DISMANTLING THE PATRIARCHY STARTS WITH YOUR DEEPEST DESIRE . . .
As I lean into the vulnerability hangover after “coming out” as a priestess, I also feel the exhilaration of freedom. I understand the need for rules, boundaries, and structure. I want to be clear about the structures I build around myself as I create a new world for myself as an embodied role model for living outside the patriarchal paradigm, as best I can. I will try not to turn this new path of self-discovery into another quest for “getting it right.” I was raised to be a good daughter of the patriarchy and I’m sure it will take a few generations to turn this bad boy around.
Let’s start with power. Mine, yours and ours. What do we do with it? How do we use it for the greater good? At least 5,000 years ago or longer, human culture shifted from matriarchal to patriarchal society. Keep in mind matriarchal does not mean women run the show. It means “power with” and valuing the greater whole. There’s thorough evidence, proven through archeological findings, that we existed prior to that for approximately 30,000 years as a goddess worshiping matriarchal culture. Reading Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler 30 years ago was a mind-blowing breakthrough for me. I didn’t understand. The proof was right here. Why are we doing this to ourselves? Why are we creating a structure that sets us up to feel stressed out, overworked, constantly at war, and starved for true community and intimacy?
I find it ironic that we (my internalized patriarchy is talking about white Europeans right now) immigrated to America to find freedom from a patriarchal church and government and here we are! Please see this with me and let’s not forget it again. I was lulled back to sleep after many other mind-blowing discoveries because the system we’re in isn’t designed for freedom. We’re all slaves and have given our power away.
I decided to hone my focus in service to humanity on the Divine Feminine in women because it’s up to us to lead us out of this mess. I think the men are looking to us to lead knowingly or not. Let’s say many of them don’t know what they don’t know and leave it at that. Men and women who are starved for healthy female leadership will fall into place with Divine Masculine structures to support us. They are sick of this too. The awakened Divine Masculine men seem to know this as well and I can only imagine what kind of guilt they are carrying for the culture. How do they stand a chance either?
I look at the way women have internalized the patriarchy and I want to start with a good long look at how we act from this unconscious place. It’s all we’ve known. It’s all our mother’s knew. Can we blame them? I know we all have. The mother/daughter wound runs deep from this split between women. Some of the ways I see this play out among women is through competition & jealousy, care-taking/enabling, gaslighting by denying our psychic and intuitive gifts (staying silent), passive aggressive gaslighting (silencing other women energetically by withholding/stonewalling), gossiping, covert and energetic aggression and violence. I recently learned the term horizontal violence as it relates to women in healthcare professions. This struck me as a great way to language what women do to one another in a patriarchal culture. The “power over” patriarchal paradigm creates a dynamic where we have to compete with each other and men to obtain any power.
How about we knock that off ladies?! Find your ugly shadow and set yourself free. Mine is definitely codependency and caretaking of others to my own depletion. I was so deeply mired in it I couldn’t see the forest or any trees because I ran myself completely out of juice. I kept getting knocked down. It took that. It took breast cancer and near death experiences. Maybe it takes a pandemic for us to stop over-giving and placing our focus on others, long enough to ask ourselves what WE really desire. If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for humanity. It seems the majority of our leaders are doing it from a toxic patriarchal position of power, filling their pockets, creating a deeper split in our human collective.
Let’s take this opening and opportunity to drop in and dig deep. Let’s start there.
What does Divine Feminine desire?
What does your soul desire?
For you and the world?
Your Priestess Guide
Jenna
