I'm a huge Margaret Wheatley fan - fell in love with her ideas and her books when I was working on my MEd. So I stop by her website semi-regularly to see what she's up to. Last spring I noticed on her schedule that she was going to be keynoting at a conference called Northwest Catholic Women's Convocation and that it was open to the public. It was relatively close by, the price was right and when I checked out the conference website and saw that Riane Eisler (author of The Chalice and the Blade) and Jean Shinoda Bolen were also going to be there, it was a no brainer. I'm not Catholic (anymore), but I was going.
The whole conference rocked, but the absolute best part happened at the end of a workshop with Jungian psychiatrist Jean Shinoda Bolen (author of Goddesses in Everywoman). The room is packed, some people are even sitting on the floor for lack of chairs. The median age in the room is at least 60. About half of them are Sisters (the nun kind). At the end of her workshop on "The Divine Feminine", Jean decides to be a bit mischievous and plays a new song from Portland singer Storm Large, from her one woman show called "Crazy Enough". The song is called My Vagina is Eight Miles Wide* and it is catchy as hell.
I can't tell you how much I love this song, not the least because it will always call to mind that moment when I first heard it. The moment when I saw one of the nuns, probably about 80 years old, white hair, orthopedic shoes and hose, plain jane skirt and blouse with simple crucifix around her neck, get up out of her chair and move into the aisle so she could dance to the song. And after a few minutes others joined her. And then even more women were on their feet, until the whole room was dancing. I can't fully describe the complete and utter joy I felt in that moment. I was laughing and crying and had goosebumps. It was beautiful, to know that such a thing could exist, to be surrounded by all these wonderful progressive, liberal Catholic women and feel the energy of sisterhood. We were all embodying the sister archetype (the not-nun kind). It was fabulous.
Conincidentally, if you believe in that sort of thing, I was at a workshop on just a couple weeks later that was facilitated by a woman who lives in Seattle and works with Meg Wheatley's Berkana Institute and we got to talking about the conference in Seattle. She was able to fill me in on a bit of the backstory to what I witnessed. Apparently for years Seattle had a very liberal, ecumenical Bishop who fostered the very type of community I saw until he was effectively disempowered by the Vatican. Her comment was, once a people have been empowered, you can take away their leader but they will not be easily silenced.
*I wish you could have been there. But you can download the song from itunes. It's such a wonderful anthem about how the feminine energy is coming back into the world after having been depressed for so long.
This post is part of Gwen Bell's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge.
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