Grab 'Em by the Patriarchy

Photo by Johannah Reimer

"I do think that women could make politics irrelevant by a kind of spontaneous cooperative action, the like of which we have never seen; -very subtle forms of interrelation that do not follow some hierarchal pattern which is fundamentally patriarchal. The opposite of patriarchy is not matriarchy but fraternity ( I prefer panarchy), yet I think it's women who are going to have to break this spiral of power and find the trick of cooperation."
Germaine Greer

Ok I'm just going to say it. The men in power have fucked our country. And our world. I'm not saying all men are bad, obviously...I love me some really good men, like my amazing family.. I'm saying those that have worked their way into leadership, quite often, have done more harm than good, with some awesome exceptions (Senator Sanders, President Obama, Congressman Lewis, etc...) But by and large our planet, and most of the people on it, have been fucked. And I think it's women and those in touch with feminine qualities, that will be the change that brings us into balance.

I don't believe one has to be born into a female body to embody feminine qualities, we all have access. But one thing I know, we HAVE to come from the inside out. We HAVE to be in touch with our feelings, with our own state of being, to support our world in a way that works for everyone. When we can feel ourselves, we grow our ability to feel others- to experience empathy and compassion- and make choices that benefit all beings everywhere. When we experience our aches and pains, our grief, our bliss, our pleasure, all of it....we are grounded in who we are and don't need to prove ourselves to others- over, say, twitter- and disregard everyone else's experience. When we don't need to push so hard against the world to feel ourselves, we can actually receive other people, from a place of centered grounding and openness. When we have no idea what's true for us or what we need, we act out. Like a toddler. And then we try to close the EPA or build stupid walls. Or contradict ourselves constantly because we are too afraid to sit in discomfort.

Dismantling the patriarchy and rising up with feminine wisdom can't come from conceptual mind. I think it has to come from living into the wisdom in our body and seeing what arises from there. This week in Awaken The Dance class, I read the above quote and then invited the dancers to imagine how things could be different. How we could shift the power in our world from a patriarchy to unity or panarchy: organization without unnatural hierarchy. How do we experience the shift in our bodies, how do we connect with our own power and see how our power is inseparable from that of everyone in the room? How do we communicate, body to body, from a place of deep connection? How do we deeply honor ourselves and extend that out effortlessly? I don't have an answer in words. But we danced it. And it felt intimate, exhilarating, expansive and unknown.

Here's what the dancers had to say after class:
"Thank you for the quote, and reminding us of this in the dance, and how we came to gather in the circle, it felt like wow! This is possible!"

"This morning was a perfect integration of external and internal."

"I am really practicing sitting in the stillness in the chaos, and I feel really grounded."

"What if we were the cabinet? Can you imagine if Trump could feel his body?! Our world would be different."

"I'm feeling very rebellious!"

"What I heard from my body the whole time was BE WILD! And I just had to keep telling my body that I loved it."

"I've been noticing how I'm really good at checking in with my feelings, when I'm home alone. So I'm working on connecting that with when I'm around people."

"I came in so sore this morning, and I felt tight. In the dance I felt a loosening in my body, and of old ways, of pre-conceived ideas."

"I really appreciated your re-frame of this time being a time for us to wake-up! We are waking up, instead of the easiness of falling into the depths of what's happening. It was really helpful for me to understand, oh this is what's happening too! We are rising up together. It seems we're powerless but that's not so!"  

Dance Invitation: Invite your cells and bones and blood and breathe to re-imagine our world. Invite yourself, from the inside out, to manifest a world where the patriarchy is dismantled by our grounded body-beings. Invite yourself to dance the whole world into this new paradigm.....dance it, don't think it.....let me know what happens.