Environmentalism vs. the Patriarchy

I find the likeness in the rising of the feminine, in the rising of environmentalism.   And this, inspired by the poem by Marge Pierce..

“for the uses of men we have been butchered and crippled and shut up and carved open under the moon that swells and shines…the moon is always female but the sun is female only in lands where females are let into the sun to run and climb.” 

Land is female. Fertile, beautiful, passive, virgin. To justify colonial control & abuse. Because real men take, they don’t ask. Environmentalists are fighting the patriarchy. 

Ecological health comes naturally to all of us, if we allow ourselves to remember. To still. Which is not the conditioned way, we are bred to do, to act, to take, for selfish pleasure & reward.

If we slow, if we return to our archaic, ancestral ways, we find incredible infinite abundance. We are not lacking in any way.

I find women called to environmentalism, & ask are women more accustomed to this kind of care? Or is the rising of the feminine aligned, and paralleled with the rising of the reclaiming of our Earth & standing for environmental rights. 

Mothers, creators, nurturers.

We have known the press of the patriarchy’s thumb

Like our Earth, we came pure & generous giving of our bodies, to be controlled & taken from.

Women have learned to care for our hearts

Our minds

Our bodies

We have watched other women suffer

Be betrayed, raped, taken, abused

We have lost sisters

We have lost ourselves

We have grown stronger

We have developed our hearts

We have reached out

We have learned to love

We have learned COMPASSION.

We have learned what is a YES

And we have felt, and learned what is a NO

And we have learned to VOICE these NOs

We have learned how to HOLD these boundaries

with ferocity, & with grace.

And we can FEEL this is a NO.

How the Earth is treated.

Raped

Pillaged

taken

Abused

Polluted

Abandoned

Stripped 

Beaten

We bear witness to our mother being abused 

We toil as we are made to watch our mother’s rape

Repetitive without remorse

We feel the body we are built of, nourished by, nurtured by, dependent on, completely, vulnerably, brazenly.

And this is a NO.

And we feel this violation in our beings. In our hearts, breaking. In our minds, troubled. We feel this in our bodies, sickening at the very sight, and withering at the hands of the dis-ease we co- created.

And we can hold this violation.

And we can defend her. 

We can right these wrongs.

As any beaten broken woman rises from the ashes of despair, with support, community, collaboration, newfound strength, love, unquestioning love. 

We stand with her.

Read, there is NO against here.

Not against each other.

Or her attacker.

We stand with her.

For all the women so disempowered 

They can no longer move

For all the women lost

For all the women under the thumb of men

Or under THE MAN

For the forgotten, the abandoned, the broken, the burned, the tired, the lost

For these incredible beings

We refuse to abandon our MOTHER

For them we embrace our mother 

& reciprocate her unwavering support

Her love

Her nurturing.

And we give back. 

In every seed we plant, in every tree we protect, in every act of love & kindness we share.

We will not let her down.

We will not let ourselves down.