Lindsay Kolasa

Photo by Keenan Constance from Pexels

A rant?  A poem?  You chose.

The modern manufacturing of the detached, disempowered feminine

We try to suppress her cycles with birth control pills.
We don’t give her space or support to breastfeed.
We expect her to be back at work two weeks after birth.
We don’t give her space to feel, grieve, express her rage, or even experience joy.
We don’t mark the exceptional transitions of her life (menarche, motherhood/create-ress, crone) with knowledge or ritual.
We devalue her care.
We discriminate against her unique power.
Her sensuality and sexuality are not her own.
We don’t give her time to nourish herself or others.
We do not let her own land.
We do not let her tend the wild or save seeds.
We have taken away the fine crafts her hands created and we, now, make them with machines.
We have taken her stories and her songs.
We have taken her voice from the realm of leadership and guidance.
We have bought her beauty and now sell it back to her.
And then, we say that she doesn’t understand her own body…
…that her body is not even hers.
…that she does not know better.
…that she does not know True North.
…that she does not remember the way.

We must regulate her.

We must domesticate her.

…until she is unrecognizable, even to herself.

(((an exploration of woman in modern society, by Lindsay Kolasa)))

“The major challenge for women is that we have knotted ourselves so firmly into the awkward, rhythmless, dissonant, societal system that we can barely breathe — much less think of breaking free from it.”

~ Maya Tiwari, Women’s Power to Heal through Inner Medicine

“The reclamation of the true, wild, primordial and empowered feminine within all of us is an evolutionary task of our times; alongside this, the healing of a brutalized masculine that is disallowed sensitivity and that needs the courage to unhook from the expected cynical abandonment of caring relationship to self, other and the Earth. This level of work is for all of us as the masculine and feminine seek their redemption, integration and sacred marriage through all forms of life, regardless of gender.”

~ Thanissara

“In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions.

When did you stop dancing?

When did you stop singing?

When did you stop being enchanted by stories?

When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?”

~ Gabrielle Roth

“When women reassert their relationship with the wildish nature, they are gifted with a permanent and internal watcher, a knower, a visionary, an oracle, an inspiratrice, an intuitive, a maker, a creator, an inventor, and a listener who guide, suggest, and urge vibrant life in the inner and outer world…”

~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Woman Who Runs with the Wolves

“Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?”

~ Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“Power is not brute force and money; power is in your spirit. Power is in your soul. It is what your ancestors, your old people gave you. Power is in the earth; it is in your relationship to the earth.”

~ Winona LaDuke