Awakening the Feminine: STEVIE NICKS

Awakening the Feminine...continuing to illuminate powerful female voices...today is STEVIE NICKS and the song STAND BACK.  Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/bwdDVZsz2es

Awakening the Feminine: Marianne Williamson

Today I'm illuminating a brilliant quote from Marianne Williamson.  I carried this with me every day of my life after it was given to me by a dear friend.  As i grow older, I'm coming to realize the power of this message.  As women, we will be told to play small, avoid offending others, speak softly, make less money, and so on....lest we offend the men in our lives.  No! We are all born to make manifest the glory of God within.  It's courageous to live into the call...afterall...no one said it would be easy.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Awakening the Feminine: Hildegard of Bingham and VIRIDITAS

Day two of illuminating powerful feminine voices - Hildegard of Bingham and VIRIDITAS!

Here is an excerpt from a Patheos article about St. Hildegard: 

"One of the fundamental principles of Hildegard's worldview is viriditas, which means the "greening power of God." But even more than that, it refers to a lushness and fecundity in the world, a greening life force we can witness in forests and gardens and farmland. Hildegard, who lived in the valley around the river Rhine in Germany, was profoundly impacted by her witness to the profusion of greenness and how this green life energy was a sign of abundance and life. It is what sustains and animates us."

Patheos Article

AWAKENING the Feminine: Featuring Maya Angelou, "And Still I Rise"

Until the election, I am going to post daily images of powerful women....women that I can look up to in the midst of one of the most triggering political seasons I've ever experienced. Many of these women have survived the horror of suffering, only to emerge strengthened THROUGH the vulnerability.
Today I begin with Maya Angelou, Still I Rise.

This season, I have grown tired of hearing about the masculine perspective on rape, assault, and sexual abuse...I am weary after observing the way that men and women tear each other down in the midst of disagreement. The narrative lacks feminine wisdom. As a budding theologian, a mother, an artist, and woman survivor, I am more interested in the those individuals throughout history who have risen above the suffering to forge their own path rooted in the feminine. These are the LOVING and STRONG voices that I choose to illuminate.

NOTE: This is not a political move in support on Hillary Clinton. I do not support any political candidate. This is a much bigger statement about the power of awakening the FEMININE voice. It's lacking in our culture. It's YIN in a society built upon YANG. It's the quiet of contemplation in a world focused on words. It's silence amidst the noise.

Still I Rise
Maya Angelou, 1928 - 2014

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.