Superpowers of the Feminine

 Hi friends! If you've been with me for a while reading the blog, listening to the podcast or taking classes over the years, you know that I am very interested in nurturing, honoring, cherishing, and re-exalting the other-than-rational, other-than-linear ways of knowing, of learning, of experiencing, perceiving and receiving information from the world around us. The best gift that I feel that I have given and can give the beautiful souls that are called to come and learn with me is permission and a few basic skills and teachings about how to remember how to be in alive, breathing connection and communication with the plants and the world around us. 

You don't need me to tell you that we live in an abnormal and unbalanced time, and the unbalance is in so many directions it's hard to even quantify or name. But one way that has worked for me to name and understand what I see as a core imbalance is to use the word patriarchy. Now, I know that word is so overused, but in this instance, I don't have a better word to describe the imbalance that we are experiencing, and the deep rift between the masculine and feminine, yin and yang, receptive and dynamic forces on the planet. And so how I define the word patriarchy is: a system in which more masculine traits are what is valued. So, if a person has more masculine traits, then they have more of a perceived value. They will get paid more, they will be more recognized, etc. As a culture, a global culture, we are in a time where attributes of the masculine are more valued, and attributes of the feminine are less valued. 

To me, patriarchy has nothing to do with biological sex or with gender, though of course they do play out in these dynamics. Where it's really important to examine and dislodge the function of patriarchy is within our own minds and within our own hearts. Because you and I, my friends, were born into a time where this is what we inherited. This is what we were cooked in. These imbalances got steeped into our psyches from the very beginning, and from the last many generations. Thus, the examination and the rebalancing of patriarchal inheritances happens first within us. So what do I mean by that? It means that I have to look within myself, my own mind, my own psyche to see where and how I have overvalued attributes of my masculine nature and undervalued attributes of my feminine nature. 

I think it would help if we talked just a little bit about what I consider, masculine attributes and feminine attributes. Attributes of the masculine and the yang are linear, rational, active, dynamic and creative. Attributes of the feminine are nonlinear, irrational, holistic, interconnected and relationship based. Right there, I can feel within myself those two forces that are in a constant dance. I've been working this material for a while now, and so I can actually feel that there's a kind of synergy within me between these receptive and dynamic forces. I have worked very hard at revaluing my nonlinear, irrational, holistic, interconnected, relational, feminine ways of learning, perceiving, thinking, and experiencing reality. 

I believe that the greatest gift that I can give beautiful souls that come to learn with me is to demonstrate how to re-enthrone these feminine or other than rational ways of knowing, experiencing, and perceiving. In my experience, when we have dislodged that patriarchy from within our own psyches, chipped away at that imbalance that we have inherited, and worked to re-enthrone our feminine psyche into balance with our masculine psyche that we start to notice a dance happening between the two. I really believe that's how we are made to be and where our greatest potential lies. This is true regardless of what our destinies hold. 

You may have heard me say that my favorite herbalists have, within their approach, equal parts yin and yang, equal parts masculine and feminine. They have both the relational, spiritual, connected relationship with the plants in equal proportion to their book knowledge and their linear knowledge. When both are present, fully activated, and in dance with one another, the healing that can flow from that is pretty profound. I seek to embody those qualities, myself, as an herbalist, a creative being, and really just as a human being. 

However, because it's often the feminine that is less valued within our own psyches, I want to just lift her up for a moment and examine what I consider to be those superpowers of the feminine that all of us have. A lot of these really are neurological grooves that many of us have either atrophied from or fallen out of practice with. Perhaps we never even really experienced them fully in our own brains and bodies because of growing up in a patriarchal time where the systems and structures around us may not have demonstrated and modeled these capacities to us. I'm here to tell you that if that's the case for you, it's no big deal because those faculties didn't go anywhere. They are still in you. They are wired in you. All of your ancestors were wired with these capacities, and their potential is right there waiting for you to just have permission and a few little tips and tidbits to help turn them on. 

Here are what I consider the superpowers of the feminine:

The first, dreaming. You know this one. You've heard me talk about this one. If you want a consciousness realm that is non-linear, irrational, holographic, hard to pin down, dark and receptive, then dreaming one of those places. Dreaming is absolutely a superpower of the feminine. Dreaming is often connected to the moon, and some might even say that the moon brings the dreams. The moon is often associated with the feminine, the dark, the spiraling and the cyclical. Reclaiming your dreaming is huge for re-enthroning the feminine. 

Next is receptive listening. Many people have never been told or given permission to sit in front of a plant, stone, river or under the moon and hold the idea that this nature being is a living being, is kin, is an elder that we can dialogue with. The way that you and I will experience that dialogue, that listening, is going to be different based on how you are wired. Some of us experience that listening in our minds as memories, thoughts and/or ideas. Some experience it as feelings or sensations. For some, it's a combination of those. 

You have the capacity to be in relational listening and dialogue with the plants and nature around you. This is easier than you might think, and the capacity restores more quickly than you might think. It comes back online pretty quickly once given permission. What I'm here to tell you is that this capacity for listening grows so much more easeful with time. 

Next superpower of the feminine is our instincts. That gut feeling in your tummy, that shiver that goes up your spine, or that heart opening that doesn't make any logical sense. The fact that grief just washed over you, but you don't have any logical context. These are your instincts. This is your body informing you (with or without insight and context) about what's happening. We can absolutely grow to trust in those instincts, learn what they are telling us, and listen to them. 

The next superpower of the feminine is seeing and tracking patterns, and seeing synchronicity. The inner feminine that has that ability to see connections, to see all things as interconnected, and to understand the relationship lines within the web and how they may all impact and affect each other. Our inner feminine has “systems thinking potential”. When that is restored, you can feel and sense how that also restores deeply our conscious connection to and placement within all of the systems that we are a part of. This includes our our families and communities, but also our connection to nature (the gardens, land, and ecosystems around us) and the more-than-human worlds. Our inner feminine knows how to experience ourselves in that connection. If we give her the space, and re-enthrone her, then our ability to experience ourselves within that connection also grows, which is a really truly great gift of belonging that many of us modern ones are craving at this time.

 Another gift of the feminine is our ability to experience connection. My feminine is my ability to be in relationships. When I re-enthrone her, my ability to experience myself as related to everything around me grows. I can experience the plants, land, birds and animals as my relatives. That's not a metaphor or a symbol, it's real, and that feminine part of myself can experience life in that way. 

Hopefully you're beginning to get a sense and feeling of how these superpowers landed in you. How did they feel for you? How did your intellect feel about them? Look at your response without judgment, examine those feelings with curiosity. If you find yourself experiencing resistance to any of those superpowers, know that I had that resistance too. With just a little bit of time and energy, these superpowers of the feminine can be reinstated and re-enthroned. 

I really do feel as though the greatest gift that I can give the beautiful souls that come to learn from me is this re-enthronement of these superpowers. My deeper prayer within is that it heals on a collective level and begins to chip away at this collective imbalance or wound between the masculine and feminine, the yin and yang, so that we can come into more balance as a species and as a world. This prayer has always been woven into all of the work that I do, and it's also finding a deeper expression out in the world: 

I am so thrilled to announce that I have co-taught, co-birthed a new online video course called Rhythms and Relationships, A Feminine Way into Herbalism with my beautiful friend and colleague, Kimberly Gallagher, that's going to be offered through her business, learningherbs.com. The course is essentially all about this: it's all about the inner tools and technologies of reawakening these capacities that we all have, that many of us have undervalued for months, years and generations. Here's the link to sign up. I would love to see you in there and I would love if you shared it with your people.

 I hope that this helped you in some way, dear ones. I send a blessing from my inner feminine to yours, from my inner masculine to yours, and a prayer that the masculine and feminine in all of us and all of creation can come into balance and to right relationship so that we can be even more powerfully, beautifully, helpfully in that harmonious flow of creation's design. 

Blessed be.