“A Woman is like a Bowl”
I came across a passage from Mother Moon the other day that has been circulating in my heart.
“Women have the capacity to embrace all people. A woman, especially a mother, is like a bowl with the capacity to embrace men, women, children and the whole. Nobody can change that.”
It’s not always easy to describe the unique qualities of women that are desperately needed in our society. There’s a sense that we need women, but we can’t always put a finger on why we need women. Through the feminist movement we’ve seen great strides in the equal status of women as members of society, but we have yet to harness the true power of women…
I think this quote from Mother Moon has an answer for us to consider.
Some may react to such a notion with the feeling that this “power” seems like such a weak gift, especially when compared to what we admire about our male counterparts. I’ll admit that even I have a knee-jerk reaction to concepts like this. However, when I stop to really contemplate, quiet my mind and ask my heart, I realize that in the grand scheme of life, all I really want is to be embraced. I want to know I am loved, safe, and secure. Isn’t that what all of us actually want? If women have the ability to provide the thing that all people want… does that not make us the most powerful?
To embrace people requires a certain inner strength that very few have actually mastered. It requires the strength to see beyond the personal pain, the obvious faults of others and to love. It’s a quiet and painful walk that few will recognize, for you can only recognize it if you’ve walked that path yourself. If more of us can take that walk to truly embrace the world, to be a bowl that welcomes whatever comes our way, we can be the ones to transform the world, person by person and family by family.
So ladies, as silly as it is, I want to encourage you to be a bowl. Everytime you pour yourself a bowl of cereal, I hope you can smile and be reminded that if you can empty yourself, you have the power to embrace the world.