a woman's place

so delicately she spins at her wheel. 

the wool gathers, 

twisting his clouded thoughts 

into strong threads 

from some amorphous mass. 

she is an enchantress, 

knowing in the ways of deep mystery. 

so deftly she works at her loom. 

the blanket grows 

thread by thread, 

drawn up in the making 

around his weary heart. 

she is a healer, 

knowing in the arts of nurture. 

so playfully she sings from her heart. 

the music falls all around, 

sparkling droplets 

dancing in sunlight, 

bathing him all in fire and inspiration. 

she is a Muse, 

powerful in the ancient ways of love. 

He had grown up among Southern Baptists, and spent a large part of his adult life consorting with assorted varieties of evangelical and charismatic Christians. He was quite familiar with the “proper place of a woman” in these circles. He had worked ten years in the welding trade, and was fully aware of the utter lack of place for women in that world. And he had spent as many years in the high tech industry of the Silicon Valley, and was equally aware of the “liberated” masculinity of the woman’s place in that industry as well. He had studied the roles of women in various third world and archaic cultures, and was familiar with the goddess, mother, and Gaia concepts in the New Age Movement. Madison Avenue was smacked with abusive arrogance on the subject, and Hollywood was spotty, with some of the best and the worst sensitivities of all.

Yet nothing he had seen captured the breadth and depth of strength and character and wisdom and dignity and generativity and nurture and self sacrifice and allure and magical charm and mystery and emotive force that seemed to him inherent and unique in the feminine gender. None of the popular philosophies and theologies adequately addressed this remarkable creature, so different from and incomprehensible to men. He felt nearly helpless to achieve the level of understanding necessary to the task of relating to individual women and the gender at large in a way that was sufficient.

The Christian tradition offered little help. It was salted with popular literature and sermons on the value of a woman, mostly patterned on Proverb 31, and the admonitions of Paul for husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, laying his life down for her. These teachings were laced with talk of feminine submission and debates on the proper role or lack thereof for women in leadership. All this was well intended, he supposed, but so heavily steeped in radical patriarchy that it effectively neutralized any encouragement and insight it hoped to offer. He had searched scripture for anything even faintly resembling the femininity that he sought to understand, and found little. The Song of Solomon touched on romantic allure and passion, and was the best, least masculinized accounting of woman that he found in the Bible. Proverb 31 described a competent manager, and could nearly as well have described a man as a woman. Ruth and Esther and the women around Jesus were faithful and heroic, but very limited in their expression of the fullness of female energy. Jezebel and Delilah were diabolical and deceitful. Most other references were about submission and subservience and weakness. Scripture and Christian tradition consistently ignored the deeper complexities of the feminine mysteries. Not much help there.

The liberation movement of popular culture turned out equally insensitive, largely masculinizing women in an effort to achieve what they called equality. While this movement addressed some very important issues of oppression, neglect, and abuse, it was flawed deeply by its efforts to define equality as sameness. He was also disturbed by its frequent tendency to belittle and demean men and masculinity—an extremely juvenile approach, rooted in a level of insecurity that betrayed and undermined its validity.

The New Age movement captured some aspects of the problem pretty well, embracing Native American and Celtic notions of the place and role of woman that were far more complex and well developed than those of western civilization at large. This seemed to be the most promising of all the cultural treatments that he found. But still, the exploration of femininity here was not sufficient.

Finally, he turned away from the study of cultures and philosophies and theologies and focused his attention on women themselves. How did they perceive themselves and their femininity. He was appalled at what he found. Even centered and balanced women bore marks and scars of insecurity, wounding, and weariness deep in their feminine souls. Resentment and distrust of men at some level was nearly universal. He was horrified! What had we done to these most magnificent, complex, beautiful people? What caused society to inflict such torment on them?

He sensed that the key to healing was understanding. For women to grow strong and whole in the full measure of their womanhood, both they and the men around them must first learn to cherish and honor and celebrate all of what the feminine mysteries entail. And he knew that this was a hugh task. He had come full circle to the problem he had started with. He was little closer to a true understanding, but now he had two new things: He saw the gravity and importance of the quest, and he knew that the answers would come from women themselves, and from the men who understood the importance and power of the mystery. He also began to understand how important it is for men to become strong and secure and balanced in the center of their own masculinity in order to step out of the way and give place to the energy and beauty and tenderness so effusive and abundant in women.

He knew far more at this point than he had expected to learn, and yet his exploration and study had hardly begun. His knowledge of the feminine mysteries seemed far smaller with his new insights than ever before. But his foot was in the path, and now he began to hope to encounter a woman who could open doors and inform his steps and help him begin the journey.