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| Soul-Power
| Authentic Voice | Archaic
Knowing | Labyrinth | Inner
Guidance | Connection to the Mother | Origin
of Dreams | |||
| The possibility for peacemaking. | |||
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If peace is something more—the resolution of conflict through expanding our understanding—we need to move from a mentality of conquest into a consciousness of connection. With this consciousness, we can begin to recognize ourselves in our adversary and the two "sides" become part of a larger whole. The capacity we humans have for cultivating this consciousness of connection is centered in women's wombs. Women's wombs: Our body's sacred center is home to our pro-creative power, our power to promote creation. This source energy is erotic energy: it fuels our sexuality, our creativity, our life-affirming capacities to desire, attract, give birth, nurture, feed. When we move, breathe, dance into and through our bellies, we're cultivating the consciousness of our connection with all creatures within the web of life. And so we're magnifying our power to promote peacemaking—as we may choose. What are our choices? How, practically, can we manifest the belly-power that we develop through dancing as planetary peace?
Imagine: What would happen if we women—you; your circle of friends; women in your neighborhood, city, state, nation, world—took charge of our belly-power and how it is used? Currently, institutions of family, economy, and society divert much of this sacred, creative, erotic power and turn it to their own uses. What would happen if we disallowed that diversion? What would happen, for example, if women refused to allow images of our bodies to be used as advertising. If we refused to allow our bodies to be used as commodities. If we refused to shop, other than with individual artisans. If we refused to cook, wash clothes, houseclean, etc., etc., etc. If we refused to work in jobs that promoted violence and injustice. If we refused to have sex with men. If, in other words, we refused to contribute our belly-power to family, economy, and society until conditions for a lasting peace have been established. One of Athens' acclaimed priestesses during the 5th century B.C.E. was Lysimache; her name means "releaser of the battle." She may well have been the inspiration for Aristophanes' play featuring Lysistrata, whose name means "releaser of war." Lysistrata stories how the women of the warring city-states, Athens and Sparta, brought peace to the region. Together, the women swore to refrain from having sex with their husbands until the warring leaders signed a peace treaty. The women also seized the Treasury because, as Lysistrata asserts: "no more money, no more war." Seeing that the women controlled the flow of both money and sex, the men soon agreed to the women's demands. In the 20th century, demanding India's autonomy from Great Britain, Mahatma Gandhi called not for a general strike but rather for a day of prayer and fasting. What would happen if women called for a day of prayer and dancing—bellydancing and all the rest? Imagine: A day of festivals throughout the world that bring women together to share in each other's belly-celebrating dances and customs. Gatherings that enable women to experience and honor the power of women's sacred center—and resolve to use this belly-power for peacemaking in whatever ways we choose. What capacities do we humans have for peacemaking? The Western custom of greeting another by offering to shake hands began as a gesture to show that the right hand held no weapon. Imagine: Instead of shaking hands, we greet each other by touching belly to belly, as I understand some aboriginal Australian women do. Our capacity for peacemaking is not the death-dealing power of the atom bomb. Our capacity for peacemaking is the life-affirming power of woman's womb. Resources: What
is women's power, women's peace? Speak your piece at... www.centerpeace.net
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Soul-Power
| Authentic Voice | Archaic
Knowing | Labyrinth | Inner
Guidance | Connection to the Mother | Origin
of Dreams | |||
