If Women Rose Rooted

It is not accurate to say that I recently read a book called If Women Rose Rooted. It was more like a delicious meal that one takes small bites of and savours in the mouth, wanting it to last forever but knowing that it will eventually be consumed.  I wanted to keep every bit of it in my mind and breath and body.

Sharon Blackie

Author Sharon Blackie is a psychologist, writer and mythologist.  In her therapy practice and her writing she has explored myth as a path to transformation.  And she is intensely connected to the land in Scotland and Ireland.  In If Women Rose Rooted she explores the ancient Celtic myths that rose out of that land, in which women were protectors of the land and water.  She feels that by remembering these old stories, women today can find their voices once again and speak out for the land.

Blackie relates how Western women lost control of their stories when the Romans replaced the stories with those of Christianity.  She writes, “When I was a child, this cultural story about who we are as women made me feel small, insignificant, empty:  As I grew older it made me angry:  Angry, because it justifies a world in which men still have almost all the real power over the cultural narrative – the stories we tell ourselves about the world, about who and what we are, where we came from and where we’re going – as well as the way we behave as a result of it. “ (p. 6)

photo from Sharon Blackie's facebook page

She goes on to explain that she couldn’t even imagine a world in which women and men worked together in partnership to create a sustainable world.  After exploring these themes, she asks the all important question:  “What if women rose again?  Not in battle, but what if we could reclaim, somehow, that power and respect which women had lost?  What if we could somehow dismantle this planet-destroying patriarchy; and recreate a world in which we lived in balance?”  (p. 12)

Blackie writes, that in order for women to rise again, they need new stories or perhaps the old, old ones.  She explains the importance of stories, writing, "It’s not simply that we like to tell stories, and to listen to them; its that narrative is hard-wired into us.  It’s a function of our biology; and the way our brains have evolved over time.  We make sense of the world and fashion our identities through the sharing and passing on of stories.  And so the stories that we tell ourselves about the world and our place in it, and the stories that are told to us by others about the world and our place in it, shape not just our own lives, but the world around us.  The cultural narrative is the culture.” (p.12)

The rest of the book has the pattern of first an old Celtic story, Blackie’s understanding of it from a psychological point of view and then a new story about a modern day women who exemplifies the message of the story.  This weaving of old and new stories is very powerful as it bypasses the story in the middle which has done so much damage.  She tells stories of the Selkie’s skin, the Wasteland, the Fischer King, Ceridwen, keeper of the cauldron, and the ancient creator goddesses.

Blackie outlines the heroine’s journey which differs from the familiar hero’s journey.  She describes the heroine’s journey writing, “…it was a journey in which men and women could become allies, and the stories which guided me arose from a culture in which both men and women were valued for the different things they brought to the world.”

I have become aware of other women in Great Britain who are using the old stories and who are embodying their messages.  And they are being joined by women in North America as well who want to do something about the state of the world.  TreeSisters, the group of women who want to reforest tropical areas through partnership with local reforestation groups is an example of this.  They are working to strengthen women in this way as well, so that they can remember who they are and find their strength in community, just like trees in the forest do.

The history that we know of the world has never seen women join collectively all around the globe before.  What if women do rise rooted?  What story will we tell then?

Rise and Root from Sharon Blackie's facebook page