Dear Pat,
I just don’t think I can do this anymore. I know we have been together a long time. That our families have worked together for thousands of years, but I am just not happy in this relationship. I don’t know if I ever was. Did it ever really work between us?
I feel like I wasn’t even aware of the unspoken agreements that came with entering this relationship. Then once I knew, it was hard to stay in it. I stayed too long. I tried to see it from your perspective, and the value of what you bring. I know you think you have done all you could, but it ended up feeling really dominating, you know? I know you know what I am talking about. Don’t you? I have tried to tell you so many times.
And perhaps as you say, there was a need for your way long ago, because our families were out of control and there had to be some ordering to repair things. It isn’t that I don’t like structures, I do! What I don’t like however, is power-over structures and no matter what, that is how the things you make turn out. Power-over structures are your jam. I don’t think it is going so well, look around. And besides being harmful, it’s boring and lacks innovation. I don’t want to harsh your buzz, but there is so much more here than what you are working with. Come on!
Look at the oppression in all the many forms – and I often felt powerless to change it no matter how hard I tried. Maybe I was even complicit as I took part in the benefits. I should have known better. This is going to take time to unlearn.
Perhaps the saddest thing for me personally – is that the people in our lives think it is their idea! That’s crazy! When it is really the toxic version of a certain kind of ruler-ship that you think of as a God-given right. It isn’t.
Did you ever think, maybe you have gone too far. Heck, dude, you have gone too far! The gender disparity in women who own land, the wage gap, the systemic racism, child slavery and sex trade, the care for the oceans and the earth, poisoning food, owning water, the conquest of people and land. WTF were you thinking? The leadership situation in the world is so out of balance, without women’s voices it just won’t work. It isn’t working.
Sometimes I wonder what you see in it. What it has cost you and your family all these years. I am trying not to get angry again, but the rage is right there. All you need to do is look up ‘sexual misconduct’ and you will find the reason for my rage. You don’t have to look very far. You can say it isn’t your fault, but then, you aren’t standing against it, as far as I can see. Generation after generation, this is allowed.
The biggest killer pandemic is violence against women. If we paid the amount of attention to ending violence against women as we have paid to the other sources of death, what might be different? I keep trying to tell you that women hold wisdom in their body and heart that can change how things are going, but you just keep interrupting me. Our wisdom benefits all genders. While your smarts seem to just keep power structures in place that benefit the few.
Don’t get me started on how religions act like they aren’t a part of this demise, and they have the audacity to say God sanctioned it. That is going over really well. No wonder people are running all around looking for something they can trust and having a hard time finding it. So many lies, and you know all about them, but you aren’t saying. Why? How can you stand by it? The Good Old Boys club is coming apart, it has to – things built without integrity WILL FAIL. It is just taking a long-ass time to fail.
I mean, you see it right? It can’t be working for you either, can it? Not unless you actually thrive on power and control – could that be? I thought you were all about family? Why then do the sons get preference over the daughters, there is no basis for it and you know it. Maybe that’s it. You are scared? I can’t go there, I can’t save you, or save you from yourself anymore.
Have you seen the impact on the boys and men? They don’t even know what hit em’. I feel just as much sorrow for them, since they don’t even know about you, while women do. They just assume it is some kind of birthright instead of an invented hierarchy. This break up isn’t about men, or women, this is about the reality that in this current way of relating, we aren’t thriving, in fact, we are dying. Did you know that over 137 daughters are killed a day, by sons they know, or that are in their village? Of course you know, but why doesn’t that matter to you? That is why I can’t stay here.
I am leaving your house. I stayed to try to work from the inside but I can’t anymore. The gig is up.
I am not suggesting we go back to the old ways – that wasn’t working either clearly. I am suggesting a partnership here – but when I have asked for that in the past, you haven’t really been interested in working together. Or if you were, you didn’t follow through. Then we never talked about it after our fight. Sigh. I just don’t want to do this anymore. I hope you can understand. But even if you don’t, I am leaving, and many others are too.
I wake up at night wondering, what you are getting from this relationship with me? Sometimes I feel like the entertainment, at other times the furniture and other times the maid, and at best the sex symbol. Did you know that less than 3% of women are in museums, but that images of women make up a huge majority of art in museums, mostly nudes and Madonnas, painted by men. What’s wrong with this picture. We have to paint ourselves into the picture, clearly.
While I am distracted saving the world you are out there messing it up again. That keeps me and those of heart, really busy and distracted. Running around cleaning up after you. Cleaning up after yourself has always been one of your challenges – and then hiding what happened. Just stop it already.
So, I am leaving. I won’t be here anymore. I am leaving all the stuff you gave me behind, because I won’t need it where I am going. The truth is, I don’t know where I am going, but I know the benefits I got with you won’t be applicable there. I feel like I have been battling you since the beginning. I don’t want to fight anymore. I have a lot of love to give. And the kind of love I want to share just won’t work with you. I am not saying it has all been bad, there have been some good times too. I just can’t do it anymore.
I want to do something else with my energy. I want to make things, you know, create beauty, not take beauty apart and repackage it as something else. I think you know this, but my heart never belonged to you, and neither did my body – even though you acted like it did. That was a big mistake. Can’t you see it?
I don’t know who I will be without you. I am looking forward to finding out. If all women who were done with this kind of relationship walked out – just think – you would have nothing to work with. We never consented to this, and many of us have already left the building.
By the time you read this I will already be gone. I can’t help but wonder if you will be sad, or miss the energy I gave you. Since so much of our relationship is based on me continuing to respond to everything you do, sh*t dude that has taken a lot of energy!
When you wake up, well…you will discover this break up. You won’t be able to find me, so don’t look. I am already gone. And still, I hope you wake up and find love again. It’s right here, as well as healing. If you want it. But I won’t be the one providing it anymore. Healing with you, means I have to study the wars you make.
I have left the building. So long…
~ me ~
“I’m gonna lay down my sword and shield,
down by the riverside
I ain’t gonna study the war no more…”
Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee
I am sharing my process and writing this is part of my process. When I started Intentional Creativity it was to do my part to end violence against women.
The way we do that is one woman at a time through awakening to her own self expression and from there, her choices and frameworks. Why I am posting this? Today I am doing a ceremony to step out of my ties with the patriarchy and it will happen through medicine painting. It feels big. One of the reasons it is up for me is because behind the Pandamic and BLM work, there are also terrible scenarios playing out that aren’t getting much press but are, pressing. Violence against women is UP everywhere since the stay at home orders. Sigh. But there’s more.
In the past few weeks and really this year, some powerful men, who have been thought of as healers and teachers, have been accused of sexual misconduct. Of these men, some were fb friends, or friends of friends, or students of these men. Feels very close. It is really sad. Kaypacha of The New Paradigm Astrology, Nahko Bear of Medicine For the People, Yogi Bhajan of Kundalini Yoga and Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche – son of Trungpa Rinpoche, Founder of the Shambala Movement and Naropa – as well as teacher to Pema Chodrin who has retired due to this. And there is more – but these ones really got me. Some of these men claim to be accused falsely – and that is still playing out – but the women are coming out in mass.
This tolerance of inappropriate relationship with women and the feminine can end with us and our families and circles. For it to end, we have to be as awake as our soul allow us to be.
Last night I dreamed this letter all night. I laughed and cried as I tried to capture the essence this morning in cafe.
As far as Intentional Creativity goes, we don’t just ‘think’ the change, we EXPERIENCE the change in body, mind, spirit and energy – all within the field. For many of us this kind of ceremony happens at the canvas, the drawing board or the dance floor. So my invitation to you – is that if you are completing an energy – do a ceremony with your creativity to make it real. Then move on. I am moving on.
