Relationships are everything.
Our individual view of the world is fragmented. We navigate through the lens of our relationships, and not just human ones. Acknowledged or unacknowledged, we are in relationship with everything around us, with our geography, and the phenology, botany, horticulture, zoology and ecology of the region in which we live.
Paying attention is the beginning of how we care for one another, how we bring the generosity of our presence to the plants and animals and people in our diverse ecosystems, how we become their allies, and they become ours.
Look around you. What and who do you surround yourself with? Do you recognize the mutualism? Who are your allies?
If there are two courses of action, you should take the third.
After a long hiatus, I am dancing again at J’s studio, The Stage. The women I dance with remind me there are more ways to live than the ones we learned in school, or from the various social contracts we got from our parents, our churches or community groups.
J runs a business that combines intelligent movement training with creative expression, which predominantly attracts women. I asked J about this and she replied:
I am the scary feminist that people try to say feminists aren’t. We like to say that we aren’t scary or angry and we don’t hate men. I used to be the kind of woman who said that. But not anymore. I mean, hell no. Of course I’m mad. I have a lot to be pissed about. There’s so much bullshit we deal with and I think it’s perfectly fine to be angry and be tired of protecting the fragile ego. So yeah, I’m not a friendly feminist.
I asked her if I could record her thoughts and she said yes. Mostly, I just listened. Here is a portion of our conversation.
J: I run this business very differently than most businesses. I read a lot of business advice, even from women, and I pretty much rejected all of it. Which I question every day. [She laughs.] Is this a good idea that I’m doing this in this way? Can I be successful like this? I think I have to redefine what successful means. I need to redefine this every day. I mean, sometimes I have only five dollars to buy groceries, and I feel like a piece of shit, but then I think, look at everything I accomplished today. I have people coming in here who have so much shit they’re dealing with every day and yet they show up and they’re getting stronger. I have people who tell me they have never been accepted by anyone, their whole lives. I have people here from so many backgrounds and cultures and languages and countries and that’s success. I’m making a lasting impact on everybody’s life in such a huge way and I get messages all the time from people who tell me I changed their lives and introduced them to a whole new perspective and that’s success.
M: So many people think that success is about money or power.
J: I’m not out there fighting the patriarchy, because I don’t care about them. I’m not out there fighting against them. It’s kind of like an anarchy situation, that we can take care of ourselves, that we don’t need you. I mean, the way I’m thinking about feminism now, is that capitalist ideology is built into all that. What if I don’t have that ideology? When you’re looking at women from other cultures, I mean, when I think of my background of being with Pakistani women and a Muslim culture and how many people think of middle eastern women as being oppressed in some way, I have seriously never met a middle eastern woman here in the U.S. who is oppressed, in my life, ever, because its kind of like, men will come in and rant and rail and women will smile and nod and then completely ignore everything he just said and do our own thing and its a constant. I’ve seen it over and over. I mean, I go to the mosque, and the Iman is up there and giving his speech and the women’s section is its out of control. There are women talking and kids yelling and nobody is sitting down and this poor guy is talking about God or whatever and every five minutes it’s like, sisters, can you keep it down, sisters, can you keep it quiet and every five minutes it will erupt again and I’m like, these women just don’t care. You want to put us in the back, separate from us, this is what you’re going to get. And that’s it. You think we’re not important. If we were up here in front, yeah, we’d probably be listening, too. But you make it so there’s a separate section and we’re inconsequential in back? Yeah, guess what, we don’t give a shit. I’ve seen men come back and try to arrange the chairs and the old grandma lady is like, ok, great, and as soon as he leaves, she puts it right back where it was. It’s hilarious to me.
M: Do you think that’s a sort of resistance?
J: Oh yeah, and it’s constant. It scares most men to know there are women like us out there doing our own thing, always.
Wild Rose
The wild rose grows on a sprawling shrub with curved prickles and an alternating pattern of 5 to 7 leaves on each stem. The flowers look like cultivated roses but smaller, with only 5 petals, white to pink. They bloom May to August, with the fruit following the flowering.
The “hips” are the fruit of the rose, the round portion that grows just below each flower’s petals. They remain on the shrub throughout the winter and spring, providing excellent foraging outcomes in times of scarcity. Both wild and cultivated rose hips are edible.
Rose hips contain the seeds of the rose plant. They are usually red to orange, but in some species they can be dark purple or black. You can eat them raw, like a berry, or boil them into tea. Rose hips contain more calcium, phosphorus, iron, and vitamin C than oranges. They can quench thirst and have been used to boost immune function, as well as increase urine flow and blood flow to the limbs.
~Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult
Who are your allies?
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Thank you for being on this journey with me. I am grateful for the gift of your presence. Walking this path, knowing so many of you are walking it too, gives me hope. May we continue in our recovery, in relationship with one another and with the anima mundi, supporting each other in our growth, like a mycelial network.
If you’d like to continue this conversation in person, consider enrolling in my small group writing workshop at the Maloof this October, or engage in the weekly comments section below.
This passage -- "Look around you. What and who do you surround yourself with? Do you recognize the mutualism? Who are your allies?" -- this is what I'll be thinking about today. Thank you, Michelle! Also, J. is a very wise woman.