The Rising Feminine - The flowering feminine project



Dear Sisters, I write slowly and gently here and apologise I have not participated too much yet in world pulse and I know there are so many beautiful women speaking out. 
I have an idea that is bubbling inside me. I am unsure if it will come to anything. I am very overwhelmed by social media so will try to be brief. 
​​​​​​The Flowering Feminine project, healing violation and desecration of  women and the feminine.
The invitation : Let's talk, circles of women. No experts, lets talk. CLEAR BOUNDARIES - Healing NOW
Goal to heal / deconstruct violence against women/against the feminine and bring forth community healing.  Conversations and meetings around the world. (held as an experiment so there is no failure) Deconstructing violence,  shame, blame, guilt, unworthiness and pain. Giving voice to the voiceless- ending silence and shame AND not getting stuck in the stories but providing deep listening and healing compassion for one another.
The vision
Circles of women gathering together (2 or more women) to begin with, (and later also women and men and men and men.)
Calling on the Flowering Feminine - that place where a woman knows she is honoured, held, supported and safe. Calling in the Divine Mother. No-one is an expert, and yet we have some holding structure, like safe river banks that allow a river to flow.
At the moment the closest analogy to describe what I am wishing to create is the model of the 12 step program, which originally was Alcoholics anonymous. This is all very much unfolding and creating as I write now.
Where does this come from ?
On December 2nd 2012 , I suffered a serious violation in a beautiful location by the sea, in the Eastern cape, South Africa. I wish to explore how we/ humanity/ women and men and all genders can more deeply heal this serious trauma that we are collectively facing. I feel we need to start with us women gathering to share and to deeply address the very damaged culture in which we are living.
I have been on a big deep healing journey and investigation since this happened.
Some of the time, the pain has been huge and I have felt alone, despairing and isolated.
From this I wish to create, The Flowering feminine project.
I am deliberately choosing to not use another 4 letter word to describe what happened to me. Soon after this experience I wrote a blog post which was very helpful as I was able to ask people to read it without having to relay the experience over and over, and also I was really clear I would not be silent about it. 
Sadly the South African police force was woefully under resourced and the perpetrators did not face the consequences of their actions, even though they were caught. One went on to murder someone a year later in the same location.
I noticed when I used this other word to describe what had happened, there was often a strong reaction in other people.Sometimes I was judged and avoided, or patronised. My sense is that we live in a very visual culture and when we speak this word, we face the imagined image of it. It can feel unspeakable and painful and somehow our culture that has so much shame and distortion around sex, then many have a reaction to 'blame' judge the receiver of this harm.
I also experienced many 'new agers/ 'spiritually awake'  and smug people asking me, What did I do to create this ?  Huge spiritual bypassing (and yes perhaps at some level of healing this meta level of inquiry is valid) 
My personal friend who was with me at the time of the event was a support to me but her privileged south African family had nothing more to do with me.  A common response in
our world is to cast into the shadows and make outcast that which we do not wish to face.
And unfortunately on numerous occasions this involved me experiencing further abuse.  On one occasion, a few months after this experience,  a 'respected' man who called himself a shaman said he would 'heal' me.  I was naive and open.  Later he proceeded to hurl verbal abuse at me whilst I was in an already very fragile and vulnerable state. I began to realise this is such a deep wound that it is very hard to speak about.  And many men cannot even begin to go there.
The longer we do not deeply address these underlying issues the worse it gets.
I was living in South Africa for 5 years, a country I love very much in spite of all this. (I am now based in France.)  And one where this desecration of the feminine is at a scale that is beyond tragic to think about. In 2010 when we were filming in Durban every single woman I interviewed out of about 30 women had experienced this first hand. The children was also hugely suffering and vulnerable to this.
It began to seem more and more incredible to me. If we were to interview the men,
Would they then say? Yes I have done this, or I know someone who has done this.  Why are those conversations not happening? so I am calling in healing,redemption and transformation to come forth.
Much love and blessings

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