I am woman

It's been a day of domestic virtue. I've been such a good, little homemaker and mother that you'd think I was wearing pearls, pumps, a full skirted dress with white gloves even. I made low cal cinnamon rolls for breakfast, a great fruit salad with bosc pears, gala apples, quince, fresh mandarin oranges and pomegranates which looked and tasted just sexy. I also made turkey, cheese and tomato roll-ups, with a dressing of light, whipped cream cheese mixed with a little mayo and chopped green chili peppers in whole grain tortillas for lunch, then deliciously tweaked my slow cooked vegetarian chili for dinner. Afterwards, I put up a decent supply of faux ice cream sandwiches (to have a low points value chocolate indulgence on hand) while getting four loads of laundry washed, dried and folded and scouring several weeks worth of multiple newspapers to help the womanchild find articles for a criminal justice homework project. And not once was either the television or a dvd on. Yes, I earned my June Cleaver points today.

It's a good thing that appearances are deceiving, because if that was all my day had held, it would actually be a bit depressing. Housework and family cooking are highly undervalued and deserve more respect, but like so many other women, it's just not enough for me. It never has been and never will be, but I want to do these things well. I know that my environment nurtures me. I feel better and function better when I have spaces that appeal to my eye, my sense of touch and smell, and I am determined to enjoy food instead of have it as an enemy. However, if I have to neglect other important but ineffable aspects of myself to have my home the way it helps me or prepare good meals, domesticity is a burden.

So what else did my day hold to make it more than the traditional image of femininity that I was given as a child? It held a wonderful and unusual long conversation with a good friend. My friend is one of the most masculine, even macho, men I know. He's so aware of it that he even calls himself a caveman. As a Christian, he has most identified himself with Peter, ever ready to pull out his sword and cut off the ear of a Roman centurion, struggling with courage and faith even as he is blessed with both.

Yet we discussed the Sacred Feminine and the Trinity, Sophia -- the wisdom of God, the Biblical Mary's, how God relates to us as Mother and female friend, and how profound finding this has been to us both. It was the form of bare bones, basic worship of when two or more are gathered in the name of God/dess, God/dess is there. Most of the people who read my blog by now know that I see the Almighty as both beyond gender and revealing of the Divine self in ways that are both masculine and feminine.

The appellation, God/dess though, is unwieldy and can be confusing and off-putting to some. I've needed to use it to rediscover, reclaim and rejoice in the feminine aspects of the Sacred. It has helped me draw closer to my Creator, my Redeemer, my Sustainer. I've also come to realize that I don't need to use it any longer. God is Mother to me. God is Father to me. I can visualize the Creator in a way that confirms that I, very much a woman, have been created in Her image, and I can do so in a way that doesn't negate or undervalue the importance of masculinity or limit my ability to envision the Creator as male. I can even more greatly appreciate the grit, the strength, the discipline and sacrifice of Jesus as a man. The wonderful paradox of God as Man is more glorious to me than ever because I have sought to find the feminine in all that is Holy and the Holy in all that is feminine. It has helped reconnect my Spirit to my body as well as my brain. I am stronger for it, and my day is richer than I could have dreamed because my friend and I got to worship in this way.

That wasn't all my day held though. I managed to fit in some reading time. There are some books that are so true that they make me uncomfortable. What they say is something that I need badly and still rebel against or shut out in some way. I can feel just the tiniest tremor of fear when I start to read them and put them aside immediately. I crave truth like I crave God though, and I run away from both when they get to be too much. I always come back, and I'm always allowed to come back. The book I'm reading finally, after I don't know how many false starts, is Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola-Estes. I'm usually a rapid reader, yet I'm going through this book very slowly. I've been reading it for days and have just made it to Chapter Two.

I've known that I've had a wild woman within for a long time. There have been times in my life she's very close to the surface, but I've been neglecting her for awhile now. I need her, and I recognize this book as a tool to helping her emerge again. I could sense the brain digesting what it was reading on one level. At the same time, part of me was spinning off the connections I was making into another mental list of poem and essay ideas. I just wish I'd written them down because those ideas are gone now. I'm just going to trust that they will come back.

It has been a rich, full day. I've lived in my body, my mind, my spirit and my emotions. I've tended all of them well, and I feel like tonight, I'll be able to sleep.

domesticity
cooking
spirituality
books