The Feminenza group in Florida has organized regular workshops
and
conversation evenings over the years. However, they decided to
start 2003 with
a big bang and launch Feminenza with a large event at the Embassy
Hotel
in Boca Raton, South Florida, with the help of some men, who offered
the
technical support to make it possible.
A Female/Woman/Lady theatrical presentation |
Attended
by about 100 women from all over
south Florida, the evening was kaleidoscopic in
nature, with an amusing Female/Woman/Lady
theatrical presentation, a moving song, a
powerful and captivating dance and of course
many conversations in between.
It
culminated with a presentation by two of its Founders: Mary
Noble and Joanna Francis.
Joanna presented the international vision of
Feminenza, and Mary highlighted the spiritual
issue for women in this time, the importance
of believing in ourselves, and that we have a
responsibility to act in our troubled world.
What
follows is an edited extract from Mary Noble’s speech.
It was a kaleidoscopic evening with an introduction, a moving
song, a dance and a presentation about the international vision
of Feminenza |
What
is Feminenza?
Embassy Hotel, Florida, 22 January 2003
“ We
have a vision, a belief that as women, we
have a huge part to play in the future of our
world, but to play that part, we need to know
ourselves better. We need to find an inner
strength, an inner connection, to the deepest
parts of ourselves, and from that, a connection
with the best of each other. We need to learn
to understand ourselves, profoundly, to rewrite the centuries of
ignorance, of suppression,
of seeing ourselves as insignificant. We need
to search for the courage, the morality, the
belief that everything is possible. We need
to believe in that deepest part of ourselves,
and we need to believe that there is a feminine
spiritual power that we are born with
and connected to by virtue of our gender,
which has an intelligence, it is coming here
from the future, it is here to help humanity,
and it can speak through us if we let it.
It can speak through our thoughts, through
our actions, through our art, through our
poetry, through our dance, through our
cherishment of the uniqueness of each
individual human being.
I
believe that even amidst today's terrors, bombs, and destruction,
there is still hope
for a brighter tomorrow. And no-one is better
placed to take that up, to champion that
humanity, than those of us who still have
relative freedom, relative security, relative
ability to choose who we want to be and
who we want to spend time with. We have
time, we don't live in a society where if we
are widowed, our life is over, even at the age
of 15, where we are denied access to education
because we are female, where we are treated as faceless possessions.
We can still
act, and I believe we have a responsibility
to act.
In
Feminenza, our vision is to provide a beacon of hope, a place
of sanctuary, a
place where women can come to be fortified
internally, spiritually, whatever their background,
creed, or colour. It is a place where
women can be safe to explore their inner
journey, find the greatness of companionship,
discover what we are here to do, and
find ways to be useful to others.
It's
a place where young women can learn dignity, and self-respect,
and the joy of being
female. A place where women further along
the road of life can share their wisdoms. It is
a place where we can get to understand
more about relationships, the male gender,
love, success, creativity and how to establish
a real mutuality and understanding between
men and women, so that we can work
together for our future; and it is a place
where women are encouraged to discover
that the last stage of life, after menopause,
can be the greatest stage of all, the flowering
of all the seeds that have been planted
in her life, it is a place where we can help
those seeds come into flower, where we
learn what nourishes those seeds, and what
chokes them.
Our
vision is to have centres all over the world - we have already
started in Europe -
where we can develop this journey that
some of us have been on for many years.
They are places where we can share the
knowledge and wisdom we have acquired,
and exchange our experiences with other like
minded women who want to come on this
journey with us, discovering new ways to
bring healing into this world, new ways to
bring love into this world and respect
between men and women into this world,
finding new ways to become a home in
ourselves for those living essences that the
world so badly needs, the essences of care,
respect, love, understanding, patience and
humility. To be custodians of those qualities
doesn’t come easy, we have to work for it,
pay a price for it, and be prepared to put our
egos and insecurities to one side for it. This is
the task and the joy that lies before us.
Florida
could be one of those places where we can establish one of our
centres for
Human Development, our first American
school of development for women. We have
yet to find all the finance and the facilities,
but we believe that will come, because we
know there is whole army of women out
there who feel the same way we do …”
|
