Sing
Because this is a food
Our starving world
Needs.
                            -Hafiz

By Anne Scott

     At the recent global conference in Jaipur, India – Making Way for the Feminine: For the Benefit of the World Community, 450 women and  men gathered from around the world to explore the feminine way of humanity. The stories of women and life from many diverse spiritual traditions and cultures were shared with sorrow, love, compassion, and sometimes, great joy.

   Such an event can feel overwhelming to the senses. Daily the fragrance of India seeped through the conference, sometimes pleasantly as in the scent of spices in every meal or roses floating in stone basins as we walked along the path to the large tent where we met. But at other times, it was startlingly raw. I took a walk alone behind my hotel, and found a young woman in a sari and flip-flops shoveling hot, acrid liquid tar over a dirt road. It felt poignant, knowing that on the other side of the wall stood the conference tent where women were sharing deeply from their lives and their visions.

     Women from the East and the West spent five days together in this way, without an agenda yet held by a clear focus on specific topics. The conference included those from Afghanistan, Iraq, Cambodia, Pakistan, India, Palestine, Israel, Africa, and Tibetans living in India. I was moved at the willingness of all these women to come together like this – where the uniqueness of each was held in a larger whole. No one was excluded. The sense of unity gave a certain freedom for each woman to be more fully herself.

   On the first night an Australian woman spoke about how the heart of Australia opened overnight with the asking of forgiveness of the Lost Generation by the government, which offered a deep apology. “The heart changed,” she said, “the heart of a nation softened.” Women from the African continent then introduced themselves: “We have come all the way from Africa to present the divine power because we hear the call of women to talk about Peace.”

   There was a profound witnessing of suffering as we heard the stories of women from Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. To simply listen to and hold with love the stories of what has been, and is still being inflicted against life in these countries, was very powerful. There was one moment where an African woman spoke violently against the effects of colonialism on her country. Another woman took her aside after her talk.  “Sister, there are no victims anymore. It is about all of us now—it is global. Speak quietly from the deepest place and they will understand you.”

     And this is how it went—women speaking from their depths, in prayer and in talks, with such love pouring through this unified body of women and men. This process worked within to heal our isolation or sorrow, and linked people together to form new relationships and water the seeds of new projects.

 During one talk a young Buddhist woman broke down in tears, unable to continue speaking about the loss of her family through political violence when she was a child. The next evening we walked together back to the hotel. With joy she shared about her lineage, and how she was now studying in Sri Lanka for her doctorate, enabling her to return to her own country where she would restore this lineage which had disappeared. 

  In between large group talks and prayers there were smaller gatherings. I was asked to co-host a circle about visionary leadership tapping into the principles of the feminine way. At this circle a journalist and social worker named Ashima, who works with women in Kashmir, told this story. I share it here because it speaks to each of us as we try in our own ways to do our work. 

 ”One day I sat by a lake in Kashmir and heard the lake crying. She beckoned to me, called to me. It was then that I knew my own work was to restore Kashmiriyat for the benefit of the people and the land. I didn’t know how I would proceed.”
 
     Ashima explained that Kashmiriyat had been a unifying way of life in Kashmir until several decades ago. Based upon hospitality, mutual understanding, tolerance, relationship, and caring – all qualities of the feminine – it fostered unity through dialogue, stories, festivals and a connection to nature. This way of life was destroyed in 1989 because of political and religious conflict. The loss incurred fragmentation and suffering among women and families. When she asked people about Kashmiriyat, most denied that it had ever existed.

     After her experience at the lake, Ashima had gone to a nearby mosque. The head of the mosque at first refused her entry because she was a woman and not Muslim; but once he understood her work, he allowed her in. What occurred in the mosque was a moment of grace. As she sat quietly, a man near to her began to pray aloud to Allah, repeating the name of the divine. Touched by the man’s devotion, she wept, and as she did so, a strength filled her so completely that she knew she had the power to carry out her vision.

     Afterwards she felt it was important to visit a Hindu temple, but all the temples had been locked up during times of conflict. A passer-by told her that the back door of one temple was open, so she entered. To her surprise, she found that the sacred rituals had been kept alive; someone had secretly been coming in to care for this temple.

     Just then a woman came in and addressed Ashima, “Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you.” The woman told Ashima that she had had a dream in which a Sufi asked her to look after the temple until the people could care for it themselves. >From this point on, Ashima began to find others who were quietly doing their work to restore the soul of the land. Now she brings people together to repair the social relationships that had been torn apart.

     “So I continue with my work trying to restore the memory of Kashmiriyat among the people. When men who have been fighting each another come together and can remember Kashmiriyat, they embrace and weep. Even though they return to their organizations where there is hatred, at least they remember, even briefly, how life can be.”  

  Later in the conference we heard women who came from numerous war-ravaged countries, each affirming the power of their devotion that helped them to stand in their truth. I watched as Sunni and Shia women from Iraq sat side by side in an impromptu gathering with women from the United States. When an American woman asked, “How can we help you?,”  the Iraqi women said, Listen to us. Just listen.

     In these moments one could feel the weight of an old era touching the reality of a new culture. There was a palpable sense of possibility and hope that women were showing a different way to care for life. When I returned home, a woman with whom I had shared some of these stories, wrote:

     “Sometimes I have this picture that in order to be of service to life I have to be doing something Big, helping lots of people or whatever. And yet it’s not that way at all. It is devotion to the experience of life. Choosing again and again, Life.”

     “Yet the living of it, the devotion to it, is a choice every day, and a bigger choice is the one where we are so deeply challenged by the unknown. Not always easy. But I will consciously choose life. Even if it means there is only one small part of me that can stay open in the moment….”

     Without knowing it, this woman echoed what was stated on the opening day of the conference, when a Tibetan spoke about the importance of our attention to the smallest things:

     “I am a Tibetan lay man. I honor feminine divinity, and the importance of the commonality of human beings. I asked the Dalai Lama for a prayer so I might have a wholesome attitude towards myself and others. The Dalai Lama said that, even if he were many hundreds of years old, he doesn’t know if he could achieve that. But, he told me, ‘Do not neglect the smallest thing. Do not forget the small things. Anyone can do this.’”

     It is my belief that these stories from the conference in India link us together, those who are drawn to the call of the feminine way—of listening, sharing, cooperating, caring, co-creating, and honoring life. They carry a substance as vital as the earth is to a seed, or water to a tree.
From these stories we know that we are instruments of change. 

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