I sat with beautiful humans Sunday afternoon in preparation for a November Flow Game training. Each of us brought a question—ideally both parts “oh yes!” and “oh shit!" These then refined in Wisdom Council, i.e. with clarifying questions from those gathered. I came with a curiosity about my experiences this past week, holding circle for only men—six men and me—which manifested some of the healthiest, most moving, and hopeful masculinity I’ve ever experienced. They were with one another as men in a way that gave me hope, that seemed to surprise even themselves.
So the original question invited me into deeper learning about my own gifts...for the work I seem called to...transformation in human beings to be themSelves. First version came out as Is there a gift in my tumultuous feminine awakening (in my own rage) for the transformation of men? The parenthetical names my own experience a little more honestly. Framing it this way makes it a yes/no, so we worked toward “what key?” or “what gifts” might my feminine rage offer…? Several women nodded appreciatively, liking the 'rage' named.
As the discussion unfolded, however, another layer emerged from below, even as primary: “What key (gifts?) does the transformation of feminine rage hold for me in my commitment to human beings’ transformation toward wholeness?” I’m interested in the key/gifts, but what landed in my belly was transformation. It’s not the rage, in other words. It’s the transformation of the rage that landed as most significant.
Curious...!
One of the things that I am learning is how freedom can come after the rage. There is an ease in me today, in my mind and in my body, having leaned into the deep belly grief I feel about the betrayal and abandonment of women, for centuries, by family, church, civic world and more. I have raged, literally for years, sometimes knowing it’s about the treatment of women, sometimes not knowing what it’s truly about. This rage I feel can still get triggered, but I am more free than I have ever been. To be myself, come hell or high water. Or more realistically, come connection, abundance, vision, and hope.
So I wonder: in what ways has my own feminine rage been transformed over these last years? It’s still whole, it seems, but wiser? Tempered? Better directed? Purposeful? I don’t actually know… I’m no longer trying to rid myself of it, for one. Nor am I directing it outward in attempts to change them, whomever ‘they’ might be. I’m learning to feel the hurt given me as a woman, in a woman’s body…beginning to learn that it does not last forever. Not even sadness lasts forever.
This past week, in a circle of all men, I spoke the truth of the abandonment of women but without judgment or blame. I held my own center as an authority in the room. I let my hurt be seen. A holy different masculinity emerged.
What might that mean for restorative wisdom?