Celebrating Womyn's Month

March is International Women's Month and  8 March is International Women's Day.  

When I think of the growth of my consciousness as a woman, I am always reminded of Nancy Smith's poem.  Right after graduating from college, I joined a small NGO in order to heed  the call of Theology of Liberation to enflesh the tenets of "preferential option for the poor" and "living simply so that others may simply live."  (I can almost see and feel Bobby Guevs passionately saying this in our class.)  A fresh graduate, I didn't realize that there was so much more to liberation and empowerment than just being in the streets to join rallies and picket lines and simply creating projects for the poor and marginalized.  I was to learn that a significant part of the "struggle" was addressing gender issues.  Nancy Smith's poem captured the message so beautifully for me back then and still does up to now. Here goes. . .

FOR EVERY WOMAN

 For every woman who is tired of acting weak when she knows she is strong,
There is a man who is tired of appearing strong when he feels vulnerable.
For every woman who is tired of acting dumb,
There is a man who is burdened with the constant expectation of "knowing everything".
For every woman who is tired of being called an "emotional female",
There is a man who is denied the right to weep and be gentle.
For every woman who feels "tied down" by her children,
There is a man who is denied the full pleasure of shared parenthood.
For every woman who is denied meaningful employment and equal pay,
There is a man who must bear full financial responsibility for another human being.
For every woman who takes a step towards her own liberation,
There is a man who finds that the way to freedom has been made a little easier.

During the last one and half decades, I felt an inner longing to raise my consciousness and participation in women and development to the psycho-spiritual level.  I then got acquainted with deep and unconventional thoughts of women like Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Caroline Myss, and Sue Monk Kidd who taught me that the work that we need to do towards women's liberation has to start from within, from inner transformation which includes healing our inner wounds as women.  I think there is so much wisdom in this.  While we were oriented to "make the political personal and the personal political," I think it is very important to  be clear about where the boundaries lie so that we don't blindly expect our social action to necessarily translate to inner transformation and healing. We also then avoid projecting our inner battles onto society, especially to the men we love.  

The following quote which I think I read from one of Caroline Myss' books speaks so well of one of the challenges for us, women, as we work on our healing process.

"The fundamental choice to be healthy can be made only by women with a capacity for self-love.  This choice connects women to the whole process of self-healing in every cell in their bodies.  A fundamental illness many women face is an inability to love themselves and choose health."

So, HAPPY WOMYN'S DAY!  (Oh, I thought no one uses "womyn" anymore till a dear friend used it in one of our crazy women's exchanges).  May all our struggles - inner and outer - gradually come to rest and may the strength that comes from being at home with who we are and with what we have be the gift that we bring towards healing the wounds of society and mother nature and our fellow earth creatures.