The Word is Power

In one of our most intense transformative experiences during the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete in 2022, we were gathered in a cave where we planned to recite our mother-lines. This cave had been used for Goddess-oriented rituals in Minoan (Ariadnean) times and before then, and Carol Christ, the originator of our pilgrimage, revived a Goddess-centered spirituality in this and similar places where groups of women could encounter this ancient heritage.

Shortly after our ritual began, we were interrupted by a small group of people who came into the cave with cameras to take photos. They would not agree to go away and come back later as requested by our leader’s male partner who was at the cave entrance for this purpose. Our leader, Laura Shannon, asked us, ‘is it ok to let them come in?’ As she reminded me recently, I replied, ‘no, not really’. Laura continued drumming a heartbeat, and we sat there holding our space. The group took photos with flash that shined in our eyes. I remember crying bitterly and connecting intensely with what all our foremothers have been through, their Goddess rituals invaded and broken up, knowing that the destruction of these heritages involved rape and murder and tortures.

At the time I had not realized how powerful out holding of space was. It felt to me still like a desecration that we could not prevent, though we did continue after they left and connected with each other and our mother-lines in powerful ways.

But later on I found myself drawn to what it means to simply hold on to the thread of life, the heartbeat. To take our presence and maintain our ground without dominator energy. This has worked in myself, in my life and environment, since that time. I realized that my existence as a lesbian, which feels so marginalized, is itself a form of resistance that feels like it has gathered over lifetimes.

Yesterday some of us from the Pilgrimage were able to connect together over zoom. Afterwards, I had a dream where we were together after our gathering in a kitchen, getting ready to eat as we would if we had been together in person. On a high wall to my left, there was a huge embroidered tapestry with a message, some words I can’t remember as advice to women and then ‘Love, Mother Mary’, on top of a huge rose petal, burgundy red. Below her were women interacting with each other, in a live tapestry, and they were lifting their skirts to each other. One had a woman’s head coming out, birthing (like the art work by Frida Kahlo of birthing herself), and another was covering a woman’s head in cloth that was arising from the ground. This was a representation of the life force, birth and death, I understood.

And a message came to me, ‘The Word is Power.’

It feels challenging to claim that. Power has had such a feel of dominator energy, both as male domination and as white settler colonialism, that it’s hard to feel comfortable with it. (Though I have argued for it in the past. It feels hard to claim it fully as belonging to women in particular.) That in itself tells me the meaning, of what so many of us are grieving. I am acutely aware of frustration at not being able to say all that I mean freely, without risking stepping over lines that are designed to punish uprising women. I grieve for that since we are still not where we want to be. We’re not yet free and knowing our unfreedom makes it hard to be a woman, to affirm being a woman. It’s not safe to do that when to many people on both the left and right, being a woman is confused with being a doormat, or that remains one among the acceptable definitions (e.g. a well-known published trans writer has graphically talked about identity as a woman meaning being sexually dominated, treated as a hole). It’s not safe to talk about this even in spaces that are women-only, lesbian, feminist, we are having to create safe spaces to talk with each other but then it becomes an echo chamber if we don’t do more. (And women are doing more. It’s my own action I’m struggling with.)

Thinking about what it means to hold space – to defend it with our presence, our will, our taking up of space. Being there and not being dislodged. Connecting with the life force and grounding into that, so we can be unshakeable no matter what happens. We can adapt and hold the heartbeat. There’s an energy of growth that needs to happen, like a tree growing upward and downward and outward, its trunk adding rings. Trees can topple and it’s not only one tree either, the roots connecting underground, the seeds, the life continuing however it can.

Power is to be used effectively, and for that reason it can also make sense to hold it in abeyance until one finds the outlet, the time to light the spark. That is how I see my sense of things now for lesbians and for women generally. I move cautiously in my power, and move decisively whenever it is time.