Women Deliver, we can put it all together

The largest global conference of the last decade on the health, rights and wellbeing of girls, Women Deliver, took place last month. Once again, I found that I could not NOT write something on that day when global leaders were discussing how our world’s Sustainable Development Goals depend on the advancement of girls and women.

I cannot NOT say something when something ancient within me is dying to be heard, and is free to be heard. At once.

Everything is happening at once. The empowerment and the surrender. The naked vulnerability and the strong capability. Just like a woman in childbirth. As the intensity rises, so does her ability to rise with the occasion. Just like the crises in our cultures.

The problem, people?

We don’t value vulnerability, we don’t treasure surrender.

Girls and women are violated and dying because of our gender.

We know we need to attend her, mend her.

Lend her our support.

The best way to start is to befriend her.

The one inside you and the one inside me, no matter your gender.

You see, so many of us have silenced our inner femininity.

The results, you can see them all around,

expressed in the oppression, the keeping down of the female body.

Our power, people?

It is profound and simple. At once.

What you put down on your paper, it must serve to support her.

Allow her her place, to pull up her power.

Keep her at the center.

She knows how to surrender

the mental alacrity, the rationality,

And to use it tactfully, thankfully, to behold the vitality of the feminine energy.

It is synergy.

Not one or the other.

It’s time to put it all together.

Midwives and doctors.

Women and men.

People.

Powerful people.

Powerful people placing our power purposefully in service to the planet.

Powerful people partnering the power of mind combined with the power of heart.