Day 23, 730: One Crone Leads to Another.
I’ve been following the work of Lynne Twist, author of The Soul of Money. Twist looks at money as water – an energy flow that brings sustenance as it flows, but can also dry up if not nurtured or respected. Twist looks at money both through a personal lens – how to get control of your own life and finances – but also through a world view lens – how money can transform entire families, communities, and villages usually through its women.
Today, I found a new Twist resource and it led me to Sophia.
Twist gave a TedX talk in 2013 called The Sophia Century. We are in it. It is the time when women are expected to take their rightful role in coequal partnership with men. It is the time for the emergence of women’s leadership initiatives.
Twist says the world is “rebalancing back to women.” She addresses how rape is the modern version of witch trials and burnings as means to silence the voice and power of women. This echoes Lisa Lister’s position in her book Witch that claims the now pejorative word originally meant just “wise women” or healers, and that their guarded knowledge base is what led witches to be vilified and burned at the stake. Both women, worlds apart, see this new century as a resurgence of women’s voice and power. Anecdotal evidence supports them.
Ancient Texts to Modern Interpretations
Lately, I’ve been seeing the importance of women’s influence everywhere I look from MomsDemandAction.org in gun control to Emily’s List in the political arena. I turned to my source for French lessons this week, Frenchhour.com, to find a full lesson in the vocabulary of the women’s movement – Droits des Femmes. Vraiment.
Next, I started reading a Dr. Wayne Dyer book on the 3,000 year-old Tao, a distinctly not feminist text, or so I thought. The 6th Verse of the Tao Te Ching starts out: “The spirit that never dies is called the mysterious feminine,” and goes on to define “the mysterious female …as the root of creation.” Some may interpret the text as just the story of human birthing, but Dyer interprets it as “birthing of new ideas, new accomplishments, new projects and new ways of understanding your life.” He terms the Tao the Great Divine Mother.
This past weekend, I signed up for a free webinar with Colette Baron-Reid on Oracle Cards. In the Q&A session she discusses how the serpent is a symbol of the Goddess. The implication is that when nomadic tribes encountered and conquered organized societies with strong Goddess beliefs, they rewrote religion (or history) by denigrating prior feminist symbols and knowledge bases. Hmm. I’d really like to reread the story of Adam and Eve with that in mind.
Related Post: Religion & Me: Still Not Perfect Together
Baron-Reid noted that the calf can also be seen as a feminine symbol. Some quick
research shows that calves and bulls were common religious icons in early Palestine, with the calf potentially representative of a female diety. How interesting then that when Moses went to the Mount, the people reverted to dancing and singing around the golden calf. Perhaps it was a remembrance of the more fun, feminist religion prior to the Judaic traditions? Hmm. I’d really lie to reread Exodus with that in mind.
What’s The Power Play?
Whenever power is in play (read religion, politics and social structure), one must continue to question why wise women are so frightening a prospect to so many over the centuries? Lynne Twist comments: “When the power of love replaces the love of power, the world will flourish.”
I was first exposed to women’s studies in college. Of course, it was the 70s. Now, however, I think we were on to something again. It seems time to reacquaint ourselves with women’s studies around the world including reinterpretations of religious texts and traditions. Some call it re-righting Herstory. There may be something to it.
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Daily Focus on Gun Sanity: Because of mass shootings we have tended to concentrate on assault weapons and bump stocks. We should. But we should also recognize that the sanity issue is much larger. 90% of gun homicides are committed with handguns. Here’s an article on five myths of gun violence.
The Crone Diary 