Coming of Age and Finding My Voice

What would happen if women, 51% of the world population, devoted the same commitment to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war?

 

This is a clarion call to all women to take the lead in personal conscious evolution—and in so doing, in shaping an emergent planetary culture united in peacemaking.

 

Peacemaking in this Age of Evolution is not a form of activism, but a leap in consciousness. A leap into an intentionally framed perception of daily reality called “peace awareness” rather than “war” awareness. And by implication, “war” also means warring, violence conflict, exclusion, divisiveness, conquering, subjugation, humiliation, shaming, prejudice, and all forms of social and environmental interaction that create separation and suffering. And “peace” refers to the underlying frequency of contentment that vibrates throughout our entire being when we are living in harmony with this “thing” called life.

 

Waking Up to Dreams

Many women have had the experience of being in a frightening dream, and when we call out for help, we find we have no voice. We keep trying to call out or scream, hoping someone will hear us and help us, but we can barely eek out a whisper or a squeak. We feel helpless, powerless, afraid, and at the mercy of malevolent external forces.

A recent dream I had spoke volumes—for me personally, but I believe also for many women like myself who are, as I call it,  “coming of age” in finding our voices of leadership in conscious evolution.

Dream Entry: I am alone at a bar in a restaurant, although I’m not drinking. It is late, maybe 2 am, and the bartender brings me my car keys saying they’re closing and it’s time to go home. I take the keys and then say to him, “OK, so what am I driving, and where did I park?” [Serious short-term memory loss: a preview of things to come?]

After receiving directions, I am outside and walking toward my car, keys in hand. I realize that I’ve missed the street where the car is parked and have to backtrack, so I cross the street to do so. I am in a part of town that is less than desirable, and notice two youths casually hanging out by a wall. In a flash, I am blindsided by one of the youths; he’s pinning me to the ground with one hand and ripping my shirt and bra off in one swift motion with his other hand. I cry out, “Help! Help me! Help!”

I awaken from the dream, literally hearing the waking sound of my cries for help.

Waking up, I realize that the feeling from the assault wasn’t one of terror, as one might expect, so much as being deeply distressed. Distressed by the assault itself, fearful of the inevitable outcome, and unable to change the circumstances on my own and without support.

And, what stood out for me even more upon waking was literally hearing my voice. My dream “voice” literally followed me into the world of matter.

As a dreamworker, one of the things I know about waking up from a dream without resolving the situation within the dream is that it offers the dreamer an opportunity to find resolution to whatever is happening for them in waking life. Equally important, the unfinished dream is saying that the dreamer is more than adequately up to the job of addressing the unfinished aspect of the dream story in waking consciousness.

This time, in this dream, I had a voice—and I used it. And as much as this dream was entirely my projection, I believe its message is symbolic for all women who are tuning in to their voice of feminine consciousness:

Voices for change, voices for peace, voices for truth, voices of a new consciousness for a new world.

With wise warrior strength the feminine consciousness dismantles what is out of integrity—and women around the globe are saying, “Enough!” Enough of preying on the weakened, the vulnerable, the naive, the unsuspecting; enough killing, violence, divisiveness, deception, and destruction; enough greed, lack of integrity, dishonor, and dishonesty; enough of the denigration, dismissal, diminishment, and denial.

We are also saying “enough” to and about ourselves within our quiet inner chambers where we have held ourselves hostage, in our circles of support as we weave together conscious community, in our social and collective consciousness where our voices have for far too long been subjugated and relegated to the inconsequential. We are speaking up and speaking out, celebrating our innate intelligent wisdom, our intuitive knowing, acting from our maternal matrix of relational dynamics, and modeling lucidity and cooperation. Don’t be deceived though, peacemaking isn’t always tame and still: often it roars with fierce compassion.

Feminine consciousness is not the exclusive domain of women, but generally speaking women’s innate way of perceiving the world, relating to it, and making meaning about it is archetypically representative of feminine consciousness. Regardless of gender, feminine consciousness is not a savior, a solution, or a policy to resolving the world’s problems; it is, quite simply, a dynamic principle of coherence that renders them obsolete.

Three Core Principles

There are three core principles that frame feminine consciousness—three fundamental mindsets/ perceptions/ paradigms that have “shown up as missing” in the contemporary social, moral, and manifest story of human evolution and keep us divided and polarized. I like to make the analogy of these principles as being akin to the instructions from a movie director just before filming each scene: “Lights, camera, action!”

Lights: Light is what illuminates something, allowing us to see it, or see it more clearly. Feminine consciousness is innately an awakening awareness, an illumination of our personal and collective condition, both in its brightness and its bright shadow. In the light of awakening, feminine consciousness recognizes that there is an inherent connection between all living things and the cosmos—and that love is the holy thread that binds us in both our mundane and cosmic dimensions.

Camera: In filmmaking, the camera is what sets the tone for how something is perceived. The scenery, close-ups, wide angles; each gives us a different perspective, which when woven together provides the gestalt of the entire storyline. Feminine consciousness engenders views and beliefs that link people together, focusing ultimately on the potential for positive influences. It is inherently relational; that is, capable of seeing each of the interconnected and interdependent functions for themselves and as the whole: and understanding that how we think and perceive affects everything around us.

Action: The events, feelings, and situations within a film are ecological, just as in waking life; that is, there is always a dynamic tension between the individuals themselves and the environment that surrounds and supports them. The core of feminine consciousness is an awareness of participating in an energetic universe. It is an ongoing process of responsiveness and adaptability: how to respond to personal and collective circumstance without rejecting it or becoming its slave. Feminine consciousness honors heart intelligence and acts with ferocious compassion.

The very nature of the evolutionary wave of feminine consciousness is co-creative participation. If we have shown up at this time, we understand that participation in our evolution, personal and cosmic, is what has called us. When we allow our sense of connection and compassion to guide our existence, conscious evolution occurs in “real time.” We become active participants and peacemakers in our own unfolding, no longer dispassionate observers beholden to the laws of physical or social systems. We are the both dreamer and the dream, and we awaken into humanity’s emerging “myth,” even as we are creating of it.

Dream Parallels

The parallels of my dream, as a woman coming of age, to the assaults to the human condition are obvious:

1)            The feminine consciousness is not only the target and casualty of patriarchy, it is an inclusive way of being in the world, which is consequently assaulted by all systems or acts of exclusion and inequity in our physical world and our relations, in our psyche and our spirit;

2)            While we may be hopeful that positive changes will occur in time, we cannot help but entertain some apprehension of the cumulative consequences of our destructive behavior as a species;

3)            In spite of the good work that we know is being done in quiet corners, in small groups or in large measures, we can feel alone and overwhelmed—powerless and voiceless.

Finding My Voice

Reflecting on this dream the following morning, my sense of humor prevailed and I summarized the symbolic meaning of the dream this way:

“I might be losing my memory, but I’m finding my voice!”

Yes, my hair is thinning and getting kinky-grey, I am having more “moments” of forgetting, hot flashes bear down on me like a runaway train, sending rivulets of perspiration down my back and between my breasts, and the law of gravity along with a lifetime of wear and tear on my body is making itself known in ways I’d rather it didn’t.

But the gifts of feminine consciousness waiting for women within the inevitable metamorphosis that mortality brings are bountiful, beautiful, and powerful beyond any version of  “feminine” that Madison Avenue could have fabricated and tried to sell us. The gift of self-love and self-acceptance, even as the sands of time reshape the landscape of our body, brings the gift of experiencing consciousness without ego—and we are liberated. But not diminished. In fact, we shine brighter because as we turn away form the external preoccupations of our inner and outer relations, we reach deeper within to the core of our essence, to that which is unchanging, to our infinite self.

We discover that it really is OK to take care of ourselves first, to honor our inner voices and intuitive sense, to choose how we spend our time and energy, to discern without apology what is truly important for us in the time we have left, and to give our passion, purpose and power toward manifesting our personal dreams and collective vision of peace.

We find our voice. We say, “Yes, that works for me.” “No, I will not think and act in a certain way just because it is what I have always done, or because it is what is expected.” “Yes, I know what is most important beyond anything else in this life: love.” “No, I will not allow apathy to devolve my relations, community, or global family.

I know I am not alone. I know there are millions of women just like me, and many similarly coming of age into conscious cronehood, who are reinventing themselves, questing to find or re-member what is sacred, in their own life and in the world. No matter how this may appear from the outside, this is the real peacemaking work of feminine consciousness: healing and dissolving wounds, bridging divides, and mending what has been broken in our hearts, our families, communities, and world.

We are finally coming home to the indomitable voice of feminine consciousness, which not only changes the way we are in the world, but changes the way the world is in us.

 

 

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