This morning I was asked, "How do you feel we can best assist women in their own empowerment?"
An excerpt from the UPFLIFT article entitled, "What It really Means to Hold Space for Someone."
We must come to a weightier understanding of what its means to "hold space" for our sisters and ourselves. To avail ourselves to the “other” in a way that invigorates our curiosity and places judgment on the back burner. To fashion and carry with us a platform where stories can both be told and attended to with the respect and regard they deserve. Most importantly so when the experiences described by the storyteller contradict the truth of our own. To dig deep in acknowledgement of the festering wounds we have harbored for generations and daubed with flowering pleasantries to distract from the stench. To then do the hard work of owning up to these inflictions. To study well their depth and gravity, as if this level of awareness were necessary curriculum for our very liberation.
Women's circles are fabulous, but I want us to do the hard work of cradling the darkness and honoring the shadow when we share these sacred spaces. Conversations that coax the pain and massage our suffering are rarely had and desperately required.
We must become fluent in the long lost language of solidarity. We must be willing to toil in solitude until the memory of camaraderie returns to our collective. We are in dire need of a refresher course on the import of disobedience and the necessity of disruption. Brick by brick or by devastating blow, we must devour every structure and system of bondage before us and within, paying special attention to the ones we cosigned and helped to erect. We must demonstrate camaraderie over condemnation. Disparaging our sisters must no longer be tolerated anywhere. Empathy must return to the altar and replace the sacrificial sword used for centuries to eviscerate our sisters to satisfy the patriarchy.
We reclaim our power when we welcome home our ancestors whose names we have forgotten, but who we now mistakenly identify as “fear” and “suffering.”
When we can rightly name and reclaim these ancestors, the “fear” dissipates and our clarity returns to reveal the face of fierce love. No longer does forgetfulness confuse and terrorize us. When we recollect the dusk of our days with reverence and rightly identify these forgotten fragments of our wholeness we are doing the hard work of "collecting the bones."