Maiden, Mother, Crone..Embracing the Goddess Within

I love it when women are defined in ways that limit us. It gives us such an opportunity to thumb our collective nose at all those people who think they know us. The worst is when it's a woman doing the defining. She has obviously accepted a more patriarchal view of herself and bought into it hook, line and sinker.

I read an article that discussed the changes women go through and how that impacts the family structure. It ended with a comment from a woman who thought that maybe she might still have some value in the family and society even though she was now in menopause. As if you're only valuable if you can bear children? 

What on earth has happened to us? Hobby Lobby (a place I will never go into) has decided that they don't, as a company, want to provide birth control as part of their insurance policies for their employees. Are they also going to restrict Viagra? Or are men exempt from this type of personal control? All of this is under the guise of religious freedom. But which religion? Because as far as I can tell, it seems to center around whatever understanding of Christianity you're told to have.

Well, I for one, am done listening to everyone else's view of me. If that means negotiating outside the margins then that's just fine. It's easy to become caught up in the drama of others and to seek a level, if you will. Vibrationally, we try to match the levels of others so that conflict and drama subside. Unfortunately, that means for some of us, lowering our vibrational levels, resulting in distress and sometimes illness. We've convinced ourselves that we have to go along to get along. The problem is, we limit ourselves when we do that, instead of setting the example and living the life we want to live.

We live our best life when we live authentically. We cannot do that when we listen to oppressive judgment. Our inner voice tells us the truth. We need to listen to it and reject placement by others. We can be anything we want to be and we need to convey that to our children, be they sons or daughters. In our Maiden years, we have a right as young women to live in such a way that maximizes our potential, instead of settling for something that stifles it. If marriage and/or motherhood isn't what you either want or are ready for, you should be able to choose that for yourself without hearing the likes of Rush Limbaugh tell your parents on his radio show that you're a slut for wanting birth control. Not all women use birth control for birth control. But even if they do, it's their private decision, not one the company they work for should be involved with. Of course the simplest thing to do there is to create a single-payer system and take the employer out of it completely. But that's not happening yet.

If you do choose motherhood, then you should be able to do so and not worry about the implications of that. Communities should be geared around preservation of the family. But then that would involve ideas like equality and respect, and that's a bridge too far for some people these days. What's missing is the understanding that we are all one - physically, spiritually, all of it. If we all embraced this fact, then it would be anathema to even consider oppressing anyone. Instead, we would be looking for ways to elevate us all.

Now, back to menopause and value. I read a piece a few years ago by an author whose name I cannot remember in Huffington Post which suggested that instead of looking at menopause as a bad thing, to look at it as a time when the fugue state we're in during our Mother years (whether we have children or not) vanishes, leaving only clarity and wisdom. Wow..how brilliant! That's exactly what it is! Your Crone years are the years where you become the Wise Woman. You've lived through the drama and the wisdom gained is endless. You have the benefit of hindsight that only comes with age. I embrace my Crone transition because I embrace the Goddess within. I don't need plastic surgery, or hair dye for that matter..I'm happy with my silver hair. I developed a Witch's streak in college, and after that, my brown hair gave way to silver everywhere. I don't discourage women from making themselves look younger if that's what they want to do. Just make sure it's for you..and not for someone else.

It's easy to give yourself away to keep the peace. Unfortunately, no one learns the lessons they need to learn, including yourself. We're far more important than they give us credit for. We don't need to explain ourselves to anyone. We are loving beings and we need only to live our lives in such a way that honors our connection to Source. 

We are Maidens. We are Mothers. We are Crones. 

We are Goddesses. It's time we embraced that and give the the world the balance it so desperately needs.

~Blessed Be!

Well now, isn't that convenient?

There's a movement afoot that requires women to be subservient to their husbands. Yeah, like that's going to happen. I'm so glad I raised my two boys to respect women and view them as equals. I can't imagine either of them ever behaving this way toward their wives. If they did, they'd have to face me, and that won't end well.

Yes, it's that important. Shared responsibility is what we modeled for our boys. Subservience was anathema. I knew women who lived that way and I didn't understand it then and I surely don't understand it now. It's one thing to defer to someone who knows more than you about something. It's another to do so simply because of gender and family position. The other thing we did was to respect their views. Ultimately, we made the final decisions, but they had a voice in their lives. Of course, that's not how we were raised. We both grew up in the "be seen and not heard" era of child rearing. Having experienced patriarchy that was abusive, we made the choice to break that cycle. My husband has never viewed women as less than, so he naturally set a positive example for the boys.

Patriarchy breeds abuse. Women and children lose. Every time. The feminist movement has tried to suggest a more balanced approach to relationships, but apparently it fell on some pretty deaf ears, because we're seeing the effects of this attitude everywhere. Conservative governors are signing into law policies that not only promote inequality, but are also found later to be unconstitutional in some cases. It's evident in committee hearings on women's issues when no women are at the table testifying. Apparently Congressional committees believe only old, white men have the answers when women's issues come up. It's governmental patriarchy at its most disgusting.

The Mayor of Hoboken, New Jersey, and her staff, are talking to the feds right now about a conversation she had with the Lt. Governor of her state. The nasty comments from other political officials that ensued were demeaning..referring to her as the lady mayor, and questioning her motivations. She's a Democrat, so evidently it's open season on her gender instead of on what she's saying. Most of the comments I heard indicated that no one seemed to even know her. How do they not know the Mayor of Hoboken? It's not like it's some out of the way little town. 

It's bad enough when we have men in our lives that oppress and abuse us, but when it gets codified into law, we have no redress save the courts, and they're a mess. A woman defends herself against a violent husband she had a restraining order on, and she gets 20 years. She's out on bail now after already serving time and nearly went back to jail for going shopping after receiving permission to do so. They've calmed down, but what else are they going to do to her? How much dignity is she supposed to lose for defending herself?

Abortion is a constitutional right, but you'd never know it in some states. Conservative governors again sign into law bills that are only going to ultimately be overturned in some higher court. Of course we have no idea what SCOTUS will do about all of it, and given the conservative activist mentality on the Court today, we may be in for some real trouble on abortion rights. Or they may just surprise us and simply do their jobs and interpret existing law. It didn't happen with the Citizen's United decision, so many of us are worried.

This week, Mike Huckabee made a ridiculous comment about women's libidos.This, from a former pastor. He essentially believes that we're all Democrats so that someone called Uncle Sugar will support us while our libidos run amok. He needs to get his mind out of the gutter and remember God. Others in the last election cycle had idiotic things to say about rape and pregnancy that does result no matter what delusions are rattling around their empty heads. Why don't they all come out and say what they're thinking: women are sluts. Sluts because we dare to question. Sluts because we dare to say no. Sluts because we dare to believe that we can be someone. Sluts because we want to equal pay. Sluts because we dare to decide WHEN we have children. Sluts because we want respect. Sluts because we dare to want more than you will give us. This is why you cannot be in control. You can't handle the responsibility. 

I've known some pretty intelligent men in my life, but I've also known real idiots. Same is true for women I've known. We need to respect individual differences and not claim ownership on others. Women and children aren't objects for your amusement. We're here and we matter. We move forward in life together; otherwise, we go nowhere. You have to stop being afraid of that fact.

And blessings to my husband and sons who already understand this..