Hi there. I changed my template and the blog came back! Hope you like the new look.
Blogging at age 51 (yes the previous article was written a few years ago and revamped this week), means I am challenging myself to learn new skills - computer programming not being one of them.
I am loving the reading I am doing about the feminine, and hope you enjoy learning along with me. It is not easy to go against everything you've learned and try to find out what is really "feminine" about yourself, especially if you, like myself, have always hated anything to do with that word. I used to associate it with blondes and bimbos. Now there's a heavy judgement!
Lately, I've tinted my hair with blonde highlights. I find myself wearing a skirt more often, (the colourful one I bought in Sante Fe was just the first!) And feeling less inhibited about my very female body. Yesterday in the pool, I actually took off my bathing suit top and swam with breasts touching the cool water - we have a cedar hedge keeping it very private, but I still felt like a radical exhibitionist!
I normally don't even look at myself in the mirror, let alone brush my hair or put on make-up - since I don't work outside the house it doesn't seem necessary to 'put a face on'. But my 14 yr old daughter is very fashionista, and has a cool sense of her own style, and very feminine ideas on female beauty - she has long hair, which she likes to get styled, shaves her legs, loves to buy make-up and jewellery. I guess at her age I went through all that too, but then rejected it as being too 'feminine', too confining, too stereotyped. At 17, I was wearing overalls one day and high heels the next. Probably confused about what it meant to be a girl. In the 70's, sexual liberation and feminism meant we could dress like guys, act like guys, swear and smoke like guys, drink and party like guys - at least we thought we needed to, to be free. These days girls are showing off their belly-buttons and wearing tiny tank tops for the same reason. (at least, I hope that's the reason).
I have to confess I am not a radical feminist anymore. But I have started to appreciate the softer side of me, the swishing feel of skirts against my sometimes shaved legs, the curve of hips that are definitely starting to look like the Venus of Willendorf model. The breasts that are resonding to gravity and travelling southward on their own. What's next- nude sunbathing?
Embracing the feminine at this stage of my life means dropping the mask, embracing my quirky eccentricities, finding out what makes my heart dance - I made a cool collage yesterday that boldly stated: Follow your heart - put the world on Hold - and juxtoposed the words Crystal Butterfly - Earth Angel - Sexy Beast and Sinfully Good - it's all in there - the mix of sensual, sexual and spiritual that makes the feminine such a wild ride. Hormones are just the tip of the iceberg, ladies. Get your feminine on!
ps the secret code of women is what makes my heart dance!
musemother
1 comment:
Jess, it is so interesting to hear your take on it. Of course, our sexuality has been so categorized, that some women have decided to reject what we call"feminine" ways or clothing. Gay, femme, butch - it's all on the outside, isn't it? On the inside, your 'feminine' energy is independent of how you dress, the costume you wear or which mask. Wouldn't it be lovely if we could imagine the divine power as Female? that is the ultimate feminine power for me, the imagination to make god in my own image. To learn about the power of my body to align itself with the moon during menstruation cycle, to see the miracle of breasts pouring out milk, to love my mother as myself as opposed to seeing her as weak, powerless for having stayed at home to raise children, to love my body as it is, dolphin thighs and all, - see I was brought up to see a woman's role in the home as limiting, second best - you had to get your brain active, argue with men in class and win, be ambitious, succeed at all costs, forget about biology and rise above it. Now I am sad that I have hated my femaleness for so long. I guess my way of making retribution is to celebrate the Divine Feminine, raise myself up in my own image, so to speak. Sexy skirts help, oddly enough. glad you wrote,
jenn
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