What does it mean to be a woman in a world that desperately needs us? What does that actually look like? I foresee that the answers to these questions mean monumental change for everyone. For everyone to reflect on the importance of not what this means for womankind but what this means for everything of this world. For all those that were once part of and those not yet of this earth. How not only important but desperately needed it is for us to hold all of the loss and need in our hands at once.
It is so difficult to live inside the loss and so much easier to answer with what we believe the world needs. However, it is in holding and honouring of loss that we understand the granularity of our need. What is behind it and what we can do to serve it.
Our beautiful grandmothers were tenacious, strong and courageous. They kept hearths warm on the coldest of days, they made food last when there wasn’t any, they traded, they birthed and they buried. Their grandmothers and all of the grandmothers before them did the same. And, if you are of the belief that our ancestry doesn’t just include those that show up as humans, the plant mothers and animal mothers in our ancestry do this as well.
This, is what has fed us.
This lineage, this honour and this back breaking unrelenting spirit is what has guided humanity. This work was often done without complaint or despite bigger dreams and perhaps that’s why humans no longer believe this is important work. We no longer believe that the role our ancestors once held in such high esteem, are important. We need to grieve this loss to honour it’s place in who we are. To see a maple seed flutter to the ground and think, that Maple mother has tended to that seed, protected it from disease, held on tight through each storm only to see it helicopter away and gods willing, that seed may one day be the tree that my grandchild stands under for shade or climbs for fun.
What have been the consequences in a world without us? What is the result of us not having the seat at the table? What are we grieving on behalf of the world? What are we asking for forgiveness for? What are we forgiving? What have we forsaken in order to chase our egos?
It is in this grief that we will find what it means to show up for our world. What it means to show up for the earth, our ancestors and our children. It may not be to become the CEO, it may be teaching our sons to bake bread. It may mean taking your children to a march, or volunteering for a cause. In fact, it may even mean being whole in the exact spot you are in today and realizing that equity is the first step to equality.
That we need to honour who we are and where we came from in order to understand how we can show up. That whatever this represents, a cunning mind for tactical negotiation or the instincts for birthing babies that these both deserve a beautiful and glorious seat at the table. And the moment we understand that tending to humans is as important (if not more) as running a country, we can ensure that the way we show up in this world is for the sake of everything.
Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash