Meeting Persephone

It's surprising to me that a word as simple as desire can create such turmoil for me. In reading 'Kissing the Hag' I've become completely distracted with that one little word and will therefore need to re-read the book once I've sorted out "desire" for myself.

Bobcat is completely accurate in stating that we, as women, are taught and learn to hide parts of ourselves that are ugly, smelly, flabby, hairy, unpleasant, unacceptable, angry and more. We are told that being self-sacrificing is an attribute that everyone around us will appreciate and therefore make us loveable. One must, as a woman, be loveable at all costs. Even if it costs us ourselves. But at some point in our lives we stop and look at ourselves and confront a sad fact: in all of that self-sacrifice and covering up of those "unwomanly" parts of ourselves, we realize that we don't know who we really are and what we really want because we've put everyone ahead of ourselves.

I'm a wife and a mother. I've raised an incredibly strong, powerful, intelligent, and independently minded young woman. I'm exceedlingly proud of the woman she's becoming because she represents a shift in the way we see our daughters as well as the climate of the world - at least the world in our own backyard (there is still a great deal of work to be done). When I read her a paragraph from Bobcat's book that just shakes me to the core and makes me want to scream from the rooftops, my daughter just looks at me blankly because she doesn't understand what the big deal is. To her it's all acceptable and it's all taken for granted. One part of me is worried that without those struggles she may become complacent and unwilling to continue fighting for progress. The other part of me is giddy that she doesn't understand the oppressive nature of existence because it does mark progress.

When I think of desire - she is it. I want nothing more than for my daughter to continue on the path that she is on right now. To be all that I was denied in my own pseudo-Victorian upbringing. I want her to know what she desires. I don't want her to stumble with the question as I am doing. I don't want her to be able to list fears, concerns, and superficial wishes when someone asks her about what she wants most. She represents a break from patriarchy without needing to resent the male representation of patriarchy. She has been embraced for who she is and admired for knowing who that is.

As a wife I have been supportive and encouraging. We have conquered statistics and kept one another balanced. We are essentially opposites and that is what has lended itself to the balance absolutely necessary to our survival. Had I married someone like myself, that marriage would have failed and if he'd married someone like himself, he may not be alive today. I have helped my husband to achieve his dreams. He brought the education and ability. I provided his backbone. His dreams have come true - at least for the most part. He'd love to help me make my dreams come true. The problem? I don't know what they are.

Many of us have come to Paganism as a response to something. We might find that we do not believe the faith that we were brought up in. Maybe a realization struck us and we sought out something that was better suited to our perception. Perhaps a trauma caused an evaluation of a previous path and found it wanting. That trauma may have caused distress in mental or physical capacities that required a turning in of prior perceptions and opened us up to ideas that had previously been terrifying. We confronted fears and took on new ideas. Some of us turned those ideas into a religion - either self-made or one that suited our new-found positions. Others a philosophy. Regardless of how it manifests itself, we changed. We sought out something that fed us rather than a larger community. We broke with the acceptable comfort of what we were handed by past generations and reached out for something for ourselves. We began looking at ourselves. Terrifying, exhilirating, isolating, and freeing.

Women have a variety of answers about what they desire most. Some simple. Others romantic. Still others practical. We may want comfort, love, compassion, respect. Maybe we want to be a legend or just desire being heard. Fame, fortune, luxury, peace. The answers are as varied as the number of women out there.

But still, what do I desire most for myself? I don't know.