REBEL WISDOM
Monday April 9, 2023
Beloved Reader,
Through the recommendation feature on Substack, I have discovered another writer who also seems to be lit up by the topic of the Rising of the Divine Feminine. Her name is Schuyler Brown and her Substack is called, The Art of Emergence. From reading her posts and stories, it sounds like she also experienced success in her work in the patriarchal hierarchies of corporate America. But I got the sense—as was also my own experience—that she woke up to the fact that she was unconsciously identified with her own Inner Patriarch: she later recognized how her inner experience had been corroded; her ego thrived but her soul wept, and—in my words—perhaps she also realized she wasn’t living her dharma—and that’s dharma as discussed in my last post, Chapter 15. The Bhagavad Gita, New Hampshire, April 2013.
This is a complex experience for women who have learned how to survive and thrive in the patriarchy. We experience outward success, yet also, over time, an inner soul-sadness. Perhaps even a loss of joy. I have a sense that many women have this experience in this country. Another writer I met through the Gateless Writing Academy wrote a book about this phenomenon from the perspective of a woman of color: The First, the Few, the Only: How Women of Color Can Redefine Power in Corporate America by Deepa Purushothaman. And if you want to know more about the genius of the Gateless writing practice, you may read more here in my Brevity article.
Through reading Schuyler Brown’s Substack posts, I came across a video recorded conversation in which she participated, along with with Samantha Sweetwater and REBEL WISDOM co-founder David Fuller. I highly recommend watching this enlightened one hour and nine minute conversation, but one part in particular addressed something I’ve noticed with some of our Buddhist monk friends and neighbors across the road here.
About 42 minutes into the video, Samantha Sweetwater says:
…Dissociation is the shadow aspect of quiescent masculine spiritual frameworks in general. [I looked up quiescent: in a state or period of inactivity or dormancy.]
“I will transcend, I will pull myself into stillness, I will pull myself into non-reactivity and dispassion.”
Then we get very detailed, deeply practiced people who have no capacity for healthy attachment.
Amen, sister😊✨🌟💖🙏🕊️
And this is not to take anything away from our Theravadin Buddhist monk friends and neighbors. I deeply value their wisdom and the profound peace and stillness that the senior monks embody. Perhaps this is simply a reflection of the fact that there is a shadow side to everything.
And perhaps by simply being aware of the shadow side, we gain the capacity to make a more conscious and aware choice about how we may want to show up in the world.
The entire REBEL WISDOM conversation is a fascinating discussion of what we have historically labeled “masculine” and “feminine” and is yet another conversation shining the light on this era of The Rising of the Divine Feminine.
If anyone does happen to watch it and wants to discuss, I welcome any and all comments below.