Defender
Recently, I saw an AMC documentary called “All of Them Witches”. The name was from the movie Rosemary’s Baby, a thriller that I still watch whenever I come across it while scrolling through the cable guide. In the documentary, there are several people who talk about their witchy ways, which I found interesting, simply because to me, witches were just people who were tormented for having a connection to the elements. Again, that’s just my perception of people who use the term.
At any rate, there is one gentleman who talks about his queerness and his witchy-ness, and how (I’m paraphrasing here) if he was threatened, there was no way on earth the women in his family wouldn’t come to defend him and his feminine spirit. There was something so beautiful and pure about his declaration, that it shook me to my core, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Literally for at least two months, his words have been coming back to me!
As a mother of daughters and a woman born into a family of very powerful-spirited women, I am fiercely protective of providing a safe space for me to feel my whole, unique, and feminine self. I am completely firm in my opinion of a woman having control over her own body and I want that for every woman. I want my girls to feel safe going to a doctor and being able to discuss her personal, medical concerns with a medical professional. I want the same for any woman I know and for those I don’t. I also want that kind of safety and security for any man. And, I have to say that when this young man talked about his family protecting his feminine spirit, his feminine energy, it was like something stood up in me. Like, why shouldn’t all of him feel safe?
Then, I recalled the many, many instances of violence against people of the LGBTQIA+ community, and I just wanted to expand my sphere of security around them. People are vessels, plain and simple. It is our spirits, our energies, that animate us and make us who we are. Our energy enlivens our bodies. We can choose, or rather we should be able to choose, how we adorn them, who we choose to share our lives with, and who we choose to let in to make us feel safe and whole.
I know that I am an empath. I am just realizing that I have probably been one since I was a very small child, which is why I would feel nervous or scared when I was safe at home. Why I would feel enormously sad in the middle of a very happy moment. I remember asking myself why I would feel that way and finding no logical explanation for that feeling, and so I would push myself forward, moving with intention, being mindful of my own environment. I would force myself to be present and not drift along with what I was feeling. I didn’t have the language back then to know that I was like some antenna, picking up frequencies from everywhere. The practice of being intentional didn’t always work, and there were many hard years between then and now.
At any rate, I’m saying all of this now, because I have been stuck in some kind of writer’s block for several months. But today, I promised myself that I would put what I was feeling out into the universe, because speaking truth is one of the main reasons why I am here. I know that I am not for everyone, but like I heard someone say on the radio the other day, “I am not here for you.” The One who sent me created me as a vessel to pour out whatever love and light He filled me with. I have known for some time that everything ain’t for everybody, and if it was so, everyone would be able to do everything. I tell this to my daughters all the time. I am a truth teller and a truth seeker. The truth is that I don’t like the hate that I see being given to those who don’t always fit into what this world has deemed as normal.
The truth is that we are all people. We are all animated from one greater Spirit that was poured out and into our bodies. We all come into this world in various colors, arriving in various countries, under some sort or set of government or rulers. Wherever we are, some of us choose to adorn our bodies with the most wonderful colors and fabrics! Some of us dance to the beat of drums from far off places. Some of us chose to enjoy the comforts of home, while others go out into the world, led by the noses on their faces or by the spirits that sing loud enough to be heard from miles and miles away. I believe we are here to become better than when we got here. I do not believe that we are here to stamp out someone else simply because their bodies don’t look like ours or because they choose to wear purple nail polish and dance in a chiffon tutu.
I am a guardian, a defender of all that is good in this world. I know that in the marrow of my bones. I also know what this world does to truth tellers and seekers, and I apologize to my family and close circle of friends now for any way you are made to feel because I choose to stand in truth. I will protect all feminine energy in whatever form in which it dwells.
Unless you’ve turned away or are wearing blinders, you should be able to see how those who call themselves men or women go out of their way to destroy anyone whose spirit comes forth in a form they feel it shouldn’t be in. Yes, both men and women are choosing violence against men and women who let their spirits grow bigger than their bodies. While I see the beauty in that bigness, they see a threat. While it can be quite fascinating to behold, it is also quite dangerous for those walking in heels or comfy flats. Folks is weird sometimes. Violence is never the answer, and I cannot sit quietly when weak people in power build instruments of war in the form of laws and red lines to destroy other people.
What does this post mean? To one, it may mean that I am someone to be despised. I’ve been despised before and for far less, so that’s, as my aunts would say, “old hat”. To another, it means that you have a defender in me. To me, it means that you who choose to vibrate higher, you who choose to live out loud, and you who choose to wear whatever makes you feel happy and beautiful, have one more person out here who chooses to celebrate you and your lovely, lively, spirit. So, please, do me a favor and dance!
