At my family reunion last weekend, one of my “outlaws”-as the spouses of my siblings have come to call themselves-asked me to explain to him the whole “divine feminine thing” he kept hearing about from the women he worked with in his job as a surgeon. It was a question sincere in his seeking and I smiled in appreciation at how women’s evolution was impacting even this man who prided himself on being a man in charge of his kingdom.
Simply put, I said, the “divine feminine thing” was the invitation for women-and men-to evolve the definition of a woman as one based on the “to-do lists” of roles and relationships to the living expression of grace and the sacred in our life as human beings. The whole ‘I am what I produce each day thing” I said was not so great a definition for anyone’s life as a human being; for women, basing our value in life upon what we produce through the to-do lists of each day is especially inappropriate and devaluing.
To be born a woman is a grace and a destiny that comes with innate vision, strength, and creativity, a destiny that can be challenging in a world where one’s value is often what we produce for others. To be born a woman is the capacity to deliver vision and leadership for the benefit of those in her community (although to be born a woman still means for far too many women abuse simply due to birth as a woman.). To be born a woman is a dignity, divinity, and nobility that is not old-fashioned and limited to times and ages gone by.
The “divine feminine thing” in it’s most simple terms is a woman’s commitment to living the grace, strengths, and abilities being born a woman granted her. The divine feminine is the choice to live first her integrity as a woman and second the to-do lists and expectations of the roles and relationships she is in. The divine feminine is the decision to live one’s spirituality in the sacred temple of everyday life, not in compliance with authorities outside herself, but through living what is true for Herself within. The divine feminine is the honoring that she is the guardian for all of life and as such, it is her responsibility to speak up, show up, stand up as she heeds the call for sacred vision.
When I finished my rather impassioned words of what “the divine feminine thing” is for me, my brother-in-law looked at me and said “I would love nothing more than dignity, divinity, and destiny be the values my daughter lives her life by and that the men in her life support her in doing. God knows my wife is who I count on to keep me smart about what is important in life”. I smiled and said that maybe he knew much more about the divine feminine thing than he was giving himself credit for and perhaps the nurses ribbing him was simply his invitation to share at work what he honored already in his home.
The “divine feminine thing” is not something outside ourselves; it is our choice to honor ourselves first as women, making our choices in daily life in alignment with the dignity, divinity, and destiny that is ours as women. When we honor ourselves as women first and to-do lists second, we deliver the vision, leadership, and creative grace within ourselves with ease and effort that simply flows. To honor the divine feminine is simply to live that being born a woman does make a difference.