In my mind, Spirituality and the Conscious Feminine are nearly synonymous. For this blog entry, I want to just share some random thoughts and comments by myself and others and see where they take me. As an experiment I am putting into practice a definitely feminine energy process of “flow” to make this post happen. I encourage you to “just receive” in response to these thoughts and you also will be in a feminine energy process by doing so
“Spirituality can only be lived within a body that is aware of its human dimension, both positive and negative. If awareness is not there, spirituality becomes a self-centered path of self-aggrandizement.” Leaving my Father’s House by Marion Woodman. p. 170.
I view Spirituality as a part of human nature that believes in a higher aspect of humanity; a part that has a capacity to acquire consciousness and self-knowledge--two qualities necessary for the enlightenment or self-actualization of an individual.
“The Conscious Feminine is not bound by gender--it belongs to both men and women. Although in the history of the arts, men have articulated their femininity far more than women have, women are now becoming custodians of their own feminine consciousness. For centuries, men have projected their inner image of femininity, raising it to a consciousness that left women who accepted their projection separated from their own reality.” p.1, Woodman.
Woodman further states that one of the benefits of “leaving one’s father’s house” is claiming one’s own self-definition and reality that brings a woman’s “creative masculinity to birth” in the psyche of women. I call this my “can do” energy.
It is now time for women to do their own naming of their reality as an act of claiming the power of feminine consciousness. Concurrently, it is time for men to withdraw their projections and identify and celebrate their own inner, self-defined feminine. To me, both are spiritual actions that lead to becoming conscious and “whole.” I smile when I hear the current buzzword for this process that is becoming more mainstream which is “Woke.”
A recent example of this was brought to my attention by my daughter Meg. It occurred when a woman stated in a fraught situation that the actions of a male counselor made her feel uncomfortable. That was her reality. A representative male response was that her feelings were “erroneous” which totally denied the woman’s reality and judged her feelings as somehow “wrong.” (Perhaps they were something he really did not want to “hear” or for obvious reasons from his perspective validate.)
An act of feminine consciousness by the man would have been to kindly ask her what behaviors had made her uncomfortable and then listen without interruption or comment, thereby validating her reality without judgement.
A quote from Anne Wilson Schaef seems relevant. “It is not necessary to deny another’s reality in order to affirm my own.” She explores in much greater depth what I call the spiritual act of affirming female reality and adopting a feminine consciousness on the part of men in her book, Women’s Reality, An Emerging System in a White Male Society. Anne was one of the first to address this topic and I highly recommend her book!
Marion Woodman brings in a different theme related to Spirituality and the conscious feminine. “Conscious femininity has to do with bringing the wisdom of nature to consciousness….Thus far in our history, the unconscious feminine has been associated with Instinct (intuition); now the conscious feminine is bringing light to instinct, illuminating nature and its sacred order with new images that come to us in our dreams and in creative work.” Woodman, p. 2.
This is what Woodman calls “Telling Sophia’s Story” which is a freeing the Feminine Principle’s radiance from the darkness of matter. It is “the feminine releasing herself from patriarchy, a culture whose driving force is power;...seeking control over others and themselves in an inhuman desire for perfection...Both genders are in the tragic shadow of patriarchal power. p. 10.
She continues, “The task of releasing the feminine from the tyrannical power of the driven, crazed masculine is long and arduous….It is a process that is just as difficult inside as it is outside.” Witness the current world situation which is a perfect demonstration of the masculine principle run amuck. It is without balance because it lacks a strong visible presence of the feminine, particularly in men, but also in some women who are male-identified. It is as imperative for men as it is for women to discover and embrace their feminine energy consciousness in order to create the balance and stability that the expression of both equally would bring to our culture.
For the final section of this “stream of consciousness” post, I would like to “bring forward another grandmother,” one who carries the beginning history of the words spirit, spirituality and feminine principle consciousness and brings it forward. This comes from a woman named Nelle Morton who was decidedly an ovular thinker who found herself in the middle of the religious establishment box. She has become a ‘distinguished feminist theologian’ who wrote the book, The Journey is Home which traces the development of her personal and theoretical vision of what I call feminine principle spirituality. She was one of the first to identify and promote what qualities would be coming in the future that would be what we now call Women’s Spirituality.
One particular essay Nelle Morton wrote in 1975 called ‘A Word We Cannot Yet Speak,” caught my attention then as it has once again now in 2019. Nelle first traced the historical roots of the words spiritual and spirit and found that those words predate patriarchy and create a strong link to the Women’s Spirituality Movement of today:
“The earliest meaning of spirit that we can trace derives from the word breath--breath of the body (‘closer than breathing’), breath of life, then later wind of the cosmos. The root form in Hebrew is ruach, of feminine gender. However, spirit appears to be far older than the Hebrew language. Breath (spirit) was seen as provided by the mother at birth. Broadened to cosmic dimension the image became that of the Goddess --the source and nurturer of all living...The ancient and proud history of spirit may be seen as a clear thread - a deep subliminal stratum of the feminine--running through patriarchal literature, suppressed and distorted but never entirely snuffed out.” p. 89.
Morton felt that women’s spirituality was awaiting, poised to become a part a significant segment of today’s feminine principle consciousness. She was one of the first to declare that “we shall do our own naming.” This ability to name and have one’s own speech she saw as a source of power and energy that was just beginning to break through into women’s consciousness. In 1975 she wrote: “A new phenomenon is making its appearance in the woman world. We name it, at least for the present, ‘ spirituality,’ or refer to it as a new dimension of the spirit. It is not yet clear whether the name is a deliberate choice or whether it happens to be the only one available; whether it evokes the efforts to redeem the history of a once proud pre-patriarchal experience or whether it is temporary--awaiting the emergence of a new transcending organic word we cannot yet speak.” p. 87.
Morton presciently wrote back then, “we in the woman movement and feminists in general should attempt to create new forms of spirituality of our own experiences…without using patriarchal thought and structures with the intention of creating a new women’s spiritual reality.” She further states, “I contend that something totally new is struggling to be born at this point in history and will require new word symbolization and new imagery to bring it to its fullest expression.” p. 88.
I believe that Nelle Morton’s writing helped plant the seeds that gave rise to feminine principle consciousness and the women’s spirituality movement. Other Nelle Morton thoughts written in the 1970s foreshadowed what has come to greater fruition today as the Women’s Spirituality Movement. She states, “...men, conditioned as they are (within patriarchy) cannot conceive of spirituality as women experience it. They perceive it in terms of inversion--the opposite of a male hierarchical perception is a female hierarchical perception; but that is not what women perceive.” p. 97.
The creation of the word immanence and the forming of a circular, inclusive, power-sharing structure are examples of feminine principle ideas that women have created to counterbalance the masculine principle perception of transcendence and hierarchical structure.
I share some final significant comments from Morton that again presage what is to come:
- “Thus ‘spiritual’ is experienced profoundly as sisterhood in its loftiest and most universal sense and, we may add redundantly, political action of the most radical sort on behalf of and ultimately including all of humanity--women, children and men.” p. 98.
- “For anyone to experience solidarity in world sisterhood is to break out of the patriarchal mindset that cannot think in global terms (outside the box of separation) and dualism.” p. 100.
- “Women are seeking to harmonize, to bring to wholeness again, something that has been torn apart and has deprived men and women of humanness.” p. 98.
And finally, Morton with great optimism believed that “Liberation of the spirit and liberation of women are the same part of the struggle for a free (and egalitarian) society and world.” p. 101.
Nelle Morton is definitely one of those grandmothers I wish to bring forward. Does anyone else have any? We’d love to have you share them with the blog.