If You Want to Change the World… Love a Woman

by Lisa Citore

If you want to change the world… love a woman-really love her.

Find the one who calls to your soul, who doesn’t make sense.
Throw away your check list and put your ear to her heart and listen.
Hear the names, the prayers, the songs of every living thing-
every winged one, every furry and scaled one,
every underground and underwater one, every green and flowering one,
every not yet born and dying one…
Hear their melancholy praises back to the One who gave them life.
If you haven’t heard your own name yet, you haven’t listened long enough.
If your eyes aren’t filled with tears, if you aren’t bowing at her feet,
you haven’t ever grieved having almost lost her.

If you want to change the world… love a woman-one woman
beyond yourself, beyond desire and reason,
beyond your male preferences for youth, beauty and variety
and all your superficial concepts of freedom.
We have given ourselves so many choices
we have forgotten that true liberation
comes from standing in the middle of the soul’s fire
and burning through our resistance to Love.
There is only one Goddess.
Look into Her eyes and see-really see
if she is the one to bring the axe to your head.
If not, walk away. Right now.
Don’t waste time “trying.”
Know that your decision has nothing to do with her
because ultimately it’s not with who,
but when we choose to surrender.

If you want to change the world… love a woman.
Love her for life-beyond your fear of death,
beyond your fear of being manipulated
by the Mother inside your head.
Don’t tell her you’re willing to die for her.
Say you’re willing to LIVE with her,
plant trees with her and watch them grow.
Be her hero by telling her how beautiful she is in her vulnerable majesty,
by helping her to remember every day that she IS Goddess
through your adoration and devotion.

If you want to change the world… love a woman
in all her faces, through all her seasons
and she will heal you of your schizophrenia-
your double-mindedness and half-heartedness
which keeps your Spirit and body separate-
which keeps you alone and always looking outside your Self
for something to make your life worth living.
There will always be another woman.
Soon the new shiny one will become the old dull one
and you’ll grow restless again, trading in women like cars,
trading in the Goddess for the latest object of your desire.
Man doesn’t need any more choices.
What man needs is Woman, the Way of the Feminine,
of Patience and Compassion, non-seeking, non-doing,
of breathing in one place and sinking deep intertwining roots
strong enough to hold the Earth together
while she shakes off the cement and steel from her skin.

If you want to change the world… love a woman, just one woman .
Love and protect her as if she is the last holy vessel.
Love her through her fear of abandonment
which she has been holding for all of humanity.
No, the wound is not hers to heal alone.
No, she is not weak in her codependence.

If you want to change the world… love a woman
all the way through
until she believes you,
until her instincts, her visions, her voice, her art, her passion,
her wildness have returned to her-
until she is a force of love more powerful
than all the political media demons who seek to devalue and destroy her.

If you want to change the world,
lay down your causes, your guns and protest signs.
Lay down your inner war, your righteous anger
and love a woman…
beyond all of your striving for greatness,
beyond your tenacious quest for enlightenment.
The holy grail stands before you
if you would only take her in your arms
and let go of searching for something beyond this intimacy.

What if peace is a dream which can only be re-membered
through the heart of Woman?
What if a man’s love for Woman, the Way of the Feminine
is the key to opening Her heart?

If you want to change the world…love a woman
to the depths of your shadow,
to the highest reaches of your Being,
back to the Garden where you first met her,
to the gateway of the rainbow realm
where you walk through together as Light as One,
to the point of no return,
to the ends and the beginning of a new Earth.

(c) Lisa Citore

By way of Cecily Guest...

The ability to commit to a romantic partner may be more rooted in childhood and adolescence than previously thought, according to research to be published in the journal Psychological Science next month.

Though previous studies address how differences in commitment levels predict a relationship's failure, little attention has been given to the role of family and friend bonds throughout life.

Researchers found that people with lower quality relationships as toddlers and teens tended to be less committed to their love interests later on.

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The study focused on 78 participants between the ages of 20 and 21 who had been studied their entire lives through the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation. Psychologists used data from two previous experiments with participants.

One measured the quality of each participant's relationship with his or her care-giver as a 2-year-old, while another looked at his or her ability to resolve problems with best friends at age 16.

Most recently, scientists surveyed the same participants and their romantic partners of four or more months in order to measure each party's level of commitment to the relationship. Based on their scores, partners were identified as the "strong link" or the "weak link."

After, the couples participated in a videotaped discussion, identifying relationship struggles, how they resolve conflicts and what they have in common. From the video, a coder measured hostility displayed by each partner.

As predicted, participants with lower quality relationships with others in previous experiments were more likely to be the weak link in the relationship, while those with higher quality interactions earlier in life were more committed.

In addition, female weak links were more likely to act hostile during the videotaped discussion. The authors write the trend makes sense because women use language to maintain relationships more often than men.

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The findings support the idea that people's interactions throughout life -- romantic or not -- affect one another. It makes sense for people with lower quality relationships to be afraid to commit, especially if they invested too much trust in someone who didn't reciprocate.

Also, the authors of the study point out that weak links generally hold more power in relationships because they have less to lose if broken up. Along these lines, the strong links are more likely to appease the weak links to avoid conflict.

Consistent with other research, the study found the difference between individuals' romantic commitment matters more than each person's actual commitment level. Researchers think they have a starting point to look at how childhood development affects romantic relationships down the road.

Photo by Welsh Poppy/Flickr.com