This is my response to the #ecoTrain question of the week "What is a Matriarchy?"
Thank you to @clara-andriessen for posing the question - and - for providing your own wise response to the question: What is matriarchy? What do you think a matriarchal society would look like? ecotrain question of the week
I am so glad to be asked this question because it got me thinking about what is a matriarchy. To be honest it is a difficult question because all I have known in my life is patriarchy. I grew up in a patriarchal family in a patriarchal culture.
Today, in shaping my own idea of a matriarchy I looked to the women in my life. What are the feminine qualities they embody, embrace, excel at and are proud of that could transfer to a culture?
All Children Are My Children
I see this attitude in mothers; being ready to care for other children. Whether it is a moment at the playground sensing danger for a child, a child's plea for help or doing a favor for another mother. A mother knows what it is like to have a child. Her love for her child can not be outshined.
Imagine if our culture treated all children like they were our children. All grand children like they are our grand children. All men are our brothers, sons and fathers. All women are our sisters, mothers and daughters.
Imagine the love that would come out of this. It is hard for me to imagine this in our current culture.
I am not a father but I imagine if I were or ever become a father, I would want an healthy, happy world for my grandchildren's grandchildren. I think about this in the garden and when I am planting trees.
Then I imagine not having children... then why am I planting trees if I never have a child? How is the future generation different than my own prodigy. They are not, because every child comes from a mother. And every mother knows that the children come from a mother. And we are all children of the earth.
Have you heard of the term "7th Generation"?
The '7th generation' principle taught by Native Americans says that in every decision, be it personal, governmental or corporate, we must consider how it will affect our descendents seven generations into the future. So that the pristine sky, field and mountains in this photo will still be here for them to enjoy.
Source: What is the 7th Generation principle and why do you need to know about it?
Imagine what your world would be like if it was normal to consider how every decision you make would affect 7 generations after you.
Money Is Not Everything
Imagine a world where there is less emphasis on money. What would that look like? Would you be happier? I regularly hear people voicing comments like "If it weren't for needing money I would do X" or "I wish I didn't have to work today so I could do X"
Imagine a world where we are rewarded for pursuing our passions. That is what is happening in the open source community around the cryptocurrency/blockchain space. What if our whole culture operated like that?
I can imagine being rewarded for pursuing my passions. I would be much happier and that would lead me to be more motivated to make positive change in this world, because I would have more joy and more respect for my culture. More respect for my culture would encourage me to contribute more to my community.
Steemit is already helping us to reduce our emphasis on money. You might be saying.. "what the heck? But money is a reward for every action we take on steemit." That's true, but consider these two points:
- Steemit rewards you for rewarding others
- Steemit community members discourage you from selfish and abusive actions
Gift Economy
Thanks to @teryani I found @kennyskitchen's post Capitalism means free markets, but free markets do not necessarily mean capitalism which helped me understand what a gift economy is.
A gift economy is "is a mode of exchange where valuables are not traded or sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards."
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instead of being focused on quid-pro-quo, turning all human interactions into one party attempting to gain from the other, it is understood that material things are not of the highest value, and it is more rewarding, sustainable, and community-strengthening to simply give to others, rather than demanding or expecting some immediate return.
Did you know that steemit encourages gift economy behavior?
The Reason You Don't Understand Steemit: It's Like A Gift Economy Not A Commodity Economy [ @stellabelle ]
The 8 Forms of Capital
I learned about the 8 forms of capital in my Permaculture Design Course. They were presented as a framework for designing resiliency into a business.
The 8 Forms of Capital are:
- Intellectual Capital
- Social Capital
- Spiritual Capital
- Material Capital
- Financial Capital
- Living Capital
- Cultural Capital
- Experiential Capital
As you can see financial capital is only one of the 8. And they can all be traded for one another, bypassing the exclusive need for financial capital. If there were multiple forms of capital available for your use in your community/society would you only rely on money as your means of success?
I have friends that are AMAZING at connecting people. They put me in touch with community members, connect me with people that help me make new business relationships, friends, you name it. They have excellent social capital. What are those connections worth to me?
Just the other day I met a man that teaches T'ai Chi and after I expressed interest to try one of his lessons he suggested trading a lesson for my input on his garden. I'd say that's a great trade because we are both trading our experiential knowledge that we are passionate about. Additional benefit is that we are bypassing the need to earn or pay that money and pay those taxes.
Embracing different forms of capital, to me, is embracing people for their strengths, passions and abilities.
Why are farmers poor? They feed us! They should be wealthy, if not in financial capital at least in cultural capital, material capital and living capital. But sadly we do not place enough value in our food. But yet still there are young people getting into farming because they are passionate about feeding people, passionate about growing food, despite the financial hardships they know is likely ahead of them.
I believe that a matriarchal society could be more inclusive by embracing the many forms of capital that we hold. Like a mother embraces her children's strengths, interests and passions. That embrace fosters growth, happiness, knowledge and contributions that benefit not only the individuals but society at large.
A mother reminds her adult children that they are still her children. The mother still embraces. Imagine a society that embraces its members as though they are their own children, their own family. Imagine a society that wants and encourages its members to be happy and pursue their passions.
Learn more about the 8 forms of capital in this audio lecture: The 8 Forms of Capital – Through Regenerative Cacao presented by Gregory Landua
I really appreciated the concept of "Wild land currency" vs "Plowed land currency".
Embrace Chaos
Life is messy. But we ignore or overlook the mess. Pretend it isn't there. We poop in white porcelain, flush it down with "pure" drinking water and wipe our butts with "pure" bleached white paper. It's like it never happened. Seriously. And then we need a book called "Everybody Poops" to make us feel a little better about the fact that it did happen.
Our culture is obsessed with sterility, purity, control, order. As a lover of nature I have realized that life is anything but. The order of nature is that there is no order. The beauty in nature comes out of disorder.
We are obsessed with very few specific ideas of what beauty is. But symmetry in nature is never perfectly symmetrical. There is always variety. You can plant 1000's of seeds from a mother tree and no two will be exactly the same.
There is chaos in the soil. No two square feet of soil will have exactly the same composition, same life, same organic matter.
No two particles of matter can occupy the same space. That is chaos.
That chaos is all around us in our breathing, our heart beats, the visuals we see, the sounds we hear, our emotions, our thoughts, our dreams. Every day, hour, minute is different than the last.
We can try to recreate each moment, each day but it will be different.
The tiles on our kitchen counter can be built to perfection, but what is perfection? No two tiles will be exactly the same. The tile layer can measure the perfect distance between each tile but if you look close enough, they can't be perfectly 90 degrees. The lines will never be parallel. The angles where the two pieces of trim meet can't be exactly 45 degrees.
The only perfection in nature is chaos. Without chaos, there would be no life.
Let's Let Go
I've learned that its a human trait to hold on to the past, emotions, pain, ideas, pride and more. Letting go can be very healing, but our culture makes it even harder to let go.
How can we let go of wanting perfection, order, money, fame, love or envy to name a few? I mentioned the other day that one of my primary life's goal is learning to let go. It's so difficult!
I read a passage the other day that gave me more insight. I learned that without embracing the feminine that I could have no chance of letting go. I'd love to share it with you.
During the many years I have worked with the pipe, I have followed teachings given in visions, studied with others, read what was available, and learned what I could of its history and tradition.
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At an ancient time the Great Spirit, in the form of a large bird, stood upon the wall of rock and called all the tribes around him, and breaking out a piece of the red stone formed it into a pipe and smoked it, the smoke rolling over the whole multitude - then he told his red children that this red stone was their flesh, that they were made from it - and that they must all smoke to him through it - that they must use it for nothing but pipes: and as it belonged alike to all the tribes, the ground was sacred, and no weapons must be used or brought upon it.
Each part of the pipe represents certain things. The bowl is the female, the stem the male. The flesh and blood the bowl, the bones the stem. The bowl the Earth mother, the stem Father Sky. The channel through the pipe stem and bowl represents the direct connection between all things and Spirit, the straight and narrow path each human walks to be in relation with Spirit. Thus, when the pipe is joined, all these things are joined as one. Duality is gone.
Sacred Plant Medicine, by Sephen Harrod Buhner
The pipe was smoked to let go of duality. The duality separates us. While we are holding on to that duality we lose our unity and our connection.
How do we let go? I look to a mother who gives birth. Her body lets go of the child. That child is no longer a part of the mother.
Or is it? Do you believe in the duality that a mother and child are separate? Do you believe in the duality that another's grandchild is not your own grandchild?
Perhaps to let go we must embrace the other as we are one. There is another but there is no other.
Embrace the pain instead of fighting it and only then can we let go of pain. Embrace the past instead of repressing it and then we can let go. Embrace the other and let go of the duality.
I imagine that embrace in a matriarchy.
Nourishment
When it comes to nourishment I look to my hero Susun Weed. Susun weed helps me learn how to nourish my mind, body and soul.
Susun Weed herself is a great living example of what a matriarchy can look like. She embraces the gift economy I spoke of earlier. She gives her knowledge away for free. Let me tell you that she is a world class herbalist. She is one of the best living herbalists. She knows that if she and others do not share their knowledge it will become lost. She understands that the power lies in the individual.
Susun Weed understands that our nourishment depends on not losing knowledge and independence. She offers her wisdom and knowledge for free every week to callers on her online radio show. Her website has transcriptions of all her radio shows, hundreds if not thousands of articles sharing knowledge of herbal medicine. She coaches people to think for themselves, nourish themselves and heal themselves.
One of the first thing she commonly teaches people is how to nourish themselves from herbs with Nourishing Herbal Infusions. How empowering it was for me to find a way to nourish myself every day. The herbs became a part of my diet, not a supplement. I no longer wonder if I am getting enough vitamins and minerals. I no longer feel that I need to be dependent on supplement manufacturers. I feel less dependent on my need for doctors with the knowledge I have gained from Susun's teachings.
In fact Susun does not discount modern medicine but suggests a holistic approach of nourishing and healing with herbs while utilizing modern medicine as needed. But to not be dependent on modern medicine, drug companies or supplement companies.
In fact Susun weed is teaching me to let go of dependency and claim independence in my own nourishment, my own body.
Susun Weed teaches us to think for ourselves, learn for ourselves. Be our own medical expert to the best of our abilities. Just like cryptocurrencies teach us to be our own bank and remove the dependence from banks, Susun teaches us to be our own personal nourisher, herbalist and medical expert and remove the dependence from doctors and companies.
Can we ask a financial expert for their opinion and assistance if we feel that we can gain from it? Sure. Can we ask an herbalist, doctor or specialist for a consultation or assistance if we feel its over our ability to heal ourself? Yes, but the independence puts that decision and the control in our hands and not in the hands of a doctor.
It is our responsibility to nourish ourselves; our mind, body and soul. What more could a mother want for her child than a happy, healthy, independent individual?
Trust At First Glance
I learned trust from my mother. She gave forgiveness to me when I was not sure if I deserved it.
But my culture taught me to fear and to distrust. It is easy to distrust at first glance. Distrust helps me feel comfortable, safe, secure.
If someone moves their body in a way that bothers me I don't trust them. If someone looks at me a certain way I don't trust them. If they talk a certain way that bothers me I don't trust them.
I can't tell you how many times I didn't trust someone only to speak with them either momentarily or at length and then found myself completely surprised by how kind, caring or otherwise trustworthy they were.
The problem with distrusting is that I want to be trusted by others.
Trust comes back to the duality again. If I am different than this other person then it is easy to distrust them. They are not me, they do not have my best interest in mind. They are them and they only care about themselves.
When I let go of that duality I realize that they are no different than me. They are my sisters, brothers, children.
I would like to trust at first glance.
Is there a duality between patriarchy and matriarchy? I belong to a patriarchy, so why should I trust a matriarchy? What does it have in my best interest?
If I let go of a duality of matriarchy then I see it is not so different after all and I can trust. Trusting in a matriarchy is trusting in our mothers. Trusting in the feminine in ourselves. Trusting in our fellow brothers and sisters and children and mothers and fathers.
Humans Are Nature
We humankind are nature. We are natural. We came from the earth and we will return to the earth. We came from the stars and we will return to the stars.
If we are not natural then why do we need parks, campgrounds, the beach, grass in our front lawn? They remind us of home.
Come home the grass with the crew cut calls.
Come home the ocean's rhythmic waves call.
Come home the leaves of the trees in the park rustling in the wind call.
Come home calls the sun's rays.
Close your eyes and feel that you are home.
If father is the sky then mother is the earth. While father is watching over us mother is nourishing us.
Matriarchy is a return to the earth. The earth is not here for us, we are here for the earth. The earth is us and we are the earth.
As she is our mother we are her child. She let us go, and we will return. She gives us gifts, nourishment, chaos and trust expecting nothing in return.
What else can we offer our mother but love and honor?
