TRANSFORMING OUR LIVES & COMMUNITIES THROUGH THE WISDOM OF THE FEMININE
by Monica Matos, Founder

In the natural rhythm of the seasons, the energy of the long, dark nights of winter beckon us inward - on many levels.  Physically, we are called to snuggle up under a warm blanket or near a cozy fire.  Our mind and spirit go within as well, toward stillness and much needed rest.  Or perhaps we are taken on a journey through the darkness of our hearts and psyches to examine aspects of ourselves that no longer serve us so that we may birth ourselves anew with the energies of spring.

The Source of Transformation
Unfortunately, "the dark" has gotten a bad wrap in our culture.  It is actually the sacred realm from which all life is born and to which it returns to be transformed and renewed once again.  When we venture into the darkness, the old beliefs, patterns, energies found there can be purged, leading us to the inner light that guides us in establishing new beginnings.

During my journey into the darkness on a winter hiatus, I spent a great deal of time getting better acquainted with and connected to the Feminine energies, which led to a potent insight.  In our years of educating the public about the impact of prenatal and birth experiences, we have been blessed by many amazing stories of transformation that were born out of the new awareness this information provided.  Women who were open and ready to embrace a new understanding of pregnancy and birth realized profound shifts from their previous experiences.

The Missing Key
However, we also frequently found that even with ample evidence, some women were not able to change their course of action - even though that is what they deeply wished.  Often, education is simply not enough to reconnect a woman with her own sense of power – not enough to give her the confidence, strength and independence to speak up when her course of maternity care doesn’t quite resonate with her – not enough to change care providers even when all of the information (both inner and outer) tells her that she and her baby would be better served elsewhere.  Addressing the mind without the spirit is akin to filling the tank with gas but not having the key needed to move the car forward.

This realization brought back vivid memories of being in that place of knowing better intellectually but not having the ability to do anything about it.   Until my mental understanding was met by emotional and spiritual experience and integration, I remained stuck, without a voice, feeling powerless to initiate any real change in my life.  Information fuels the mind, but we are beings of body, mind and spirit – and this aspect is most lacking in our modern age of information and technology.

For women, this sense of spirit has been especially void for the last several thousand years after our early connection to the Divine Feminine was severed.  Women were once honored and revered as the embodiment of the Goddess - as the vessels and nurturers of new life whose sexual expression was seen as sacred, who had an intuitive understanding of things unseen, and whose bodies were attuned with the Earth and the cycles of Nature.

Disconnection from Feminine Power
With the rise of patriarchy came a masculine spirituality of God the Father, and the feminine principle was pushed into the shadows of consciousness.  Women’s ways of knowing - through her connection with her body, Nature, the Goddess - were vilified.  Although every effort was made to completely bury the the feminine, seeds of its power, although driven underground, remained alive waiting for the soil to one day grow fertile again. 

Masculine principles (such as action, assertiveness, logic and structure) and feminine principles (such as receptivity, emotion, intuition and relationship) become dysfunctional when not in harmony with each other.  The current state of the planet offers ample evidence of the effects of this great imbalance.  The distorted masculine shows up in such ways as domination, violence, and separation, while the shadows of the feminine take root in aspects such as victimization, co-dependency and powerlessness.

Reconnecting with Our Selves
There is a Hindu myth in which the world, at an earlier time, was in crisis, plagued by war and famine.  All of the gods tried to defeat the demons that were terrorizing the earth, but each one failed.  So through their collective power, they conjured the goddess, Durga.  It was She who ultimately succeeded in casting out the demons and creating peace.  Although Durga did not stay to reign over the land, she did promise to return if she was ever needed again.  All that was required was that people admit their need for her help, and she would come to restore balance once again.

It is clearly time for us to admit our need for another way.  The earth is in a crisis caused by this great imbalance of energies and for which reason, technology and science have no solution.  As Einstein said, “One cannot solve a problem from the same mindset that created it.”

In The Chalice and the Blade, Riane Eisler offers substantial evidence that reveals that the vast majority of human history was peaceful, marked by egalitarian cultures symbolized by the chalice.  They were partnership societies that revered the Feminine as the vessel and nurturer of new life and recognized the intimate connection of all life on earth.  During a period of chaos and disequilibrium, an entirely different social system emerged - the dominator society of the blade, which signified "power over" rather than "power with."

Our current state of chaos offers a momentous opportunity for us to restore the Feminine energies and bring balance back to the world.  Could it be women are the physical channels through which the Feminine energies are born? (Of course, men certainly need to embody this aspect of themselves as well.)  What will happen as women help each other to remember and call forth this ancient wisdom within us?  What will it look like when the number of strong, empowered women reaches the tipping point?



In addition to continuing to offer educational information, we will be developing more programs that focus on the emotional and spiritual needs of women and mothers as well.  The first of these new programs is the WOMEN RISING CIRCLE (see calendar for details).