“The world will be saved by the western woman.” Dalai Lama
When did you learn to love yourself? love others? Do you feel accepted for who you truly are? If not, how can you change that?
This week I attended a reading by Massimilla Harris and Bud Harris of their latest book Into the Heart of the Feminine: An Archetypal Journey to Renew Strength, Love, and Creativity. They are both Jungian analysts, and although the book is about the feminine, it was written for men and women, for we all have both feminine and masculine aspects to our psyche.
The book explores the harm that is done to us when we have not had a loving nurturing mother and the deficiencies that exist in our society as a result of not honoring the feminine. The authors explore these negative situations but also describe how we can heal them. I was deeply moved by their stories and insights.
Women’s Lives Have Changed Dramatically
Having lived for seventy years now, I have seen many changes in our society. When I was born, women had been allowed to vote for only 24 years. My mother was born in 1919, a year before women in the US voted for the first time. Although woman in other countries have served in the government at the highest level, we have yet to elect a woman as president in this country.
Recently, when a young man read my memoir, he was shocked by some of my experiences. When I was divorced in 1977, I had a master’s degree while my husband had not completed undergraduate school; however, as a high school teacher I made $7,000 less than he made as a policeman. Because of my higher degree, his lawyer was able to keep him from having to pay alimony. Although we had both worked all those years, our credit was his. I could not get a credit card until I established my separate credit and that wasn’t easy.
One of the reasons that so many older women who have always worked have such dire needs when they retire is that they have so much less Social Security than most men because they have earned lower wages for so many years. The lack of equity isn’t over when the laws change. It lives on in the consequences of former discrimination.
Awakening to the Feminine Will Take Us Deeper
The lack of respect for the feminine also affects men and women in much deeper ways. The most obvious is the effect it has had on our mothers and the effect they have had on us. It is in that relationship that we are first nurtured and loved or first experience the lack of love, and those experiences have a profound effect on our emotional development. This topic is explored extensively in Into the Heart of the Feminine.
What were you taught by your mother and father about who you should be and how you should behave? How much of that was based on society’s expectations of your sex?
Feminine Values Can Heal Patriarchal Extremes
The patriarchal values of power, achievement, and competition have dominated our society and helped create the value of separation that exists in its extreme with our uncompromising current Congress. In contrast, the feminine values community, respect, love, and cooperation. If we have not learned these in the homes where we grew up, we are unlikely to learn them in the business world that is now too often focused on money at the expense of the welfare of their employees, especially women.
Awakening to the Feminine Teaches Us To Love
The truth is that every child needs to grow up with parents who love themselves so that they can love their children. Loving ourselves means we accept and respect all aspects of ourselves, do the best we can each day, and don’t belittle ourselves when we fail. We need to be able to test, explore, and experiment with who we are in our quest to find our deepest, truest selves.
To do that requires the belief that we are all right, that who we are is good. As Masimilla and Bud Harris remind us, life is a journey in which we can choose to grow and heal ourselves so we can be our best selves. If we can change ourselves, we can change our society to embrace the best of masculine and feminine qualities. If we can do that, we will have a society that meets the needs of all its people.
Awakening to the Feminine Can Save the World
When the Dalai Lama stated that the world will be saved by the western woman, I was surprised, but compared to the restrictions on women in the rest of the world, we may be the very ones with the power to do that. We just have to heal ourselves and know that is our destiny, for it is the feminine spirit whose time has come. If we don’t do it, who will?
© 2015 Georganne Spruce ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5
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