What Happens When Women Lead?

April 2, 2012 By laurapb 1 Comment

Adrie de Jong comes from The Netherlands. She believes that as women come to know themselves, they will be find the wisdom they need to provide hope, knowledge and solutions.

I think much more will be possible for the quality and worth of life when woman lead. I think we will first seek wise woman to lead. Those with a broader view and an higher notion of what really goes on within the heart of the human being and it’s urge for basic needs. With the leadership of men we see them often scattered in futilities as honor, outer looks, power and the need for toys for games. Just like you see a kid of 5 years old get lost between the toys he wants to play with, he has no notion of the needs of others around him. And for a kid of 5 years old that is okay. But for a leader of a country we simply must understand that such leader is incapable of being a leader. Leadership is nothing else but serving the other one and understanding the needs of the people and getting everything organized and straightened out so basic needs are able to be delivered to everyone. So, after having the first basic needs fulfilled, each person in society is able to shine with their talents and gifts to make a beautiful living together.

A woman who leads is as a mother who takes care of her family. She wants everyone to grow and have a good life. She wants everyone to feel responsible and be eager to join in helping a hand to make a good living possible. Work would be nothing else than serve the other. And by serving the other the best one can, everyone will benefit. It’s in seeing the worth of an individual and it’s right to have a good life ! This makes organizations, companies a co-operations useful and needed to work well, so, everyone has shelter, clothes and food, as well as houses, transport and some money to get by. What would make someone corrupt if he understands and sees that in that way he is mistreating another person and so he is mistreating himself ! Because the other now is not able to serve him, because he did not serve the other to get him the needs so he could be able to serve. He would think of himself as being a fool. I guess this understanding got lost in patriarchal society.

We as women we earn less than men in the world while we work so much harder to make the world work. We never thought of need for money in matriarchy because if everyone has a good life the effort was rewarded already. There was peace and joy and time and health to be cheerful together. If one had an idea, others were not jealous, but curious what nice things would be made or happen, and even lend a hand. And so problems were solved. With all the money in the world, the riches a man earns, he seems not to be able to do his job right, to serve his neighbor, and invent things to make life easier. I guess money gets lost in white lines and keeps circulating in criminal realms.

It’s not money that makes the world go round. It’s the heart that sees the other and wants to join hands and work for a better future for each other that makes the world work. It’s due to the effort of women that kids can eat. They do 2/3th of the work, while getting 10 % of the income. They build half of the food, while only own 1 % of the land. If a woman earns money, 90% will go to the family, while man only does so with 35%. It’s the love and responsibility in the heart and eyes of a woman that wants to see her family happy and healthy, she knows it is not the amount of money or other outer looks. When a woman will lead, she will use her skills and insights for a better life, for each and everyone, because she understands the worth of each and every single person.

 

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What happens when the Divine Feminine leads a classroom of kids?

March 27, 2012 By laurapb Leave a Comment

Laura Paskell-Brown is a teacher and PhD student in New York City. She believes that her purpose in the classroom is to remind her students of the power they already have inside of them, and the ways in which they can use that power for good in the world.

When I look into your eyes
I see you
I don’t mean I see your GPA
Or the work that you do.
I mean I see YOU
I see how you’re hurting
If you’re lonely or blue
But I see you
Beautiful you.
I see the trials and tribulations,
But I see the good times too.
I see the events that shaped you, changed you,
Made you, broke you, maybe took your innocence
Or gave it back,
I see the cracks,
And the beautiful ways you weave them back…together.
I see the people you’ve loved
The ones here and the ones up above
I see the ways you’ve tried
To hide
What you don’t like
About you
The things you think are shameful, or blameful
Or just not totally perfect
Like a defect.

But when I look at those things you call flaws
I still just want more
Because I know that the line between you and me
It’s not thick
There’s no bricks
It’s not a wall
Or at least, if it is, it’s small.
And my job as your teacher
Is to reach ya’
Is to reach deep inside you
So that I can get past all of that nasty shit,
All the stuff that’s broken
And with words unspoken
To love what I find
To treasure it
Not to measure it
Because you can’t measure nobody’s soul
A soul is whole,
It’s perfect.
It’s a manifestation
Of all that you are, as well as all that was taken
And there’s nothing to assess or to grade, see
And anyone who thinks there is, is just crazy.

So as the one at the front of this class
The one you see as here to judge you
I’m telling you,
She’s really just here to love you
Exactly as I see it
Because everything I see, and think,
I’m gonna be it
Because if I judge you, I really judge me
And that blinds me to my light,
And my own capacity.

So if you don’t mind, I’m going to refrain,
Going to abstain
From judging you, or pointing out your flaws
As if you need more
Of that
And instead I will show you in me
What I found when I was finally able to see
Myself
Clearly
To be free
With all my defects, and all my wrongs
And see a young, beautiful, utterly strong
Woman Warrior.

Yes, I still have those moments when I’m scared
When I don’t know why I’m here,
Why anyone’s there
But as I reach out to others, to my brothers,
Those times of fear recede, shorten, lessen,
Become less pressin’.
And I can see more beauty, more hope, more joy
I can see more in me than whether I went to college, or if I got me a boy.
I see Laura
And she’s unabashedly human
But she’s real
And she’s sacred too
Not like the Madonna, dressed in blue
But sacred like trees and rocks and rainbows
And you’re the same, though
You’re also different.

Coz we all hold one piece of the puzzle
And it doesn’t make sense till we come together, till we nuzzle
And ask ourselves how we can reflect
The good stuff inside
And not just project
The shit we tell ourselves we are
“Oh, we’re aggressive by nature,
We’re competitive, we’re scarred”
Because the most beautiful lily has to grow in mud
And before she shows her soft beauty
She has to break through,
It’s her duty
To leave the mud behind her, and burst forth
With all her power
But to do that she needs showers
And sunshine
And moonshine too
And so do you.

So there’s one piece of wisdom I want you to grasp
To take with you, when you’re gone from this class
And it’s not in no textbook, or lab reports
There are no stats
It’s not a ‘fact’
You won’t find it in the journals
But it’s the one kernel
Of knowledge
That saved my god damn life.
When I was ready to end it,
It helped me instead to mend it.
And it’s this:

You need to reconnect with the world if you left it
And embrace it tighter if you’re already here
And start to look for the sacred in others, despite your fear
Because we become who we say we are
And what we do, what we think
So seek to be around others who don’t judge you,
Or say you stink
Seek out those who see the sacred in themselves
And they will see it in you too
They won’t be able to help it
They’ll see ‘them’ reflected in you.

And if you can’t find those people
Then know that you can be that person who stands up
Who is the first
To break the mould, to break this curse
And says “I see you”, “I see me”
And no we’re not perfect
We’re human beings
But we have legs, arms and hands designed to create
So before it’s too late
Let’s build something our great great grandkids won’t hate
Something that reflects the light inside us,
Not the dark, not this circus.

Because every being on this planet is sacred
And so is Mother Earth
Together we are the ones who can fix this
It’s time to give birth.

Dedicated to the students I serve. Thank you for allowing me to find myself in your greatness.

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Where We Walk: women and men leading together

March 27, 2012 By laurapb Leave a Comment

Yvette Warren is a grandmother, the author of the blog One Family, Many Faiths and a newly ordained minister in the Universal Life Church.

“What happens when women lead?” A more important question, in my mind, is, “What happens when any segment of society is shut out of leadership?” I believe the answer is always subversion and rebellion, which often lead to anarchy, which results in accompanying rule by force and fear, attributes that we ascribe to the “masculine.”.

A good friend who is a church historian once reassured me that we must simply be patient with the chaos that ensued with the sixties and seventies because societies are brought to change with huge swings of the pendulum from one way to its direct opposite. He said that society will settle down somewhere in the center. M. Scott Peck said in his book, A World Waiting to be Born, that chaos is necessary before societies can truly change. The problem seems to be that we become frightened by the chaos and seek to go back to what feels familiar and safe. While I will not go back to the abuses of a patriarchal society, neither do I desire to be part of a movement that excludes men as mentors and masters in their areas of expertise.

There is a popular saying, “Behind every great man is a great woman.” Why are we always seeking to put one behind or beneath the other? While there is energy that we all have that is defined as “feminine” and also energy that is defined as “masculine” every person ever born is born of the energy of the two energies coming together. When the two energies are in balance, great things can be achieved.

Most of us have strengths and weaknesses carried forth from both of our parents and absorbed from influences on us by both sexes. In order to keep our relationship in balance, my husband says that we must clearly define, before each shared project, who is to be the officer and who is to be the enlisted. The one who is officer has all the responsibility for the planning and the outcome, and this officer position comes with commensurate authority.

He is better at soothing a crying baby than I am. When we babysit, I do the cooking while he does the cuddling. He defers to me as the officer because he doesn’t want dirty duties like diaper changing, but if I have to take over, he will take my direction in stirring the pots on the stove. Are any of these tasks strictly “feminine” or “masculine?”

For twenty years, my husband left all financial decisions solely to me. I recently became concerned that if something drastic should befall me, he wouldn’t even know where we kept the money he had earned. He is now figuring out his own system for money management, and I resist the urge to tell him how to do it. I no longer want all that officer’s responsibility; he now has the responsibility that goes with that authority. This has come with a price, in that part of his austerity program is that I make his breakfast and lunch before I head off to work. I’ll fix food any day if it keeps me from balancing a checkbook.

What I believe is the message of the sacred scriptures from the beginning of written history is that behind every great society are great men and women walking beside each other, each doing what has to be done, using all their sacred energies, both “masculine” and feminine.” “Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Walk beside me, and be my friend.”

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