The Female Spirit

Ah! The Female Spirit!

So as intangible as a concept and abstract as a thought that I can only begin to speak of it by addressing the intangibility and abstractness of its nature!

We may find ourselves often wondering why exactly it is that we may spend hours observing at the Mona Lisa, unable to break her gaze or how one can be so utterly entranced by Kahlo’s bushy brows and floral crowns. We question why it was Eve that was anointed the Original Rebel and Bertha Mason the fascinating madwoman.

The answer lies I believe, dear reader, within the Female spirit.

The most undervalued and overlooked phenomena of humankind!

This force lies within the crown of Hathor and the arms of Durga. Nestled amongst the horns of Lilith and the snarl of Medusa.

Unfortunately, at times, we reject the Female Spirit.

Yet we drink milk into adulthood.

We brand her with a Scarlet Letter or chain her in the attic with unsightly, taunting yellow wallpaper and wonder what drove her to lunacy. We tell her that her Nobel Prize rightfully belongs to her husband and that she should change her pen name to that of a masculine type, lest she sells no novels.

We banish the Female Spirit,

we call her,

Bitch! and,

Slut! and,

Whore!

And then wonder why she never shows up.

We must recognise that the female spirit rarely makes a grand entrance.

Man appears in human. He must announce his presence, crudely, as a dog insecurely pees upon rows of trees. But the woman is often silent. You may believe that woman withers away in wisps of wind, with no desire to take up any space greater than necessary.

But, the woman prefers to work swiftly in the shadows, containing no oozing, festering ego hungering for credit or glory.

This is why I endeavour to bring her divinity to light. To sit the man down and say,

“You’ve had thousands of verses in the Bible, Quaran and Torah, hundreds of treaties to end the very wars you started and many more bills passed in parliament that serve you and only you

to speak your piece.

Now, it is our turn.”

But, despite the millennia of stoning, marrying away and burning at the stake, the Female Spirit still prevails!

She still seats within the seats of the Senate, the benches of High Courts and the fields of stadiums, with her feet firmly in the soil and her head proudly amongst the celestial patchwork of possibilities.

So let us, dear reader, hand in hand, walk through the meadow of the Female Spirit. We shall smell the blooms of her achievement, hear the birdsong of her struggle and pause and give moments of silence to the stumps of her losses.