ve found the genocide of
European witch-hunts, in some inexplicable way, living in me, like an embedded
tale of devastation buried in my DNA still burning a fury. And then onto the modern
worlds distorted perceptions of beauty and objectification with manipulated images
of women tantalising our eyes and loins yet creating insecurity on how
life can be beautiful without the superficialities of make up, pert boobs and
smooth legs.
I went into the course feeling frustration towards the
male dominated world that has somehow planted seeds of insecurity in my psyche
based on my sex and collectively created a world that continues to poison our planet
in our endlessly consumerist culture. It became clear I wasn’t the only woman feeling
frustrated about it. It wasn’t long before we were licking our wounds, sharing
tales of heart wrenching violation and misguidance. It became apparent that
there was much distrust towards ‘Men’s Nation’, especially, with his capacity
to contain the great rage accumulated over the generations that the feminine
had burning begging to be relieved yet without a safe place for it
to go.
What I hadn’t appreciated before attending this course
however, was how confusing and upsetting it also is for our men in our world
today. In a world with industrialised ideas of ‘what it is to be a man’ with the numbing of human emotion, along with
the backdrop of war, competition and destruction, no wonder there’s much confusion.
And having sat in circle, sharing our truths on the subject we witnessed the
dynamics playing out as we interacted with one another. We could see how women
also played a role in the great divide. Women at times did not hear men and even
shut them down while displaying behaviours counter to what we might consider feminine
in nature such as nurturing receptivity. So I left five days of inquiry feeling
incredibly compassionate towards ‘Men’s Nation’ and incredibly aware of the
roles women play in enacting the divide between the two.
Pat McCabe explained the ‘devices of deception’, how one day
she saw how we had been tricked into believing in a separation between these polarities
and furthermore, pitched against one another creating mistrust within the
relationship. A sense of clarity has since found me able to better discern when
these devices come into play and practicing, to the best of my ability, non-involvement and compassion
with full consideration for all I have learnt and humbly recognising my own
prejudice. I have found my personal journey to wholeness requiring me too to reconcile the
masculine and feminine energies within me. What the future holds for humanity however
remains to be seen, but as we prayed for in the depths of our sweltering womb;
I hope it will be supporting our togetherness in wholehearted relationship, co-creating
a world that serves our planet as well as one another.
