Hello Woman – There You Are, Within Me

In search of the Divine Feminine: I'm the one I've been looking for – and so are you

Jean Benner: L’Extase. In public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

I searched for Woman - the divine and healthy feminine - for years. I looked for her in books and magazines. I scanned the movies. I walked through cities scouting for her. But apart from in mythology, painting and fairytales - I couldn’t see no Woman. 

At the end of my 20s, I remember myself kneeling at the floor in my apartment, asking God to please show me just one Woman, so I could know how she looked like. 

Where was the Woman I could model myself after? 

Waiting for somebody to initiate me into my life (and into womanhood)

I waited for the first 35 years of my life for someone to show me what a woman was. Cause what could I grow into, when I had no idea what Woman was? 

But nobody could show me what I yearned to see. No females in my society could initiate me into womanhood, cause nobody had got that initiation themselves. I was waiting to meet a woman to show me who a Woman was, but there WAS no women around!

I was waiting for something that couldn’t happen.

The years went by. My life fell apart, and I went abroad. Abroad, I met a man. And for the first time in my life, I found someone who knew what a Woman was. 

Through the meeting with this man, I realized that I hadn’t found Woman, because I had looked for her in the wrong place. 

I was prepared to embody Woman in ME. I had looked for her outside of me, but she couldn’t be found outside. My quest to meet her there was doomed to be futile. But meeting her within me: was not.

In a glimpse I realised that the Woman I´d searched for existed within me, and that the only way I could come to know her, was for my girl to step aside. My work was not to grow someone, nor meet someone. It was for me to allow my limited thoughts about myself to surrender, so Woman could shine, through Me!

I´d received my quest: To walk myself out in the world and bring myself whatever I needed… to be Woman. To love the little girl in me, and teach her to give place for Woman to shine. And to breath and be Woman, in every moment I could. 

I was in charge, and it was terrifying.

My responsibility 

I had been looking for a mother, and I couldn’t find her. Because I´d grown up, and become the mother myself. 

I taught myself to listen to the songs of my soul, the whispers of my ancestors: What did I come her to do?

Dante Gabriel Rosetti: Chalk scetch for The Day Dream (ca 1855). In public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The ancestors sung: Carving your life is your responsibility. Healing your wounds is your responsibility. Enjoying yourself is your responsibility. Exploring who Woman are, is your responsibility. Being yourself... is your responsibility. 

The ancestors sung: you have work to do. Let go of your ways of compensating yourself to fit in with the collective, in a futile hope that you’ll be loved. You’ll get no love like that. You’ll only make choices for yourself that are not your own, and stick to patterns which aren’t to your benefit. 

I had to surrender to being alone, and even lonely – sometimes.

I had to grieve. Grieve that there had been no women around me as I grew up. Grieve that my society almost have forgotten what love and community is. Grieve that the world seems to be going towards doomsday, and I am yet to see what I can do. 

Then, I had to step up. And that stepping up, was challenging to me. It was all about responsibility. I’d dreamt of freedom, but I hadn’t realized that freedom was such a double-sided coin: Freedom - and responsibility. 

My world screams for healthy expressions of the feminine

I'm stepping up, and sometimes I'm falling down. And then I'm stepping up again, and reminding myself that this is my choice. 

The world needs women, and being Woman is not easy. 

Woman is in integrity. She trades self-disdain for self-love, and self-respect. Woman lets go of social compliance and conformity, and surrender to her authenticity! 

Woman does her healing work, facing and acknowledges her challenging feelings and her wounds - in order to let them go. She addressed her distorted patterns, so she can be herself!

Woman knows we all made personas to be who we thought they wanted us to be. Woman recognizes her conditioning, allows her personae to relax, and re-member herself as a blueprint of divinity; a bountiful expression of Existence herself.

Woman sets up life according to her own expectations, not according to others expectations for her!

Woman knows the feminine wound, and how self-disdain is passed through generations: from mother to daughter to daughter again. She knows that it’s easier to take on that self-disdain, than to let it go. She knows that being victim, or good girl, or co-dependent or narcissistic or angry or compliant – is much easier than being Woman. 

And still, she chooses her womanhood. 

Woman is sensual. She loves pleasure, beauty, luxury even. She loves sex, and she is not afraid of the powers of her sexual energy. She is not afraid to go deep. Nor to take a lover… deep. 

Woman takes care of herself. She enjoys herself! And as an extension of her love for herself, she cares for those around her. She wants those around her – to feel good. 

Woman knows that girls are competitive. She knows the source of that competitiveness: that girls doubt their self-worth. Woman knows that her happiness and her sister’s happiness are deeply intertwined - and that COMMUNITY is what gives us all our sense of self-worth. So Woman pierces through the competitiveness, and enjoy her sisters growing into their success. If she can cooperate and play, and grow founds to everybody’s benefit, she is really happy.

Woman is simple. She has no need to prove herself, cause SHE knows she is good enough. She confers with God about the bigger questions, and leaves the rest of the world to think what they like about her. 

Woman is receptive, she is creative, sane and healthy. She is empowered, but not in an aggressive way. She is empowered because she knows who she is, and she knows how to stand in her integrity. 

And in her softness.

Hello Woman. I am here to live my life as an embodiment… of You.

Charles Courtney Curran: Sunshine and Haze (1915) Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

This essay is from my newly established newsletter Word for Woman - letters on sexuality, shadow work and conscious relating. If you liked this essay, you can check out Word for Woman here.