Still Sundays
September 12th.
Power of cleavage without breasts. “Mami Wata.” Stillness is not found in being still! Discover fire for the 2nd time.
If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.
New York City is moody this morning. The notebook papers and pages from magazines are dancing to the Fall wind drifting through my apartment windows. New York City is not one of those cities where the surrounding colors become more vibrant when it is cloudy. The lush greenery of trees and parks attempts to provide a polychromatic substitute for the heavy clouds. It’s not enough for me. I breathe an ode to sunlight every morning, without the sun I decelerate without intending.
The City of Paradoxes is reflective of life that doesn’t resolve and spurts ambiguity like rap. It’s there, in your face, and you can barely follow unless you listen a few times.
“As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don’t deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity. To the degree that we’ve been avoiding uncertainty, we’re naturally going to have withdrawal symptoms—withdrawal from always thinking that there’s a problem and that someone, somewhere, needs to fix it.”
~ Pema Chodron
Stillness, then, can’t be found by seeking lack of movement or stopping momentum but by dissolving in buoyancy. The perpetual to and fro which accompanies being alive.
I am constantly reminded of the above in Marco Rojas’s yoga classes. I am constantly reminded of the above because I am alert to the opposing dynamics I observe around me in New York and within myself.
This week I met a friend’s mother for the first time, her first visit to New York. They are from the Netherlands. The woman had really stylish short blond hair and a beautiful figure. Her muscular long legs, perfectly showcased in her denim skirt, were steady and feminine. She wore a violet long-sleeved shirt and the color suited her very much. She hugged me upon our meeting. Her embrace was warm, her laughter electric, her smile wide, her eyes champagne sparkles, her accent obvious, her womanfolk-resilience apparent—in short, my every day senses defined this woman nothing less than beautiful, alluring, and sensual. After ten minutes into the introduction I was reminded and noticed for the first time: she had no breasts. No, not “flat” as in “small breasts” but none. She had recently had to have both breasts removed due to breast cancer. All of a sudden I was a tiny fish struggling to find my way out of the net of inexplicable emotions cast over me: awe–really? confusion—why didn’t I notice? wonder—how did I not notice and what does that mean? Pity was not one of them.
She knew a secret my mother has repeatedly shared with me and all my female friends: the power attributed to “cleavage” is the weakest of the powers a woman possesses. A woman’s real power comes from a divine grotto within where most women hardly tread.
Last night I thought about “Mami Wata.”
“Mami Wata” is a larger than life metaphor central to one of the themes in my manuscript Her Sizwe. You can read one of Tuesday’s snap shot fiction pieces titled “Visceral Waves” right here if you so like. That entire piece belongs in Her Sizwe and mentions “Mami Wata.”
Mami Wata.
The mystery of a woman—promiscuous, sexy, beautiful, dame, maiden, nymph, chick, broad—is as alluring as the infinite attempts at defining her. This is true even when she chooses to define herself through infrastructures offered by various waves of feminism. Despite the advent of “feminism” and the varying theories women are confined.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote:
“Someday after mastering winds, waves, tides and gravity, we shall harness the energies of love. And then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will discover fire.”
Someday after mastering “beautiful”, “professional”, “domesticated”, and “creative”, women shall harness their true divinity. And then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will discover fire.
The Queen of Sheba speaks for her sex when she reminds us, in Flaubert’s novel The Temptation of St. Anthony, “I am not a woman, I am a world.”
Hats off to brave men who recognize and nurture the divinity within a woman.
The potency of discovering that ocean energy within oneself as a woman or recognizing so within a woman is the stuff of a wholly Sunday.
Bud*, you were right: what I thought made me weak as a woman is really the source of my strengths. I wish you could see me now.
Yoga.
Marco Rojas.
Still.
Sunday.
~a.q.s.
*Bud was my professor in college. He passed away in 2006. I didn’t provide hyperlink above for my intent is not to trick you into reading anything. If you are interested and have time, you can read more here. In short, he was a great friend, mentor, and an extremely learned man who taught me literature and life.
“Women shall harness their true divinity.” Absolutely true.
Wonderful how still Sunday stays for you so that you can hear what you need to write. Just lovely.
Going to read about Bud now.
What a joy to have found you. You have much to teach and share with me.
very well written….beauty is now a days defined by the societal and cultural so called standards..and sadly so many get caught into it,and millions of dollar are spent on it,plastic surgeries, expensive clothes and cosmetic.Yet they think they feel ugly .BEING A WOMAN is the most beautiful thing…and we all have to know our worth…thanks for sharing such beautiful thoughts.
Great how you turned around the de Chardin quote without making me – a man – feel like I’d lose my masculine grandeur.
Joking aside, at the end of my Sunday over here in London I’m reminded of my very own ‘stillness’, not still at all sometimes, and often like a burning inside. Buoyancy, more often than not, turns into euphoria, and looking from up there the world is always still, or seems to be in balance, at least.
The mystery of women is deeply rooted in the idea of Gaia, like I’d never cease to respect and cherish the divinity of my mother, even if we wouldn’t have a lot in common.
Your Mami Wata is an ideal beyond sexes as there is no defining of human nature, ultimately. We are changing all the time, and I have friends who went through physical disasters that in the end revealed their true souls, humanity and beauty. And this is when we will have re-discovered fire, a second time, a third time… It never ends.
i’m seriously drunk off of this:
Someday after mastering “beautiful”, “professional”, “domesticated”, and “creative”, women shall harness their true divinity. And then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will discover fire.
Wow, powerful! Your words tremble with fire! Thanks for this very rich offering, savoring every word! Your mother is wise! I love this:
“A woman’s real power comes from a divine grotto within where most women hardly tread.” Yes!!!!
Marjory