Need and receiving
(continuation of harvest Women Moving the Edge Cape Ann)
It was Monday morning now, the last half day of our gathering here in Magnolia. I had a lot of notes from the day before that I didn’t grasp enough to be able to talk or blog about it. There had been this ‘flipping’ around the notion of women and need, but I didn’t understand it really… I didn’t ‘get’ it. So I raised the question if someone was able to help me out in the morning circle… this seemed like an invitation to dive deeper into it, until the last moments of being together in the circle. It had grabbed most of us.
Throughout the whole gathering we had been repeating one of the agreements in Circle Council: Ask for what you need, offer what you can. This is a splendid agreement to make every group into a leaderful group. Everyone is supposed to take responsibility for their own needs and passions and to offer in service of the whole. But what we had come across was more than this. It seemed to be beyond the paradox of need and offer. As one woman said: “No person can follow their own soul’s calling.” If we are on the level of soul my need seems to be an offer, or at least an invitation…
Some notes from Saturday afternoon:
This is an invitation to dramatically alter the way women can be together.
This is the feminine way of what it is to be on a team for men.
Because it is about wisdom, we each need to stay unique and link from there; receiving each other and see the need as receiving. The reception creates the next unfolding! I don’t understand this; I need to sit with this a lot, but I sense it!
Maybe it explains… needing in the context of peers, needing in the context of consciousness…
At the very minimal level it is about receiving the gifts from the others.
We are needing something from each other in order to co-create.
What is the level of honesty that is asked for here? First it is about going inwards; then there is the come out through voicing it; last is to be received in authenticity.
When you receive my gift then the cycle of gratitude works, and it cycles, over and over…
There followed different stories of remembering and pain…
… being initiated in re-connecting with the Earth in a very physical way… wanting to weep: Where have you been? I’m so glad you are back! How lonely we have been throughout history. And now we are not alone if we pursue what we pursue.
… a story of Enough is enough! against abuse by priests and church… I needed someone who stood with me. I need people who can stand and make a big noise if need be.
… a story of fear… if I ask for what I need, I might not be able to get it… particularly with women… now experiencing the solidarity…
The wounding is collective, not just individual.
The story is old, not just this lifetime.
Somewhere in the night appeared this sentence in my awareness:
I need you, because of us.
(more in next blogposts)