Sisterwound

My maiden (Maiden is the feminine archetype before Mother) heart breaks like nothing else when it comes to sisters. I have been abused and raped by men and these incidents severed me from my power, my voice, connection to my body and the belief that I could keep myself and my children saf  e. The abuse broke my spirit. My biggest heartbreaks however have been at the words, hands and deeds of women. I have done my share of hurting too. I have had many conflicts with women in my life and I remember them all deeply in my body. Before I became intimate with and remembered the language of my body, these wounds would manifest as jealousy, comparison, judgement, inadequacy, lack of boundaries in order to please or impress and zero trust in women which my Scorp moon would turn into the whole “keep your enemies close” saga (that shit is TOXIC AF.)

A part of me wonders if I or my ancestors were sold out by a woman or multiple women to be burnt at the stake somewhere in the late 1600’s so that they could keep their own families safe. After I gave birth to Fox I was repelled by other pregnant women and young mothers. Something in me made me believe that they were my enemy. I’ve never said or written that out loud before. I feel so much shame in that statement and yet, it is how I felt. Still to this day, I am triggered by feeling misunderstood, dismissed or conspired against by women (especially those who I have shared a piece of my heart with) and have found it difficult to sit in front of a group of women and introduce myself in all my multiplicity without feeling like I am taking up too much space. I know I’m not the only one that feels this way. The Sisterwound lives in all of us. It was created by Patriarchy and it has been used to keep us depleted, fragmented and alone.

To not trust each other is a condition of survival in a male dominated world. We learned to suppress our voices because it wasn’t safe to speak in hierarchies where we were the minority so we would take our rage and frustration out in the only “safe” place we knew–on other women.  These structures of our society taught us to turn against each other, betray each other and compare ourselves against our sisters instead of recognising the power we possess in community, sharing stories, taking care of one another, sitting in circle diminishing power struggles by connecting to each other and the Earth.

When I came to birthwork I knew that this was a mountain I had to overcome. If I was to be serving women, I had to love women. If I was to love women, I had to love myself. If women were to trust me, my insides had to match my outsides. There is no fooling a person in labour.

Part of the process of opening up and trusting myself and the women around me was to get clear and honest about the relationships I did have with those who I called my friends. I had to recognise where my insides weren’t matching my outsides as well as the trauma bonding, the expectations, the energetic leaks, the betrayal… the bitchiness. Heck, my 20’s were just different groups of women talking shit about each other depending on who wasn’t around. It was nasty and it only fed the beast. I started trying to create and express boundaries based on what it was to feel safe and to be honest and it was nothing short of chaos. I felt like every time I tried, I’d end up losing another friend. Eventually I stopped trying, not the boundaries but the whole friendship thing. I’m lucky that some of my dearest stuck around as I figured this stuff out but most haven’t either because I have hurt them or they me, or they are loyal to those I did hurt or without the kinetic energy they simply fall away.

Birthwork has put me at the feet of women so that I can now sit in circle with women. I am now in total reverence of them. I love them all. If I find myself judging, I take a proverbial mirror and ask myself what it is about that person that I feel lack in myself. I am healed and healing and through it I have attracted some powerful new friendships and found so much more depth and appreciation for my old friendships with the common thread being this beautiful, free-flowing, reciprocal love, care, safety and trust.

Now as I say all this I can’t not acknowledge the gendered language I have used. I am using this language to speak to those who have been socialised as women as this is the point of the Sisterwound however this leads me to realising that while I have no intent on excluding folk who do not identify as women, I am and so to bring the conversation to a full circle, just as it needs to be, there is this:

The reason I love birth is because it teaches me about life and death. When I say, “these structures of our society taught us to turn against each other, betray each other and compare ourselves against our sisters instead of recognising the power we possess in community, sharing stories, taking care of one another, sitting in circle diminishing power struggles by connecting to each other and the Earth” I am not just talking about women, I am talking about every body. Patriarchy didn’t just oppress women, it suppressed all humans and created a gender binary that was damaging to the human spirit. Now that we are learning to come together and love our sisters, please let us be conscious of the ways that we reenact the original severing of community by Patriarchy. Let us recognise that the transphobia that runs rampant in “Women’s Work” is a direct symptom of the wounding. It is rooted in fear, hatred and distrust of the men that turned against each other. I hear you that you are concerned about female erasure through language? The denial of trans bodies is direct erasure. Trans rights are NOT men’s rights. I hear that you object to terms such as “cis” as it negates sex-based oppression which harms women? Can you not zoom out and see that you are becoming the oppressors? THAT is erasure.

Everything you are concerned about, you are perpetrating onto others by calling them dangerous? Now I know, I KNOW, it is because you have never met a trans person in your life. That matters.

Our wombs are not the only part of us that connects us and besides even if they were, we all came from one. True human connection is the medicine we offer to the world as we sit in circle with no hierarchy. To be connected to the Earth and its cycles. Some of us have wombs and bleed with the moon and birth children if we want to and some of us do not have wombs and birth new paradigms, art and unconditional love, some of us do it all. None of us is less than the other.

When I envision about a healed Earth, I see seated, rooted, sovereign beings connected by story, open hearts and open hands. We take our time, we are present, we are every age, gender and colour. We ask for what we desire, we take responsibility and we do not project onto one another. We are safe, loving, hilarious and warm. We are wild as fire, strong as mountains, soft as rain, free as the wind.

Every human possess the gift of creation within our souls. Every single human on this green earth. To be alive is be creative. Let’s hold hands and heal our wounds together.