I didn’t meet my first heart sister till I was 23. She was the first woman to help me feel that women were safe. Up until then, women were dangerous. When I was 12, I had a double D cup size, it was hard to be a 12 year old. Attention from young and older men that I didn’t know what to do with and a hostility from other young and older women that had nothing to do with me. I had a few good mates in high school, the misfits, the others that didn’t fit in, but all we had was our shared outcast status.
In lots of ways, that assisted me to live a fairly sovereign life, holding very little value to any one outside of me. A fairly alone existence, I had no idea how much I was missing out on. When my first sister held space open for me, with me, with her, I began the longest love affair of my life, the love of being a woman, with women. Being a Cancerian (and a young mum), I am very good at the mothering of others, but the place of being with, all equal and everything was what I was to learn to share, to be with, to enjoy deeply.
Sisterhood is a very very BIG word. One for the offering of another state between women, beyond that constant place of competition, where every other woman is a threat to the man you have or the man you want. On the other side of comparison, the constant diatribe of who is prettier/thinner/taller/smarter/richer… than me? When we put down the swords of competition, and the shields of comparison, we have a chance to truly be with those incredible moments of being a woman with women.
In the picture I am sitting in circle with women from the Seven Sisters gathering last year. We are in a very safe space, a delicious tipi, sharing some deeply powerful parts of womanhood. I am eternally grateful for sharing this circle and many many others. I know that it takes a whole lot of practice to put down the swords, usually our cutting words, and our shields, mostly our judgmental mind, but if I may… Well worth the effort!
Living Circles 