International Women’s Day.
Today.
Over lunch with friends and colleagues the other day, I talked about the deep connection I have to the long line of women that have come before me; I can literally look over my right shoulder and sense them there. All of them. Thousands of them, strong women, connected to me womb by womb by womb. Back through the ages, until the beginning of time, human time.
That’s one of the images I have – and it’s powerful. Physical in a sense.
The other one is that the buck stops here.
Not in the sense that I haven’t given birth to a daughter. Because I have.
Rather… there’s a shift. With me. I bear the full weight of all that has gone before me, all the angst, the anxiety, the strength, but also the weakness. The inability to make choices, empowering choices, due to… well. Culture? Societal norms? Heritage and expectations of parents, relatives, and society at large? Yes. All of that.
Without resilience amongst the women that I am born of, I would not be here.
But there has been a struggle. A long hard one.
And it stops here.
I am breaking patterns, that have been passed down, from mother to daughter for millennia.
Tossing them up in the air, and like a skilled juggler, catching the components, and making new patterns.
For all of my foremothers that have walked the earth, and all of my descendants to come – I am breaking patterns.
Healing wounds, wounds of ages past, as well as those of today.
The image of my female ancestors came to me in a session with D. Who else? A catalyst he is. Opening up for what wants to happen. For letting go, as well as letting come. At the time, I wrote about the experience thus:
I saw more of me.
Saw those that came before me, the generations upon generations of women who have given birth to babies, who in turn bore babies, and somewhere along the line, this resulted in my mother giving birth to me. And me giving birth to my daughter.
About holding it in…. or not.
The pivotal moment in time when the path ahead, for the women stemming from my womb, going back all the way to the womb of my First Mother, shifts, no longer carrying the weight, the burden, of judgement and inner harshness, concealed within. Letting it out into the world. Being, perhaps, created by those who cannot stand to see it, visibly, so used to it being concealed. Cringing from the physical aspects of it, when it is recreated outside, rather than sneakily hidden underneath the skin, the flesh, deep within our soulbodies. So much easier to ignore, pretend it’s not existing, turning it into something that-we-must-not-name…
My back pains. Related to this. Without a doubt. A not-so-gentle way to let me know, there’s more I need to let go of! For us. All of us! Knowing… that I would not be where I am, without the strength, resilience, survival instincts and skills of all the women that stand, physically, behind me, all the way back to my First Mother.
Humbled. Honored.
Proud!