Reclaiming the Reptilian

Sometimes the world feels like it is against me. I admit I contribute to this rivalry: intensifying the fight more than I might need to. But I can’t help it, or it feels like I can’t. Or I haven’t yet mastered the tools of disarming my reptilian brain. Like a wild animal, my hair stands on end so my inner beast is revealed to scare off and keep at bay the threats that surround me. It is instinctual. As soon as I get a whiff of outright outrageous behaviour, infused with the fragile egos of power-hungry and prideful individuals, I snap. I can’t have it. And I need them to know it.

The beginning of 2022 has led us deeper into the unknown, in the feelings of scarcity and fear that the world has been journeying in the last two years. There hasn’t seem to been a break. Of course things like a pandemic and a war will instill these feelings naturally. Getting older and becoming more and more aware of our mortalities have something to do with it too. The world is not getting worse, we are just getting older. The structure of school, primary-coloured playgrounds and the hovering, protective wings of our parents are no longer there to shield our view of what our world really is. I work in aged care and the amount of stories I hear about living through the wars of the 20th century, the depression, the holocaust, polio, and the Spanish flu serve as a reminder that what we’re going through right now is nothing new. This, this moment that is, is a revealing, and uncovering of the underbelly of what our world has always been. It’s just clearer today than it was yesterday.

In the clarity of this moment, we might even become aware of the ways in which the events of this world are shining a mirror back upon our own lives. What ways do we consciously (but, mostly, unconsciously) still practice war in our own lives? How do we contribute to the on-going colonization, the erasing of another person’s identity and the indoctrination of western ideals? And how much do we keep quiet in the face of marginalization, racism, sexism, transphobia and homophobia? How do we contribute to mass consumerism? Do we fail to recognize how our privilege, that is, what families we were born into, what connections we are exposed to, whether we are born with a penis and how white our skin looks, contribute to our unconscious bias?

This is not to take certain governments off the hook. And this is not to instill a sense of shame upon the individual (Lord knows we do enough of that to one another and ourselves already). But we do, as a society and as individuals, need to be conscious of what systems we subscribe to, how we too contribute to unconscious ways of creating or sustaining oppression of others and creation. Or rather, we need to come awake, aware and alive to the power we actually have to act differently, think differently so that we might be liberated into our true selves and see our neighbours with the same vivacity.

I know I take my privilege for granted everyday. I grew up with two loving parents who gave me opportunities in sport and academics, where I was able to get health and dental care. I got flu shots annually and I was able to get work from my opportunities in sport that carried me through to my mid-20’s while still living at home so I could travel the world. Vancouver has a 5-bin disposing/recycling system that made it easy to get rid of waste in an ethical way. And these are only some of the ways in which I have been given things I barely had to work for. I go to a school now that pays me to attend. And I still complain about it.

So when I talk about the beast of injustice that overcomes me, it is revealed in one of the very few ways in which I am not privileged, in that, I don’t have a penis. Systemic patriarchy is revealing its ugly head in my life the older I get.

I was having a conversation with a friend a few weeks ago, while basking in the sun while wading in the waters of Port Phillip Bay. We were comparing stories of people we have been with throughout our life. I shared with her two stories with the same man: when I was 18 and then again at 22 one of my closest friends, 16 years older than me, took advantage of me even though I had declined. She rightly pointed out how wrong this was but, up until she said it, I had never noticed it before. He is… was my friend after all. And this shook me to my core, making me become more and more aware of how permeating patriarchy is, taking things from me without me even being aware of it.

But the latest thing that has made my hair stand on end was in a male minister I was in placement with. White male in his 50’s who used his power to patronize and demoralize my theology, claiming I didn’t have any. Perhaps he couldn’t recognize it because it wasn’t soaked in cerebral misogyny, as one of his criticisms of my leading service was that I took the male pronouns for Christ out of a piece of scripture. And then the gaslighting that came from people, even women, who had power to do something about it and didn’t; who turned this experience back at me and asked me why I couldn’t stay in the placement or asked what my learnings were from it, as if it was a great opportunity for me to explore my own actions and responses to systemic patriarchy. Which, sure, it was. I told them I learned to back myself and remove myself from an unsafe and untrustworthy environment. Lesson fucking learned. I didn’t swear out loud but, fuck, I should have. Another thing patriarchy has taken from women: the ability to show anger without being labelled as crazy or a bitch.

It feels such in contrast to the way I began this year, spending time in Coogee, swimming the Women’s Pool, surrounded by women of every age, race, size, and experience. Some women who bathed on rocks with their tops removed while others floated in the pool below, teaching the next generation of strong women how to swim amongst the torrential currents of the waves that would fill the pool with luscious salt water and seaweed. An environment completely void of the pool we all usually swim in: patriarchy. The ceaseless energy of trying to prove ourselves, of constantly being judged, of not being thin enough, tan enough, beautiful enough, smart enough etc…. This pool was the first time I felt an energy where judgment (even amongst beautiful, instagramming Coogee women) was absent and compassion, acceptance and joy soaked the very air of that space. Leaving Coogee and finding myself back in Melbourne I have felt the tug of the Divine Her within me, reminding me I don’t need to drive the 855kms to be immersed in the feeling of the freedom of feminism and femininity. The pool is already within me. It is the water I am floating in, guiding me, revealing moments of beauty and utter magic whenever I join with Her to awaken to it. Of course I will make a point to pilgrimage to the Women’s Pool whenever I can. But the pilgrimage doesn’t start when I get in the car and point North East. The pilgrimage starts here, in remembering who I am and to whom I belong: the divine mother spirit leading me, on the backs of those women who have come before me: my mother, my grandmothers and my great, great aunt Edna whose poetic records I hold on my bookshelf, reminding me of the vivaciousness of women who walked through harder times guiding my way.

And so maybe this is where we can start. Wherever we see or experience violence in our own lives or the lives around us, let us not snuff out our God-given instincts. Our reptilian minds recognize abusive power. And sure, we are no longer being chased by the beasts that used to hunt us for food. But in our awareness for danger, for violence, oppression and misused power, is the choice to say ‘no’, is the choice to choose another path, is a choice to say ‘yes’ to Her, to the way of justice and the way of love.