Women
Women have wisdom to offer the world in these difficult times. Wisebirds groups explore what this wisdom is, and how we can contribute to a regenerative culture shift.
Great Mother
Making daily life sacred
Goddess
Our work empowers women to value our wisdom and strengths, and know that we have an important contribution to make to our world. Women’s wisdom and the values associated with women are the basis of our life-affirming paradigm. Ecofeminism points this out.
WOMEN WILL SAVE THE WORLD
In recent times, HH the Dalai Lama has been calling women to come forward: he says it will be women who save the world. We have more sensitivity to people, and more compassion, he says.
My mother thoroughly agreed with that. I think it’s women, and the ways of doing things associated with women, and Mother Nature.
There are men out there who are also building a culture based on the ecosystem principles of Mother Nature: permaculturists for example. To build a workable future, we of course need both men and women to take
an empowered hand in it.
Let’s take more of a look at the ways of doing things associated with women and Nature.
Mother Nature is sacred. We rely on her. She is mother of all of us, and all creatures are our family. In nature’s ecosystems, all creatures cooperate for their mutual support, (that includes eating each other – it’s not all sweetness and light).
Mothers love, care for and nurture the life of their children, just as the earth does. Helping life to flourish is the important thing. Women are associated with tend-befriend behaviours, rather than competition and hierarchies. We don’t want to raise our kids as cannon fodder.
This is the way of life the world needs urgently right now, so we can all value the life of people in all nations, and all creatures, and cooperate to protect us all from the dire effects of climate change and other looming horrors: which are the result of our present dominator system, or patriarchy, which values way associated with males the most.
This is to me what Ecofeminism is. It’s more than women hugging trees. It’s women’s wisdom and caring, which is the same as Mother Nature’s, forming the foundation of the way we all live.
making the daily life sacred
Women often ask certain questions when approaching meditation and Buddhism:
Can I have my spiritual life in the midst of my ordinary one?
What does detachment mean? Can I love my children/partner and not be attached?
Can I be compassionate without draining myself? and look after myself at the same time?
Can I feel more fully present and good in my woman’s body?
I don’t want to get rid of my ego – I need a stronger sense of self. Can I feel more confident, without having an inflated ego?
Can I make positive use of menstruation and menopause for meditation?
What do we mean by self?
On the level of ultimate truth, there is no distinction of male and female. However, our conditioning means that our approach is different, as we grow and develop.
Meditation opens up the strengths and beauty of our nature, and enables us to act spontaneously and appropriately in each moment, not from old conditioned habits. This takes us beyond the narrow sense of self, into a greater empowerment.
the feminine
Why is it important to consider ‘the feminine’?
Lao Tzu said ‘Know the male, live in the female.’
In the culture we live in, masculine and feminine are defined in a certain way: strong and weak, active and passive, intellectual and intuitive, pushy and receptive, aggressive and compassionate – and so on. ‘Masculine’ qualities are valued, ‘feminine’ are seen as inadequate.
Are these qualities the best we could be? What feminine and masculine qualities would provide a framework in which we could all develop our strengths?
Tibetan meditation deities offer models for male and female that are rather different from what we are familiar with. They can offer us an opportunity for transforming our expectations.