Women across the globe are awakening to the extensive, suffocating effect of patriarchy. For a while, I thought it was just people like me, those I associate with, women (and a few men) who are of compassionate mind and heart, but something happened last week that opened my eyes to see it quite differently. One conversation moved me beyond ideas of individual transformation right into the arms of an immense, sweeping shift in consciousness.
And that gave me not hope, but a firm and abiding trust in the benevolence of life’s perpetual transmutational alchemy.
I invited an old friend for tea, someone who is a caring and lovely woman, a person I have known since I was a child. Yes, a very long time. We don’t see eye to eye on everything, but things are not always as they seem. Life is having its way with us all, even those living different lives from us, those apparently not on a spiritual path. I should have learned that with Kenny, but it seems I am a very thorough learner.
Consciousness is shifting, is opening and expanding in ways no one, not even me, not even the famous gurus (perhaps especially not them) can see or explain.
When you get to my age, you expect to lose friends. Death comes for us all. Between illnesses, simply wearing out, and life thinning the herd in infinite ways, our numbers dwindle. It is something everyone who lives into their 70s and 80s experiences. My experience is not unique.
I have seen more than my share of death. Having met my own demise several times, I am not afraid of it anymore. I might not be ready for it, but when it is ready for me, I won’t be kicking and screaming on the way out. Death is an old friend. I lost my beloved husband Kenny, my dearest friend Sunny, and my sweet mother (that adjective fits her so perfectly) over a period of 13 months. I was in my late 50s when that happened.
Now, I am losing my friend, a friend so interwoven into my life that it feels like losing a limb, not to a terminal illness, but slowly, memory by memory, losing her to dementia.
We grabbed our tea, drove down to the river, and sat there in the car and talked, talked until movement wasn’t just wanted; it was required. The riverwalk was empty of people, a bit windy, and the blue skies overhead warmed us enough that we could move the energy while going deeper, deeper still. Our conversation was nothing either of us expected.
How can you expect a miracle?
It felt like she realized that she doesn’t have much time left to plumb the fathomless, like she needed to expose all that she had spent a lifetime repressing. So, she did.
I was in awe of the heart and soul she put into every word, taking her time to make sure that what she was going to say felt accurate, asking for patience as she built the courage to be real, to say things out loud that she had only said to herself. We talked about death. While it isn’t at the center of her radar screen … yet, disappearing is.
She feels like she is ever more quickly sliding down a very slippery bank, trying to stop the slide, but in growing recognition that she isn’t in control, that she is no longer inching but slipping down the hill of memory loss. She knows she is jettisoning bigger bits and pieces and wonders what it will be like when there are more holes than memories.
What surprised me, and the reason I spent the week sitting with thoughts and feelings that arose out of our time together, was the fact that she very carefully, almost reverently, brought up regrets.
When I gently asked what type of regrets, she slowly, very consciously said how much she loved her husband, what a good man he is … and then she talked about losing herself in him, in letting her interests and wants slide, in not speaking up and claiming her life, and how very sad that makes her.
Here she is, sliding into oblivion and filled with regret for the young woman with unfulfilled hopes and dreams, unmet needs and desires. She talked about her younger self, about her fading memories of who she was before she married, remembering her excitement about what’s next, all of the varied interests that filled her life, and her heartbreaking admission that her life so filled with promise had dissolved into his needs, his wants, his life.
It was an afternoon of slow words, easily shed tears and warm hugs, one of the most real conversations I have had in my life, and I’ve had a lot of real conversations, but this one was poignant in way that defies explanation or understanding.
She was fascinated when I shared what I have been seeing, women stepping into their autonomy, their refusal to be defined by another’s life, even when that other is a beloved husband. It is the legacy of our generation, and those who came before us, one that we are leaving for all who are coming up behind us, every single woman and man.
We don’t see the evolution of consciousness, no different than we don’t count each minute in the day. It is slow. It is precise. It is nearly invisible and yet the clock moves. It is happening even though we cannot spot the mile markers or see where the road is taking us. We are a part of it. Our lives are the evolution. Our experiences, hardships, insights, failures and successes fuel evolution and are fueled by it.
Listening to my friend’s regrets, realizing that evolution is percolating in places I would never have expected, that even amidst extreme challenges of mind and body and heart, the shift is taking place, humbled me. It was a soulful reminder that I really do not know what is happening here. I can believe I do, but I truly do not.
Life is an amazing ride. We think we direct it, that we have at least some level of control over what is happening, but do we, really?
A woman who never alluded to her regrets, who never allowed herself to speak her actual reality aloud, who truly mourns the young woman’s dreams that despite it all have never withered and died, rises into herself. Now, as she faces the slide into full-on dementia, she frees herself to speak honestly, candidly, refusing to hold back. She simply stops squeezing her magnificent self into that box of expectations women around the globe have allowed themselves to be stuffed into.
This shift is beyond the individual and yet inclusive of the individual. It heralds a sweeping shift in consciousness. I don’t know about you, but to me, that is a ray of light pointing to the unrealized human potential we are finally bringing to life.
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Amaya is the author of 7 books, the latest Actuality: infinity at play. It is available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and IngramSparks and others. Link to B&N https://bit.ly/4bXLFie
