The Feminine Has a Head Start by Richard Rohr

The Feminine Has a Head Start By: Richard Rohr Historically speaking, in most cultures the role of men has been to create, to make new things, to fix broken things, and to defend us from things that could hurt us. All these are wonderful and necessary roles for the preservation of the human race. However, most children saw their mothers in a different way. She was not a creator, a fixer, or a defender, but rather a transformer. Once a woman has carried her baby inside of her body for nine months, and brought it fourth through the pain of childbirth and into the world, she knows the mystery of transformation at a cellular level. She knows it intuitively; yet she usually cannot verbalize it, nor does she need to. She just holds it at a deeper level of consciousness. She knows something about mystery, about miracles, and about transformation that men will never know (which is why males have to be initiated!) Women who are not mothers often learn it by simply being in the community of women. The feminine body can be seen as a cauldron of transformation. Her body turns things into other things – her body turns an act of love into a perfect little child. Yet, in her heart, she knows she did not do it. All she had to do was to wait and eat well, to believe and to hope for nine months. This gives a woman a very special access to understanding spirituality as transformation – if she is able to listen to her own experience and her own body. Admittedly, not all women do.