Dowry of Sacrifice...

I am sitting here wondering are all women, females taught the same thing? Are we taunted  relentlessly to sacrifice ourselves for the good of everything and everyone else? Is this the fairy tale that most of us were trained to swallow? OH how we are taught with a smile and cup of tea to conform and camouflage our true selves so that we can have the " Perfect Life".  Doesn't matter what the image is I'm sure we all had our versions. I'll bet that if we all sat side by side our stories and tales would be so similar it would scare the shit out of us. We might think some evil magic is abound. I say it is, in the form of raising the female in a world and society that hardly acknowledges our true souls, and the divine feminine that we are born with.

I have spent most of my life unlearning what I got handed down to me like some sort of dowry, and personally  I thought it was awful then I think it stinks even more now that I have the wonderful pleasure of life's lessons and the universe's sense of humor to help correct these childhood nightmares. My mother was a women of the 60's a mother earth, love not war peace kind of gal, now I will say I got so many wonderful gifts from her and my grams (will get back to her in a bit), they taught me to pay attention to my body, how to holistically heal and remedy with what nature supplied. They showed me and encouraged me always to look for the good in all people. I learned the difference between religion and spirituality and to keep an open heart always. These are the amazing attributes these women passed on to me. They also passed on several virtues that I would find later to contradict some of the finer things I mentioned above. My mom was a love not war kind of gal, to the tune of 13 marriages before I was 15. I saw her fall in love with love, she made it seem like a Cinderella story. I remember meeting one of my 'new dads" on a Thursday, and returning on Sunday from visiting a dad, the man was gone and my mom off to the Bahamas. She whirl winded and danced around each man like he was the entire universe and most of them were spell bounded by her she was in their minds the "Free Spirit Philly looking to be tamed". This was the downfall for them, and the marriage part set in for my mom and well we all know how it ended. I remember my mom when she wasn't with a man, the time was sparse, but she seemed truly free and unabated when she stood alone. I remember her excitement of Square Dancing, how she shined, I watched her write poetry, and yoga and meditation. She dabbled in magic and dream walking. She even became a healer in one of her more longer stints. I thought that is what I how I want to be, then it would suddenly all go away when the next male strolled by: she gave it all up, her passions and her love of doing for herself. She devoted every aspect to him and even us "the family unit" like it had to some Ozzie and Harriet home. She once told me "Baby girl you have the spirit of wolf, the magic of healer and the heart of wanderer, but that will not get you through life, you must lead two lives one for yourself and one for society. I did not understand. I do now.

I later asked my mom why she said that she simply replied because that is what grams taught me and her mother taught her, it is the way of a woman in this time and space. I knew I did not agree, but in the end I still repeat that same crap from time to time. They say the universe keeps giving you what you need until you get the lesson down pat. One more time for me.

I said I would get back to grams, she was a one man kind of gal. 45 years of marriage, through thick and thin, hard times and good times, 9 children three passed. She was a native woman and she was also known to many as the local hoodoo woman.All kinds of folks came from all over to see her. I remember going to the shed her office and in it was magic and it moved me. I felt at home there, she did too. I could see it in her face. Then when everyone left and she went back to the house there was a sadness that took over, a negative energy that spoke of time to sacrifice mask back to conformity. She told me once, she really didn't like my grandpa very much, he wasn't much of a spiritual being, but a marriage that was bought and paid for and my grams the prize. I now understand how we as woman get trapped into living two lives, being two people and most don't know both of them very well.
American

So there ya have it, I had two powerful, magical, divine feminine spirits who both knew of their true inner beauty, and walked their path, but in secret and in the shadows hidden from the real world, they then would masks themselves and move or shift into some world, that molds and alters our perceptions into believing we are somehow less than and need to SAVE THE EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE....I say no more, stop drinking the damn kook-aid.

Be the untamed forever free spirit all the time not in secret, behind closed doors, for no one can be touched by a boxed spirit.