Women On The Edge Of Evolution

I am attending a free teleseminar called, “Women of the Edge of Evolution: Awakening to the power to co-create our lives and shape our collective future.” There are a total of fourteen sessions, one a week, which consist of a conversation with women described as “fourteen of the world’s leading female spiritual luminaries, thinkers and agents of change.” I am really inspired by the series, which is about half over now, but you can listen to all of the conversations and questions from participants on-line or download them to your mp3 player or ipod. Register at www.womenontheedgeofevolution.com

Here are some notes I took listening to the conversation with Barbara Marx Hubbard. Barbara, who is 80 years old, is an inspiration for me (I’m 71). She is a truly wise Crone who has been living on the edge of evolution for a long time and doesn’t seem to be slowing down a bit. She speaks from her own experience about the profound changes of aging, “After 50, when you have no more eggs, you become the egg. The egg of the authentic female self has not been fully expressed on this planet for many many thousands of years and never in an information rich society like the one we are now in. Women are at the edge of evolution wherever we step forward as a group and say ‘yes’ to our deeper potential, ‘yes’ to our life purpose.”

The “authentic female self” has not been fully expressed on the planet since before history and the development of patriarchy. In order to become evolutionary women, or co-creators, and participate in our own evolution and the evolution of our planet and society women are called to discover, remember, or invent our ancient authentic self and indigenous genius.

Barbara describes the evolutionary woman as one who is incarnating the cosmic creative impulsive, and when she gets awakened to that it feels like a spiritual awakening, which leads to creative action. Women who are living at the edge are finding a deeper life purpose or are yearning to find one. A co-creative woman as she awakens and says “yes” begins to grow in an unprecedented way.

When a woman expresses her true-self in the world through creative action, she is what Barbara calls “suprasexually creative and attractive. Suprasex is the sexual drive become a creative drive. This doesn’t exclude sex but expands it. A woman who is suprasexually aroused by her own creativity and the development of herself and her life is the most attractive force on earth. The co-creative woman attracts that which she sees within her that needs to be created.

In the Women’s Movement of the 60’s and 70’s women were waking up on mass to our true situation as women in patriarchy. We joined together in groups for a common purpose. First we tried to be equal to men in a dysfunctional world, then we woke up to the fact that we are facing a planetary crisis and we may not be able to make it, and then we started to wake up to the fact that inside the female is a passion for love, community, creativity, and coherence.

Discovering their passion, co-creative women fall in love with what they do, with their work, with the giving of themselves in service to others and the planet. Barbara, examining her own experience says, “I love the expression of the divine aspect of myself when it feels connected and in service with others. It feels so rewarding, self-rewarding in the doing.”

This lead into a discussion of the fact that many women become so passionate and involved in the work they love, generously giving of themselves, that they become overwhelmed and experience “burn out.” This topic has come up often in the series. I liked the perspective of Sofia Diaz in her teleseminar.

Sofia Diaz (www.sofiayoga.com), is a Hatha Yoga, sacred movement, and feminine spiritual practices teacher. She agrees that women have an important and unique role, “Women hold the key to the evolution of consciousness and culture because of our capacity for compassion, our sensitivity for others pain and suffering, and deep caring.” This capacity, Sofia calls “feminine genius” and says that it is “a source of deep power that we are holding to evolve our world.” Yet many of us are feeling overwhelmed, almost victimized by our capacity to care.

It is important to realize how profound it is to have the capacity of care and the ability to relinquish self and output for the sake of others. This “is the highest pinnacle in all spiritual traditions, sought after by mystics and spiritual seekers.” Problems arise when it is unconscious, when you don’t realize you are extending one of the most generous gestures in this human universe, if your motives are fear, not being loved, insufficiency, fear of loss, then this is the catastrophe we find our selves in feeling overwhelmed and victimized.

We need to stop and ask why am I extending myself? But instead of answering this question with mental discrimination, we ask our body. First you have to be able to feel the parts of your body and then the information you get is the truth. Rather than answering the question with criticism of your character look to the genius of the feminine body this is where you find the deepest answers and the refinement of great questions. “When I ask myself what is my motivation and I look for tensions in my body, I always get an answer – perhaps I felt weak or hurt by a particular interaction or I’m afraid to extend myself in a way that feels risky. The answers are really detailed and come directly from the body.”

If you ask a deep question and let yourself feel it viscerally there is a relief and in that relief your heart actually relaxes, and if you find a relaxation in your heart and you take a deep breath into it, the biggest relief and the biggest answer to self-care is that you are loved.

Sofia has much to say about the genius of the feminine body as well as instructions on how to access that genius. You can listen to her Women on the Edge of Evolution teleseminar by registering at www.womenontheedgeofevolution.com