Feminine Power: Rewriting Old Stories

I’ll be honest, this started out as a story to reconnect us women to our power. Pondering over it for a while, though, I find it equally relevant for men. After all, men also have a feminine side to integrate, and a huge source of power that is often either partially utilized or not at all. Just like we women do. 

One culprit for this may be that both men and women in the Western world have been inundated with the same story about Adam and Eve from an early age on. Thus I invite both women and men equally to discover one liberating possibility to rewrite the story of Adam and Eve.

The stories we tell ourselves play a huge part in the readiness of women and men to assume their full heart power. These stories can be on the conscious level and on the subconscious level. Many of them are on the subconscious level - and as long as we still hang on to those, we can pretty much try anything on the conscious level and will still not reach our ful potential. So, here’s to debunking one of the major myths that has become the story of the archetypical first relationship. It’s been told in kindergarten and in schools long enough to firmly engrain it into our DNA: I’m talking of the story of Adam and Eve and the eviction from the Garden of Eden. 

It more or less goes something like this, normally: Adam and Eve were living happily in the Garden of Eden and everything was perfect. Paradise. Until, one day, Eve ventured off on her own, and came to a tree that carried lovely apples. In that tree sat a serpent and sneakily talked Eve into trying an apple (seriously, who - in a perfect state of health, without ever having tasted fast food - would need to be talked into eating a lovely and pure apple?!?!). Eve was so excited about her discovery that she in turn “tempted” Adam to try one. And that was the end of Paradise as they knew it, and all evil as we know it ensued from Eve falling from grace and taking Adam with her.

- Phew. Have a look at the power dynamics at play in this story. Talk about negative relationship programming... Are you still surprised that so many couples are having trouble with a healthy balance of power in their primary relationship? It doesn’t surprise me anymore. But that’s the status quo. And that can be changed, slowly, one relationship at a time.

I’m offering you a different version of the same story that came to me during meditation recently. The players are the same, the location is the same. The outcome: completely different. :-) And I invite to pay close attention to your reactions to this new version. It may also be worth it to take this new version and meditate over what it could mean to you personally and the way you connect to the feminine aspects of your personal power.

Adam and Eve are living happily in the Garden of Eden and everything is perfect. Paradise. Until, one day, Adam fell violently sick (probably from constipation). Eve ventured off to find medicine. She came to a tree that carried lovely apples. Immediately, she knew that these apples were the answer to Adam’s troubles. The reason she knew was that wrapped around the trunk of the apple tree, there was a serpent. And Eve knew that this meant healing, after all, it was nature showing her the rod of Asclepius. So, wise woman Eve tried one of the apples herself to convince herself of their qualities and brought some apples back to Adam, who ate them and almost instantly felt better.

Now, we can muse what made Adam fall sick - in my meditation I gathered that he had eaten too much meat - hence the constipation - and taken to killing animals for pleasure. However, I expressly do not want to use this story to shift the blame on our men. No blaming here. Just observation. I’d rather use this last bit of information as an allegory for the ills of our world in general - and again, both women and men living in denial or fear of their very own good powers tend to engage in harmful behavior, hurting others, but hurting themselves above all.

Back to the perspective flip on Adam and Eve: to me, the gist of it is that all humans are born with huge gifts. And part of the endowment of women specifically is the gift of a deep connection to Earth and to natural nurturing and healing. This is a huge part of our feminine power. And I hope we are getting less fearful in using this power in a heartfelt way. Women and men. For a world that’s fun and safe to live in.

Love and light,

Solveig