“In another time and place you would have been known as a wisdom keeper.”
Who would I be if I let myself know how talented, experienced and wise I actually am? Why does asking this question make me squirmy?
… if I cannot envision myself as the masterful creator that I already am, if I cannot SEE myself as wise, as the bearer of deep medicine, I cannot make it real.
When both of my children were grown and my parents gone, I sank into a reflective and quiet space. I felt liberated and also, very, very still. As if I was waiting - and listening for instructions, like a plane circling the airport in a holding pattern.
As I rested, uneasily, in this bardo space between the something that had ended and the other thing which had yet to begin, my coach started to talk about care-taking.
She said that in a patriarchal society, women may use care-taking as a substitute for deep wisdom and creativity (which, she emphasized is another word for power. More on this in a minute.) She said that often, intelligent and deeply feeling women flow most of our energies into taking care of others (and taking care of houses) because these are the few places that women are allowed to show real mastery.
“In another time and place you would have been known as a wisdom keeper,” she told me. “And it breaks my heart to think of women like you who feel limited by a lack of institutional approval symbols - licenses, advanced degrees, and so forth - who are not feeling welcome to share your medicine with the world.”
“I do feel limited by all of that,” I admitted. “I always have. But I also feel called by it. I feel angry about it. I want to break out of that system - and get a different kind of recognition. For the work that I have done - and continue to do, arising from my steady self-education and my direct work with clients and students for almost thirty years.”
Who would I be if I let myself know how talented, experienced and wise I actually am? Why does asking this question make me squirmy, making me wonder if you will think that I’m being boastful or (perish the thought) full of myself?
I am more than qualified - and more experienced than the young therapist who sends his client to me when he can’t articulate a complex psycho-spiritual concept. Equally qualified as the licensed counselors, health professionals, CEOs and psychotherapists who consult with me on their own journeys.
Yet if I cannot envision myself as the masterful creator that I already am, if I cannot SEE myself as wise, as the bearer of deep medicine, I cannot make it real.
During our session, my coach recounted the story of “The Handless Maiden”, who gave so much of herself to others, so selflessly, that she wound up with nothing - her father traded her in a barter with the devil. And when she outsmarted both of them, the devil forced her father to cut off his own daughter’s hands.
I imagine that most women have experienced the feeling that their hands (creativity, agency) have been cut off in service of the schemes of men (the family, the workplace, the church), that their path (or their feet) are cut off mid-journey, stranding them.
Handless in a world of doorknobs.
Legless in in a world of staircases.
And yet, like the Handless Maiden, when one way is blocked, a new way appears. In the fairy tale, the forlorn young maiden is befriended by the forest. The trees lower their branches so she can eat their fruit, the birds and animals help and guide her. Like all women who live in the world of men, she has to rediscover the gifts of wild places and wild things. She has to develop new skills, new ways of being in the world. Forced to meet the world as it is, she opens to the gifts within her by perceiving and accepting the gifts around her.
In my story, the new way of being in the world began with mothering and gardening. Long days of mothering small children, placing seeds into soil, watching them break through the soil. To do this, I descended closer to the earth, listening to the land, to the trees, speaking with the animals and read the patterns nature openly shared.
Slowed down, I chronicled my days, filling marble composition books with words in colored inks. I worked at the edges of the day - before dawn, after bedtime. I started a newsletter and soon, a local editor gave me a parenting column. It paid $50 a month.
Eventually, my new way of being led me to journalism, where I learned a craft - writing feature stories about women. Mostly these were stories of triumph over adversity - a widow rebuilding her life, a cancer survivor becoming a doctor, a loss of 200 pounds, a baby after infertility. We wrote about the power of the human spirit, the courage to rise after a devastating loss. I learned from every one of these women. They were my heroes. Then, one day, I was asked to launch and manage a column about angels.
This was another new way of being in the world.
The call of the Handless Maiden was not the call to war against men. It was not about working to change a system that was stacked against her. The invitation (and the call) of this fairy tale was to forge a new path.
As modern women, we must find this path in our own way. But where is it? Where are the doors? Is there a map? At the beginning of this journey, the true journey, the call is to set down our argument with how it is and step onto (or pioneer) a new way.
But first, a birthing is asking to happen. And there is prep work to be done.
I’m reminded of the moment when, during a difficult home birth, my midwife slapped me across the cheek. I was sobbing with exhaustion and fear and pain. Unable to focus, I had literally backed up against the wall of my bedroom, screaming in terror, refusing to let her help me.
Her slap forced me into my body. Back to the earthy, physical work at hand. “You are using up your energy. Stop screaming and use that fire to push your baby out.” And I did just that.
We need a new perspective.
My coach asked, “Now that the children are grown and the parents have finally died; and, now that you've quit the job and whittled your practice down to a handful of clients, what can you NOW do?” She suggested I spend time with this question. Open my journal and think it through on paper.
As I started writing, my first response was, "Well now I can take care of the whole world!" but I knew that this was not the true response. It was too glib and too much about care-taking. I was going to have to wait. I was going to have to feel the loss of my role as mother, helper, fixer of all problems.
I was going to have to wait.
Eventually, the second response came - a deeper, kinder response.
“Now that care taking is behind me, I can rest. I can stay home and care for me." And I did need to do this, I knew, before the true response could arrive.
I slept and I dreamed and I wrote myself love letters.
All the while, I waited, listening.
And then, one day, I was ready.
I closed my eyes and, again, I asked the question and this time, my full energy was there, and my hands (creativity) were back and my deep wisdom clicked on. With it, this vision arrived:
I found myself in the deep cave of my own weary heart where I saw myself waiting, one foot in grief and the other in hunger, waiting for life to walk in and hit me with its magic wand and invite me to the party. Waiting until I could show up, all pretty and powdered and perfect. Waiting until the prince (who’d been waiting for me) would finally ask me to dance. I felt a tingling in the palms of my hands. I felt the vine of sacred authority winding up my ankles.
I opened my eyes. What did it mean?
That night, I dreamed that I was searching for my daughter (my younger self) in the dark, calling and calling her name all night long. Finally, exhausted, I gave up. I sat down outside of a beautiful castle where I could see, in the distance, a bright bonfire and people dancing and laughing. I sat alone. Wishing I could share that lightness and joy. And that is when my daughter found me.
Dressed in a green sari, she emerged from the darkness, her head backlit by the bonfire.
“I’m here,” she said, extending her hand.
And I woke up.
And I understood.
The daughter in the dream is me, emerging (as if reborn) from the darkness.
The fire in the dream is me, energized, full of warmth and life.
The green in the dream is the color of life force, renewal and rebirth.
And it’s wrapped around me now.
And it’s inviting me, even as if enfolds me, into the circle of the dance.
Now it’s your turn.
Pull out your journal or simply close your eyes and consider:
What if there was no separation between you and the divine connection that you seek? What might that feel like? What might that look like?
What if I had a magic wand (I do. So do you.) and with one gesture, and a few magic words, I could transform you into that person - connected, no longer seeking?
Imagine that happening right now. Abracadabra. Everything that you have been trying to be - you are.
What happens now?
Tell us the story of you, fully realized.
You connected to source.
You radiant and shiny.
Go.
Extra credit:
What stories about yourself would you have to let go of?
What stories would you have to release about other people?
What would you have to acknowledge about the world?
December Invitation:
Pay What You Can
If you'd like to talk with me...
December is the time when I offer reduced rate sessions. Why? Because I’ve noticed, through the years, that this is the time of year when I receive the most requests for 1:1 support.
It's a beautiful time but it can also be stressful. Days are darkening and with all of the pressure of the holidays, family tensions can run tighter. It’s a time when many people start making resolutions - to do better, to try harder. This is another kind of pressure - from inside - and it can make us feel confused, conflicted and emotional. I know because I've been there myself.
It’s been helpful for me (and it still is) to have a trusted person to talk with, someone who's not involved in the situation, who has been around the block a few times and can offer insight and support. It's also helpful (for me, and perhaps for you) to reconnect to a sense of purpose - like, why am I doing any of this at all? Why am I doing this job? What do these people mean to me? - and to reconnect to the heart. To the body. To the flow of aliveness that makes life worth living.
If you'd like to talk with me, reach out to me by email: Amy@AmyOscar.com to discuss a fee you can comfortably work with. Then, I’ll send you the link to schedule your Pay What You Can session.
Not familiar with my 1:1 sessions. You can read about that here.
Until then,
I wish you quiet evenings, calm afternoons and peaceful mornings. I wish you magic bonfires and castles and dream women emerging to invite you to dance.
xxoo
Amy
Amy, I really love this essay and the questions you are asking and answering for yourself. As a woman who did get the degree (PhD) I can attest it has still been hard to let myself shine fully in a world that so often seems indifferent if not downright hostile. I just want to say again to you that when you are ready to put your wisdom together into a book, I would be most honored to help you midwife it into the world. Find me at https://www.jenniferbrowdy.com
Sending love and beaming power right back at you!
Well, just beautiful.. I've recently decided that we are Wisdom Givers. We don't keep our wisdom, we share it. I have learned so much from you, my friend..