A Dedication to the Female form and energy, around and within.
How glorious that I could deliberately choose today, March 8, to fearlessly release the feminine energy balled up within me! (Fated?) I choose the power of the written word for my expression, as I always have; it is mightier than speech. For me at least. For voices, they have been silenced …
My labelled gender is insignificant here. And so is yours. We carry energies of both, vertical (male) and horizontal (female), within us; in varying degrees of course, but we carry both. There is wisdom in knowing that male energy makes things work. The female makes them grow.
There is deeper wisdom in realizing that ideas are born in the feminine womb even if they are utilized to discipline; order is a core characteristic of the masculine.
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(I await your reaction)
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Let me illustrate this better:
A year ago, I was at a wine store with my mother. Mum had left her ID in the car and while I dutifully furnished mine at the checkout counter, mum obviously just shrugged.
Checkout clerk: I’m sorry, you can’t take these out.
Me: Yes I know, I’m sorry mum left her ID in the car. Could you make an exception? She is obviously older to me. (silent eye roll in my head) She is my mother! (second eye roll in my head)
Checkout clerk: Against policies. Please exit the store and make your purchases again with your ID.
I grinned in exasperation and didn’t waste my time there again.
I get it completely. Mr Checkout Clerk had stuck strictly by the book. Rules feel safer. Rules make systems move like clockwork because rules don’t employ common logic.
Rules are a personality trait of masculine energy.
Last month I discovered a quaint tea store in a mall. When paying for my purchase I was asked to share my contact details. My next-visit tea purchase would be on the house. Er … will I be here again? I declined. Taking in my surroundings while my tea simmered down, I noticed an advert: my cup of tea carried a discount.
Me: Hi! I missed this. I see you offer a discount on the tea, but I have paid full price …
Cafeteria cashier: Yes, this offer is for those who sign up.
Me: Oh! I was not aware. Your staff mentioned offers on my next visit. (Ok, I was being cheap, the discount was a very little bit. Irrespective, I should have been told, right? Rules are rules? Chuckle!)
Cafeteria cashier: I see. I apologize for that. I will have the discount sent to your table.
No establishment I know of refunds in cash. They return the amount via bank transactions which take up to 45 days to reflect in my account. I visited again, shared my details because I know I will be here. Often. I also love how creative they are with their teas. Mr Cafeteria Cashier’s resourcefulness however pulled me in before their teas did. He broke rules.
His creative and risky solution acted from the feminine energy source.
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Fire purifies. Water cleanses.
Do you see a difference between the two actions? What if I told you, you can either ‘feel’ that difference or you could ‘search’ for their literal definitions to distinguish between them.
Your instinctive response comes from the energy inherent in you at this moment.
If you perceive them intuitively, you won’t need me to describe fire as harsh, punitive, a thorough acidic cleanse leaving no crack for considerations, and you would know water to be gentle, refreshing, making allowances for the subject it is cleansing. Allowances let ‘impurities’ seep in, the cleanse is not absolute. This leniency creates tolerance and acceptance. Acceptance nurtures creativity.
Stay with me, this could get twisted.
However, if or when these impurities proliferate and tolerance is tested to extremes, water will draw on the masculinity of fire to drown all. Water can douse fire, the fuel for its rage.
The scene I paint here is of a physical form of nature universally associated with feminine attributes, ravaging from an energy core that is distinctly masculine.
So you see, superficial physical gender is what we are born with. Energies don’t necessarily flow accordingly.
Society deems it ‘natural’ to behave or act in sync with these physical attributes: like choosing ‘manly’ vocations over creative ‘womanly’ ones and vice-versa.
What do you do when your creative instincts kick-in for your business strategies? Do you go the tried-and-tested route? Or do you trust that nagging feeling you got? Remember, the tried-and-tested was once someone’s gutsy plunge.
Why is society threatened by feelings?
Why
should the feminine be shut up?
Clip her wings
and poke her to fly
high
within a box crafted so beautiful
It restrains her from cry(ing)
and shrieking let me be
ME!!
Afraid is she
should the crystal walls be besmirched and shatter.
For then she will have sinned.
Just as it has been written
for centuries, in ‘progressive’ cultures.
The feminine should be shut up!
The irony is, the feminine yields gracefully to her ‘suppressor’. ‘Yielding’ is incorrect to use here because there is no submission, no conflict. How can there be? The energy IS compassion; to BE love is her power.
If she feels an iota of suppression, she is experiencing the masculine energy traits within her: rage or revolt to upright things. Somehow, we cannot see this, or don’t want to, and label her nature as ‘submission’.
Why do we want a rigid world?
IMAGINE A WORLD WITH NO (he)ART. Imagine yourself in that world. You can’t. Every commodity you will use has to be designed! As American author Earl Nightingale had quoted, "Everything begins with an idea."
Why then, can’t the two energies co-exist as equals - with acknowledgment and respect?
I now ask the same of physical genderizing. Women don't need to protest for rights if they are not stripped of them, if they are not branded as the weaker sex.
I shared this opinion with a talented group of theater actors who had performed a series of solo acts on gender equality. They pointed out that ‘believing and behaving this way was a blind I wore, that I feared looking reality in its face’. One of them suggested I watch Angry Indian Goddesses, an Indian film on girlfriend-ship and feminism. The theater group was very perceptive; I could not complete the movie.
I have not given up on that utopian vision, but I don’t wear rose-tinted lenses anymore.
I recently stumbled upon a beautiful word - Ecofeminism - coined by French writer Françoise d’Eaubonne in 1974 in her book Le Féminisme ou la Mort. The theory rests on a relationship between humans and nature. Ecofeminism draws parallels between nature and women - exploitation, and concerns of compassion and equality. The concept speaks of a decentralized governance that is inclusive, and thrives on collaborations. It observes patriarchal dominance as controlling, stifling, and not conducive to healthy growth. Growth sprouts from a freedom to hold your own reins in your own hands.
Closer home, we recognize ecofeminism as the Web3 ecosystem.
My Web3 profile carries the face of a woman, a WOW Galaxy PFP NFT, and my name Quanta is non-gender specific. Most of my digital communication is through written text. When I first entered the Web3 world in late 2022, I toyed with the idea of complete anonymity and intentionally refrained from verbal and video communications to know what gender was assigned to me by those I interacted with. You might like to try the same for yourself, the exercise can surprise you (wink!).
I don’t need those tinted lenses anymore, I see this in broad daylight - the tide turns. It is reassuring, no matter how inconspicuous it appears to be.
I choose today to honor and celebrate the ‘her’ in you, me, Cafeteria Cashier, …
Dear feminine, may you and your kind prosper!
HAPPY WOMEN’S DAY, LOVE x
