Yesterday was an incredible experience at the Women’s Music Festival, complete with missing music tracks, serendipitous spontaneous co-creating, sweltering heat and the grand finale of driving home in downpour of rain and hail. You can read about it here.
But one of the things that really moved me was the power and spirit of sisterhood at this festival. The women’s drumming group, Bumbada, was phenomenal. Women of all ages drummed and danced together. I was so inspired.
One woman came up to me and spoke to me about women accepting themselves and about the problems she saw young girls facing in schools and the way girls punish one another with the silent treatment.
But there was no silent treatment, no turned backs or hostile glares here. All I saw were women sharing their talents, supporting one another, joking with great camaraderie and playing. Lots and lots of great talent.
We aren’t perfect, but we aren’t the mean bitches we’re sometimes made out to be. Certainly, we are capable of committing great acts of cruelty towards one another. Welcome to the human race. Not to condone it, but to acknowledge what our challenges are as people and to refrain from making yet another stereotype that will excuse us from looking deeper.
But I don’t want to not look deeper, because there is so much beauty there. Even among the ugly, the beautiful is worth salvaging. And even more, worth calling out.
This weekend spoke to me strongly. Maybe helping to heal the wounds of relational aggression means diving back into the place where we got them. Back into the arms of our sisters, wiser, more knowledgeable and mindful of what we are all capable of, but diving in again just the same.
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