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Body Talk: The female body as an instrument of knowing

Posted on March 20, 2012 by ari

I’m reading Clarissa Pinkola Estés‘ Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, an empowering and healing experience. This morning a passage made me cry in empathetic joy, so I thought I’d share it:

A friend and I once performed a tandem storytelling called “Body Talk” about discovering the ancestral blessings of our kith and kin. Opalanga is an African American griot and she is very tall, like a yew tree, and as slender. I am una Mexicana, and am built close to the ground and am of extravagant body. In addition to being mocked for being tall, as a child she was told that the split between her front teeth was the sign of being a liar. I was told that my body shape and size were the signs of being inferior and of having no self-control.

In this concurrent telling about body, we spoke of the slings and arrows we received throughout our lives because, according to the great “they,” our bodies were too much of this and not enough of that. In our telling, we sang a mourning song for the bodies we were not allowed to enjoy. We rocked, we danced, we looked at each other. We were each thinking the other is so mysterious-looking in such a beautiful way, how could anyone have thought otherwise?

How amazed I was to hear that as an adult she had journeyed to the Gambia in West Africa and found some of her ancestral people who, lo! had among their tribe, many people who were very tall like the yew tree and as slender, and who had slits between their front teeth. This split, they explained to her, was called Sakaya Yallah, meaning “opening of God” … and it was understood as a sign of wisdom.

How surprised she was when I told her, that as an adult, I had journeyed to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico and found some of my ancestral people, who lo! were a tribe with giant women who were strong, flirtatious, and commanding in their size. They had patted me and plucked at me, boldly remarking that I was not quite fat enough. Did I eat enough? Had I been ill? I must try harder, they explained, for women are La Tierra, made round like the earth herself, for the earth holds so much.

So in the performance, as in our lives, our personal stories, which began as experiences both oppressive and depressive, end with joy and a strong sense of self. Opalanga understands that her height is her beauty, her smile one of wisdom, and that the voice of God is always close to her lips. I understand my body as not separate from the land, that my feet are made to hold my ground, my body a vessel made to carry much. We learned, from powerful people outside our own United States culture, to revalue the body, to refute ideas and language that would revile the mysterious body, or that would ignore the female body as an instrument of knowing.

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For the Love of Mushrooms

Posted on March 17, 2012 by shira

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“We’re at the point of freedom.”

Posted on March 12, 2012 by ari

I can’t wait to see this movie. It’s so beautiful to see women rising up!

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The Most Astounding Fact (Neil DeGrasse Tyson)

Posted on March 6, 2012 by ari

I ♥ science! And Neil DeGrasse Tyson!

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VIDEO: Women healing the world

Posted on March 4, 2012 by ari

“The biggest event in human history is the rise of women to full partnership with men, because it’s only that partnership that’s going to allow the world to flourish.”

Right on! Let’s do it, sisters!

See also:

• Our “gender” bookshelf on Goodreads
• Our Delicious links tagged with Gender
• Our Delicious links tagged with Feminism

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Remember Our Roots

Posted on March 3, 2012 by ari

“There are a whole lot of historical factors that have played a part in our being where we are today, and I think that to even to begin to understand our contemporary issues and contemporary problems, you have to understand a little bit about that history.”
- Wilma Mankiller

Read the rest of this post…

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Now these are real family values

Posted on February 29, 2012 by ari

This video showing a mom and son being really open and truthful with each other about (internalized) homophobia and coming out. Thanks to both of them for sharing this beautiful moment of growth with the world.

This video made me cry because I too grew up in an accepting family but took a very long time to come out, and even to figure out what was going on with my gender and sexuality. Internalized homophobia and transphobia and sexism and other isms are very real. When your own government only grudgingly concedes you basic rights to freedom over your own body and who you’re allowed to love, and the media and society at large seems to agree that your body and feelings and actions and your very soul are somehow intrinsically wrong, and your kind are being bullied and murdered and raped and tortured all over the world, often legally – well, that’s a hard thing to get around/over, for some of us.

And now, because we’ve recently learned that privileged people are more likely to take candy from babies because they haven’t learned what it’s like to suffer and aren’t good at things like empathy, I have a public service announcement, in case any rich white heterosexual Christian able-bodied cisgendered men are reading our blog:

♥ Take heed, boys. Y’all are making a lot of folks miserable. Time to start acting like members of a community, instead of looking out only for yourselves. 99% + 1% = 100%! ♥

Photo: Let Love Rule

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I just did Yoga for the first time. Thanks YouTube.

Posted on February 29, 2012 by ari

And thank you to Esther Ekhart, and to Isaac and Dara for inspiring me! That was a great workout. I think I found my new favorite way to exercise…

Are you into yoga? Any advice for me?

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If you haven’t seen 2012: Time for Change, you should watch it right now

Posted on February 28, 2012 by ari

Watch 2012: Time for Change – it will make you very hopeful about the future, and is full of beautiful ideas for things we can do to make the world a more just and peaceful place. It’s also very nicely made, with great animations and incredible interviews with folks from different cultures.

Whether you believe that 2012 will be a momentous year or not, you can still practice living with intention and consciousness. So if you don’t see this movie, at least come up with a nice plan for positive changes you might like to see in the future. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Every morning, when we wake up, we have twenty-four brand-new hours to live. What a precious gift! We have the capacity to live in a way that these twenty-four hours will bring peace, joy, and happiness to ourselves and others.”

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Animals with other skill sets

Posted on February 28, 2012 by ari

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
- Yeats

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”
- Rachel Carson

“I have seen the weapons of mass destruction called disposability consciousness. And if we want to heal the world we have to begin to use tools of mass compassion.”
- Julia Butterfly Hill

“Squids are friends, not food”

“Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.”
- Wordsworth

“We lose our souls if we lose the experience of the forest, the butterflies, the song of the birds, if we can’t see the stars at night.”
- Thomas Berry

Help save the animals in the oceans:

• Greenpeace
• Vegan soapbox: Why no fish?
• About Veganism (Vegan Ithaca)

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