(Lovely photo by Patia Stephens)
In my last post, I said that there are many pioneering women out exploring the edge of what it means to live most fully as a person and as a woman. What it means to live your best life individually, and also as an active, evolving member of society. Spiritual leaders, film-makers, writers, musicians, teachers, social activists, psychologists, scientists, business women.
A great way to hear and be inspired by many of them is through a terrific free tele-seminar series called "Women on the Edge of Evolution: Awakening to the power to co-create our lives and shape our collective future". This series is produced by transformational coaches and visionaries Katherine Woodward Thomas and Claire Zammit. Interested people can listen and participate on the live calls, or download recordings afterward. Here are the talks currently available in the archives:
I wanted to give the complete list here to illustrate the richness of the offering. Obviously, some topics will appeal more than others. And the list, while impressive, is not exhaustive. I'd love to hear as well from Oprah, Dr. Christiane Northrup, and Regena Thomashauer (aka Mama Gena). And some business leaders and political figures. Perhaps in Round 2 ...... But overall, this is an excellent resource for evolutionary-minded women. There's something useful here for everyone.
If you're interested in this whole "evolutionary" thing, but could do without the feminine lens, there is another series you may want to check out. It's called Awakening the Impulse to Evolve. I have not started listening to the recordings yet, so I cannot give as wholehearted a recommendation as I do to the Women on the Edge ones. But some of the topics look intriguing. Here are a few:
This week, over a civilized lunch at Jacque's Omlettes with my friend Sarah, the conversation turned to the complex place in which we find ourselves and our women friends. It's like we're shooting the rapids at the confluence of two great psychological and social rivers. And it promises to be a long ride.
Challenge #1: Self-Actualization
We are a privileged group by world standards: well educated and enjoying an unprecedented level of personal security and social freedom. If you picture psychologist Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of human needs, we are fortunate to have the basic business of shelter and survival in hand. Also social support, and a measure of achievement. Increasingly, we are trying to navigate the less-traveled terrain of self-actualization. Maslow described self-actualization as "the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming." It's easy to dismiss any terrors and growing pains in this process as nice problems to have. And indeed they are. But the need to grow in this way is no less insistent than the need for food or friendship. And the anxiety, when this need is blocked, is intense.
I am reminded of my doctoral program. The early years -- classes through comprehensive exams -- were quite structured, as we all marched lock-step through together. But then most of those support structures fell away. We were left flailing about, crafting researchable proposals, carrying out our research, and writing the dissertations. Each candidate had to find his or her individual path: by definition, unique and uncharted. The paradox was that it was virtually impossible to navigate alone. There is no way I could have done it without guidance from my advisors, companionship and intellectual play with my colleagues, and the support of friends and family. And so it is with self-actualization, with expressing our whole selves and full potential in the world: by definition a unique and ultimately personal endeavor, while also impossible to manage alone.
Challenge #2: Redefining the Feminine
Meanwhile, we're entering this stage of our lives at a time when our feminine identities, our roles as women, are also in a state of flux. The women's movement of the 1960s reflected a large-scale collective hunger to stretch beyond the traditionally feminine roles of wife and mother, care-giver and home-maker. A hunger to push and express and hazard ourselves in the wider world. The courage and determination of that generation of women, and the generation that followed, have given Sarah and me, and our peers, the platform to ask "are we there yet? Is this it?"
My sense is that western women, collectively, are feeling that this is not "it", not yet. Too many of us have, in the immortal words of Gloria Steinem, "become the men we wanted to marry". We have adopted, often with great success, traditionally masculine ways of thinking and acting at work. Then we go home and try to assume more "feminine" ways in our personal lives. The result is a pervasive feeling that something is missing, that life doesn't quite fit either at work or at home, that some essential light has gone out. Others, who have chosen to stay at home and raise their children, do so with a nagging sense that their choice is somehow unsupported or out of step.
Fortunately, this discomfort is balanced by an equally strong feeling that something new is trying to be born through us. What if we could evolve new ways of being women, that were:
What might that look like? We don't fully know yet. But something new and alive and hopeful is already beginning to come through. We're catching glimpses of it in other women and in ourselves. That itchiness you're feeling? It's collective. And the good news is that there are lots of passionate pioneering women exploring this frontier. I'll introduce some of them in my next post.
So that's what Sarah and I were talking about at lunch: the complexity of living at the intersection of these two powerful impulses, in the Wild West of so much uncharted territory. Only one thing is clear to me: the two must be engaged together. I cannot be fiercely whole as a person without being so as a woman as well. Who else is here, too? How can we help each other as we go? And what wonders can we create?
Early spring has arrived in Toronto. Though the branches and flower beds are still bare, all around we feel the quickening of new life. A concentration of energy, sucking in of nourishment, and sprouting of hidden shoots, before leaves and flowers burst into form. Pairs of waterfowl are feeding on the pond in the park (mainly frozen last week; entirely thawed now), enjoying a few weeks of freedom before the commitments of nests and babies.I am feeling spring, too. I have spent the winter, such as it was, immersed in new ideas and skills. Learning to experience consciousness as infinite, non-local and generative. Reading about the emerging multi-disciplinary field of "conscious evolution". Learning how to create healthier relationships. Studying the evolution of feminine identity. Contemplating the development of a management consulting course. And with spring, like the plants, I feel the energy collecting, pushing to be organized and born in the form of writing. But also, like the plants, this new growth is still largely unmanifest. Last week, it was still "soon, but not yet". When, driven by the building pressure of the energy, and my enthusiasm for the topics, I tried to write about them, the ideas lay pale and fragmented on the page.
I was torn. On one hand, I looked at the natural world of which I am a part, and saw that everywhere creation is an organic process of allowing what needs to be born to be born. On the other hand, I am a firm believer in a modicum of discipline, and the wisdom of Karl Weick: "how do I know what I think until I see what I say?" In other words, "sit down and write, already!" This is what separates humans from plants and animals: the ability to get tied up in knots about where we are and where we are not.
From last week to this, I see several changes marking the advance of spring in the park. The ice, I've mentioned. There are shoots of new, green grass, and a few buds on the trees. The sun shines warmer, and more birds are singing. This is the change I've noticed in myself: like rising sap, the words have begun again to flow. So I will return to the unknotting of big tangled subjects like consciousness, relationship, and evolution. And every so often I'll get a piece smoothed out enough to blog about it. And I will do so inside a sense of kinship with the natural world, remembering that this is the season when we are all engaged in bringing forth something new. We are all engaged in that awesome, timeless alchemy of transmuting energy into physical form.
What is building in you, wanting to be created?
In the last post, I summarized what some of my friends are doing, or planning to do to make this year more juicy, fun, vibrant, and alive than last year. Here is my own list. It may not be necessary to do everything, all the time, but I bet it'll be fun to try!
This year, I desire to:
Physical
Creative
Social
Experiential and Intellectual
Just reading over this list gives me a happy hum of anticipation. Because I know I'm standing up for myself imaginatively, and making the creation of a joyful, juicy life a priority. And even on the grayest and chilliest of January days, I have plenty to look forward to!
What are YOU going to do??
Not that I have anything against "I'm going to get in shape / lose 20 lbs / be more productive" type of new year's resolutions. Goodness knows, I always have a bunch myself. But it's cold, damp and January. What I really need is inspiration!
What I really want to know is what people are doing to ensure that 2010 is more FUN than 2009. So I sent the following question out to some of my friends: "What do you plan to do (or what have you already starting doing) to make this year more FUN, RICH, INTERESTING, VIBRANT, JUICY and JOYFUL than last year?" And here are their responses:
Being Creative
Getting Out and About
Cherishing Friends and Family
Flirting, and More
Taking Special Care of Themselves
Thank you very much to everyone who responded so thoughtfully and generously to my question!! If you're reading this, I want to hear from you too. Let's create a great big list of inspiring ideas for a fun, juicy, ALIVE year! A list we can refer back to when things get dull. This post is turning into a book, so I'll stop here. In the next post, I'll say what I'm planning to do!
(Hey, I want to give credit where due. I created the collage in the pic, but that marvelous photo of the little girl with all the hula hoops is by Dennis Mosner.)