October 27, 2004
A Ferocious Beauty
Excerpt from a talk given at the GTW Congress 04
by Patricia Smith Melton
I am a woman, it has not been my world for thousands of years.
Why does the world not pay attention to me, to how I see?
Some say my fall began with the bringing in of the alphabet, blessed gift born out of and rooted in the analytical side of all of us, strengthened in men with left brains honed to getting directly from A to B, rising from the need to get the arrow into the heart of the woolly mammoth, … and in women, too, the left brains strengthened, … all power to literacy, to the literate, forming meaning/sense out of little lines on paper instead of the way the wind blows and the air smells and the sun changes! Words over image; particulars over total; thought over feeling.
Take strength away from the goddess, from the fertility goddess, from the goddess of nature and spring and renewal, and cycles, take power away! -- burn her, stifle her, destroy her images, rise up Zeus, words over image, down with the wily dangerous irrational ways of women!.
Praise to one female god, Athena, birthed out of the mind of a male god -- Zeus -- and who herself declares the male mind perfect. Ideal woman born out of the mental processes of thinking men! Who writes this stuff?
Woman out of the rib of man, a useless part, a non -vital part? Who wrote this? Not my Lillith, not my Judith, not my Mary. Not even my Gloria, or Bela, Germaine, or Elizabeth Cady or Rosa. Not Sojourner. "Ain't I a woman?" . . . ain't I a person?
Is it because of this forcible expulsion -- happening then, stillnow -- that I do not feel the touchstone of my being? I am at the well -- blind or seeing?
Condemned for my 'irrational" ways, how will I see the whole of who I am?
Or was it the Huns and Mongols coming over the mountains and across the plain and Steppes, killing, slaughtering -- all power to muscle, all power to savageness!
Or commercial trade routes and when trading went from barter to gold, from stuff to abstract?
Is that when I became property? Is that when I was hidden -- first out of the preciousness of my cargo and later out of the shamefulness of my cargo?
Or was it because I did not adhere to violence and it was becoming a violent world?
I make myself small, smaller, smallest, silent … waiting for his wrath to pass… no more woolly mammoth, smaller mammals now, I am his smaller mammal target. My children are his smaller mammals.
I am at the well with the women, and we see each other. Are there men at the well also who suspect something terribly untrue has sway in the world?
Are they out in the midst of my non-seeing? Does my fear make me blind to them?
Do they see me? Do they see us -- gathering, gathering in circles like the Madres of the Plaza de Maya keening for their disappeared children? Do the men wish they could come closer to the well?
Who among the women will break the code of silence after Gloria, Bela, Rosa, Sojourner:
"I see more, I know more and you better pay attention."
How it is women know where everything is in our house -- the socks, the can opener, the homework, the telephone tree for school; where everything is in our family, the hurts, the secrets, the angers, the rivalries, the falsehoods, the unexpected loves; where everything is in our community, the bribery, the power struggles, the thread of goodness and need for parks; for our region, less fear, more solar housing, schools with art programs, education for everyone, places to meet and hear each other; and for the world …. the need for courage to care, to greet and hold rather than bomb and zap.
How it is women know it is about the women and the children and the poor and the men and the needy and the beautiful, and the rich, and the ill and the blessed, and the deprived, and those with eyes of one shape and hair of one texture and bodies of yet another, dividing and divisible, kaleidoscope of colors and sounds and beings -- yet all one light, all one being?
How is it we know all languages are one language, all hearts are one…. and where, and when, and why did we lose power in the world and lose faith in ourselves?
We are here now.
There is massive destruction surrounding us, and we see more in the bushes -- so to speak.
This massive wound is either created by humans or allowed to continue by humans.
Fear is the primary weapon of massive destruction.
Women are more capable physiologically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically of healing the world because we see, comprehend, and process holistically.
Women were repressed through millennia, and we are only now regaining our individual and collective strength.
We no longer have the leeway, the luxury of evolving slowly into a re-consciousness of what we are capable of doing.
We must lead the way.
The truth of the matter is: right brain
Harmony and chaos have long been in a battle.
The power of Love is ultimately stronger than fear.
Women are rising now, compelled by love seeing the need. We are coming into our power through connections and communication. We are remembering who we are, … and it feels like freedom, and it feels good.
We can cradle humanity with our feeling side, organize the world with our analytical side, see everything and everyone around us.
Women are the sex whose time has come. We are a thing of ferocious beauty!
Patricia Smith Melton is the filmmaker who traveled round the world to film the Peacexpeace documentaries, Women at the Frontlines, and now, The Peace Circle.
YOU CAN ORDER COPIES OF THESE FILMS FROM US.
Subsequently Peacexpeace formed the Global Network of Women's Circles. For more about this great organization, and to find a sister circle across the globe, please visit their web site.