First Voice

Dear Readers,

Over the past three evenings I've taken us back over 4,000 years to find our Woman's First Voice. In addition to Enheduanna, the first identified writer, who was a priestess, there was her goddess--Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, Goddess of Love and War. What is remarkable about Inanna, first and foremost, is that she embraced the opposites. She was a total being. In addition, she celebrated herself as a sexual woman. The poetry in which she expresses herself is a testiment to that feeling of celebration of womanhood.

I begin with this First Voice because of the freedom of expression and because of its totality. Inanna was equally expressive when she was excited about dressing up, when she was describing her lover and their lovemaking, and when she was angry enough to go to war. Inanna was also described as very clever, tricking her uncle into giving her his powers and then escaping out of his reach.

What I particularly love is the fact that she is free to express herself however she feels and free to say what she needs to say in order to obtain what she wants. In this ancient literature, there is no value placed on what Inanna says. Everything she says is what it is. Period.

So, our question tonight is: If this is how women communicated, why don't we women have this same freedom of expression today?

Well, my great teacher says, none of us arrived at this point in our lives unscathed. For us women, many factors contribute to our communication issues. We want to think it's personal--the things that have happened to us--our upbringing, early trauma, relationships, messages about the way we speak. However, our culture carries messages about women and communication that have nothing to do with us personally--and, also, affect each one of us on a personal level.

Our purpose in Woman's Voice is to find that unique voice that each one of us carries within and to develop the skills that allow our unique voice to become an effective communicator.

Woman's First Voice was untouched by the cultural, social, and religious issues that in later times affected how women speak. In this way, we women have a model for a woman's voice in its wholeness.

Writing Exercise: Do you have a woman's First Voice that is a model for you? A mother, grandmother, aunt, sister, teacher, friend. Someone you admired, someone who influenced your own communication style. Was she outspoken? Or was she soft-spoken? Was she clever with words? Was she more of a strong and respected presence, someone who communicated powerfully with few words? Who is the woman or women who influenced your own communication style? Describe a moment or experience that impressed on you that women are powerful through the power of our voices.

To be continued...and

Thank you once again, dear readers, for joining me here. Thank you for allowing me to share this work with you. And thank you, my special helpers and watchers, for caring for me. I thank you all.

The Archeologist of Silence

Dear Readers,

Last night we became archeologists on a dig through the layers of our Woman's Voice. Starting with a recent conversation, we used the question: "What does that remind me of?" to dig deeper, to uncover other memories, experiences, and feelings of how we communicate with others.

Did you notice that you were paying attention to more than your language, what you actually said?
Did you notice that during your conversation, you were experiencing sensations in your body and/or emotional responses?
Did you notice the silences? Did you, on reflection, hear more communication in the silences than you had been aware of?
Did you notice that you were experiencing wordless feelings during the silences of your conversation?

Silence is a very important aspect of how we women experience communication and our voice. For many of us silence is oppressive. It represents times when we were not allowed to speak, times when speaking may carry a risk of being misunderstood or, worse, ridiculed. Silence may be how we hide our feelings. Being labeled "an emotional women" can be a powerful put-down.

Silence, also, for women, is very nurturing. It's in silence that we commune with the infants in our wombs, listening for them, and they in turn listening to our heartbeat, to the sound of our voices talking to them, singing to them. It's a feeling within us, within the silence, that communicates not only with our infants, it nurtures our creativity and our spirituality.

Those are the two aspects of silence that we women communicate. Tonight let us become archeologists of silence.

Writing Assignment: Recall a recent conversation. It might have been at work. It might have been social. It might have been in an intimate relationship. It might have been with a child. You are welcome to go back to last night's conversation.

Tonight focus on the silences. As you become aware of the pauses in the talk, ask yourself if those pauses contained other and unspoken thoughts. If they were unspoken thoughts, ask yourself why didn't you speak them? Were you aware that the other person had unspoken thoughts? Did you have a sense of what those unspoken thoughts were?

Now consider your feelings. Were you aware that you had feelings in the silence? Were they comfortable or uncomfortable feelings? Were they sensations in your body? If so, where did you feel them?

Were the silences oppressive? That is, did you decide not to speak because you were concerned about the reaction or response?

Or were the silences companionable, caring, an extension of the good feeling between you.

Now ask yourself our archeologist's question: What does that remind me of?
Allow your memory, your feelings, your associations to take you into the silence. If words come, write them down. If there are no words, if you have sensations in your body, give them words. If you have feelings arise, give them words.

Whatever language you give to your silence, it does not need to be perfect. In this exercise, we are excavating. We may not even be certain what we have unearthed.

Our purpose in these two exercises is to start the process of becoming aware of our communication patterns and of developing deeper listening. In deeper listening we become aware that we are listening as we speak.

To be continued...and

Well, my archeologists of voice, I thank you once again for joining me here. Thank you for allowing me to share this work of Woman's Voice with you. And, to my special helpers, once again thank you for the comfort of your presence watching over me. I thank you all.

The Archeologist of Voice

Dear Readers,

When we last met, I wrote about woman's First Voice found on inscribed clay tablets over 4,000 years old from the ancient culture of Sumer.

I also described the process of how archeologists uncovered the layers of Sumerian history by excavating the buildings, built one on top of another, each old building filled in and then built over--a process that went on for over 1,000 years! Archeologists remarked that no matter how much larger and more elaborate the successive buildings became, they carried the same essential design as the original building--they all contained a podium in the center and a niche in the wall of the central chamber. Imagine now how the Sumerians left the furniture, the pottery, the statuary, even the fish bones in place, shoveling in dirt to fill, then built up the walls, put in new floors, a new roof--and created a new building.

Tonight I wish to offer a writing exercise. Each of us, with the complexity of modern life, has structures of memories, experiences, and feelings built one on top of the other and spreading out with each new direction our life has followed.

For us women that complexity includes experiences within our bodies that are felt as well as an often wordless awareness of ourselves. There are the larger moments, our first period, our first pregnancy, our shift into menopause. There are an infinite number of smaller moments that may take us by surprise: the first budding sensations of our emerging breasts, the first quickening sensation of our womb, the first sensation of our child's movement in the womb, the unexpected feeling of loss the first day our child leaves our realm for the wider world. There are other experiences when we give voice to our anger, our tears, our "no."

How many of us women grew up with messages about how girls, nice girls, talk? How many of us grew up with other messages about what we were not allowed to talk about? What feelings we were allowed to express and not allowed to express?

How many of us remember how it felt to just speak our thoughts outloud in a spontaneous way without thinking and weighing our thoughts and words before we speak?

Each of us has a First Voice, a simple building, a temple built on virgin sand. Each of us, over the course of our growing up and adult lives, have built over our First Voice--buildings of language and silence, filled in, smoothed over, then built on again. Our buildings of language and silence are containers for all those embodied experiences that we women share over the course of our lives.

Writing Assignment: You are the archeologist of your Woman's Voice. The temple of your voice may be a small building with only a few layers or it may be a large complex built over many generations. It may have few rooms or it may have entire wings built around the center. The rooms of your building may be filled with furniture, pottery, statuary, and fish bones. It may only contain a podium with niches in the walls.

Begin by remembering a conversation that you had recently. Perhaps it was at work. Perhaps it was with a friend. Perhaps it was with a child.

Remember back to what you said and what you didn't say. Were you aware of sensations in your body? Was your body, your heart, your gut, speaking to you as well?

Take a moment to write down this recollection.

Now ask yourself: What does this remind me of? And write down any further recollections you may have with particular attention to your voice, what you said, what you didn't say, and how you felt.

As the archeologist of your voice, use this question as many times as you wish "to dig" down the successive layers of your voice until you are back in childhood recalling your First Voice--the freedom, the spontaneity, the openness of childhood expression.

As the archeologist of your voice, you may find that you have begun a process that will continue on past your writing. Open to your First Voice. Like the clay tablets of ancient Sumer, it contains treasure.

To be continued...and

Thank you, dear Readers, for once again joining me here. Thank you to all my special helpers. Often these days, as I see you gathered around me, as I listen to you, I am filled with reverence and I remember: "For Thou are with me." Thank you all.

Conversations with the Sacred

Dear Readers,

One of my fascinations with Woman's Voice is that interest in women's ways of speaking, what we speak about, how we sound when we speak, how we impact others with our voices has been the subject of commentary since ancient times. Sometimes it was glorious praise such as the poet Sappho received during her lifetime. Commentary could also be bitterly critical. Going back to ancient Greece in the 8th to 7th centuries B.C.E. within one volume, Hesiod's "Theogony," there are examples of both lyrical praise and biting criticism of both women's language and the sound of our voices.

As long ago as the 8th century B.C.E. was--2800 years!--this was not the earliest writing. A more ancient civilization, long buried in sand by the time of the Greeks, gave birth to writing, to poetry, and to religion. These first peoples were the Sumerians of Mesopotamia--living in the watery lagoons of modern southern Iraq.

It was a harsh land even then and, yet, these people created an organized and thriving civilization and culture that invented writing around the year 3500 B.C.E.--1800 years before the Greeks emerged from their agricultural roots to organize communities around the marketplace.

What is most remarkable about the artifacts of writing from Sumer is that all the writing is original and in the form exactly as it was written. If you look at it, the writing is marked on pieces of clay with wedge-shaped instruments like pens. We are not just looking at words on a page, on these clay tablets we see the hand itself that made the words.

When translated, these clay tablets were found to contain, among other documents, a body of sacred literature written by women about the sacred feminine. In many ways we can say that this literature is the first Woman's Voice. In addition, from this literature, we know that the first identified writer was a woman named Enheduanna, a priestess of the goddess of heaven and earth, Inanna.

What interested me even more is that Enheduanna writes about herself, her struggles, and her feelings in conversation with the goddess Inanna as much as she is writing the sacred liturgy. I found that I could relate to all of it as much as if she'd been a writer in my women's writing group.

From these writings we have both the voice of the writer/priestess and the voice of the sacred feminine. It is a conversation that is as alive in us 21st century American women as it was over 4,000 years ago.

I feel astonishingly tender thinking about all this. What particularly touches me is the direct evidence of this relationship and conversation between human woman and the divine feminine. This conversation was not just personal, however, it was part of the sacred liturgy of the people. It spoke for both men and women and on behalf of both men and women even though the majority of priests in ancient Sumer were women.

Imagine how it might be today if the majority of our clergy were women. I am quite certain that how we see women, how we listen to women, how we hear women--our level of attentiveness and our attitudes toward women would be so different. If we went to worship in the church of the divine feminine, our reverence would color our attitudes toward the women in our lives, create a reverence and a respect for women's voices.

The novel "The Da Vinci Code" was not a phenomenon--it spoke to a longing in our hearts that reflects the most ancient relationship we have to the sacred. It spoke to the loss we've felt in missing the living presence of the feminine divine-a loss we didn't even know we had until this novel awakened a joy in us with the possibility that the sacred feminine has been walking among us all along.

A few evenings ago I began to transition our conversation toward a renewed commitment to share my passion about this work I call Woman's Voice. Tonight I begin at the very beginning with woman's First Voice.

To hear this First Voice is to hear the full range of our woman's ability to express our every embodied emotion and experience--and to celebrate.

I invite you, Dear Readers, to stay with me as we create from this modest beginning our own conversation about Woman's Voice and the sacred feminine as we experience and express it in our everyday lives.

And, as always, my readers, I thank you for joining me here in this space. I thank my special helpers for accompanying me and guiding me on my journey. I thank you all.

The Next Step

Dear Readers,

As we move more surely into this transition, there are a few things I wish to say about the experiences we have been through together. I've had my challenges and struggles to arrive at this point in the journey. There is no denying that my challenges often seemed overwhelming. Even during the most discouraging times, however, I continued to follow what I have cared most passionately about--women and our ability to communicate as women. As challenged as I have been this whole past year, I still was able to write a book about women and woman's voice. Now on our journey together I would like to take you with me into this deeper work.

Last November together we saw a real revolution take place in this country. We women voters, for the first time, significantly impacted the outcome of federal elections. That was a form of women giving voice to our demand for a change. Women turned out for the vote in record numbers and we were a force that created real change. Now it's predicted that women will become 60% of the voting public in '08. We will not be just a significant block of votes, we will be the majority.

In 1999, approaching the millennium, we were told that we were entering an age where we women, each one of us, would become a change agent. Never before in history have women lived as long and as productively as women do now--thanks to advances in women's health care. We women have simply never been present in society past the age of menopause until now. Every woman today knows that she is creating the life she is living. Every women is creating a new model of engaged womanhood and, in this sense, every women in her own life becomes a leader.

Yet, none of us have received training as communicators, and few of us have been trained to leadership. Men have been trained as public communicators and leaders since ancient times. However, women were never expected to participate in public life and, so, we never received comparable educations.

Today all of us women have the opportunity to benefit from communication and leadership training created specifically for women. That is the work I've created and developed out of the journey I've taken to find my voice. I care so deeply about what I have learned and what I've been so thoughtfully taught over the years. All along it has been my goal to share this knowledge with other women--to create a safe space where we can really access and explore our voices and expressing our truth--where we can practice communication and leadership skills.

So, I invite you, dear readers, to continue along with me as I renew my commitment to share my passion with you.

And, as always, I thank you all for that which you have given to me, especially my helpers, and for showing up here in this space we share. I thank you.

Transitions

Dear Readers,

You truly work in wondrous ways. Thank you to my special helpers for showing up today. Thank you to those of you who offered me what I asked for. If I hesitate over your generosity, it's only because I am still finding my way. I am very grateful to have the comfort of your company on my journey.

Yesterday I wrote that our purpose here in our space is about to change. I am writing now to take us into that transition.

My original purpose in writing this blog was to connect my readers with my work, the work I've spent 17 years developing on behalf of women. We will soon return to our original focus on women and woman's voice--on women's empowerment and leadership.

When I started this blog, I began by sharing some of my family stories. I had no idea that I had such a readership. Following the first of that year, I did begin the process of discussing women in the news and the leadership they provide as models. Although we have returned to this theme on several occasions, I have taken us into a more intimate dialogue between you and me.

Now it's time to return to our original connection and the purpose for this blog-to provide information and support to all of us women who are struggling to gain a real presence and voice in all areas of our lives.

Over the past year, as you know, I have written a book about the work I've developed. Over the next few posts, I am going to share some of that writing with you in the hopes that you will find it useful, supportive, and nurturing.

Also, in sharing portions of my book, I am hoping you will become interested enough to go to my website and join my email list. There will be changes at the website as well and, soon, we will be able to communicate more directly.

I hope you will all stay with me through this transition. I am looking forward to sharing what I care most passionately about: women and the journey we all are taking to claim our woman's voice.

Once again, I thank you all for showing up. I thank all the supportive men who show me every day how much they value and care for us. I thank again all my special helpers. Thank you all and, especially, I thank you for continuing to meet me here.

A Special Thank You

Dear Readers,

Since my last post, I've gone through quite a change. My vision has cleared and I can see and hear you at long last.

It astonishes me, after what we've been through together, that you all continue to show me in every way how you are with me. I feel so very comforted now to have you all around me. I can see and hear and feel your support and feel supported by you. You have become as dear to me as Jacob's angels.

I especially wish to acknowledge all my special helpers. Without your persistance and dedication to helping me, I would never have made it through into this land where I know I am and have been so well looked after and tended.

So, to all of you angels, I thank you from my overflowing heart. Struggling through my clouded vision and not leaving was the only way that I could show you my true intent and dedication to you also.

The last two years have been one leg of our journey together. Now I am struggling to catch up. You were trying to show me and tell me all the time and I just couldn't get it. Nothing in my experience has prepared me for the generosity of spirit that you all have given to me or the cleverness and invention that you've shown in communicating with me. I can't express my appreciation enough for the playful way in which you care for me.

Thank you for giving me hope that it isn't too late. I will trust in your wisdom on my behalf and continue to persevere and to follow where you send me. Please continue to have patience with me--my eyes and ears are not yet perfectly attuned.

There are changes coming to our space as well and I will leave it until our next meeting here to tell you about them.

I dedicate this blog to you, dear readers and helpers, for all the bounty you have provided. Thank you again for all the ways that you reveal to me how you continue to show up for the work. My heart too feels you at work inside it.