It Made Me Think…
Someone asked me this question, knowing my love for the archaic form of communicating by letter. Yes, I still write snail mail. I also love epistolary books, a fancy word for a book made up of letters, either written by one person who tells a first-person narrative of the writer’s life or compiling an exchange of letters. I let my mind play with the question and the blog below, an excerpt from my memoir, is what landed on the page.
So you may want to write without knowing what or how to begin. You know that something needs to come out, or maybe you need a business card on steroids, aka, a book, but you are stalled at the blank page. I do far more than tell you to write. I guide you to fill that blank page with ease. Take a thought that makes you ponder, like the title of this blog. Question and play, imagine and create. No one can create your stories, share your truth, and tug your imagination into prose or poetry the way you can if you choose. Below I launch into my own story after a bit of speculation and fantasy. I hope you enjoy this fusion of genres.
How WILL People Communicate in 50 Years?
In the years leading up to 2070, factions split, each defining their means of communication. Professors will project thoughts into students’ minds, a million terabytes a second. Yogis will argue that breath, long and short variations emanating peace, will suffice, filling the blanks of any communication needs. Labourers will stick to grunting, prodded by the machines that still cannot match the manual dexterity of the human fingertips.
The Eyes…
There will be a band of women. There will always be women banding together, who hold their heads high, no tech neck for them. They will always know how to communicate with a look. They always have. Take, for instance, the mommy look (fur baby mamas can use this one except for Jack Russell terriers who ignore all disciplinary measures), the endearing look, the come hither look, the seductive glance, the gaze into the essence of the other…
Women will teach their daughters, and when we wield the only power that matters, the currency of kindness, we will be the western woman who changes the world as the Dalai Llama predicts—spreading true feminine power, the vitality of the Goddess across the continents. We will gather men who know the energy of kindness and the integrity of equitable relating. We will gather the women who have been genitally mutilated, the women forced to hide their power behind a burkha, under a hijab, the women afraid to bear a daughter into cultures of subjugation, and the woman born or living afraid anywhere.
We will teach about the power of a purposeful commando flash full of intention and how every woman needs red lingerie. We will introduce the charisma of Flash Fridays. We will link hands worldwide, locking up our yonis to those who would go to war seeking to control what they define as others with fear.
Okay, so it is a myth from the ancient Greek play, Lysistrata. But for a moment, imagine the power women wield when they commit to a pact to withhold sexual privileges from their menfolk to force them to conclude the Peloponnesian War. Reluctant at first, women seal the deal with a solemn oath around a wine bowl, Lysistrata choosing the words and Calonice repeating them on behalf of the other women. It is a long and detailed oath in which the women abjure all their sexual pleasures, including the Lioness on the Cheese Grater (the oddest name ever for a sexual position).
What if future women communicate with a firm look? No more for you if you insist on marching off to war? Women will rise if you insist on using fear for control instead of love as an invitation.
Power of Words
Sadly, people mistakenly view this mythical play as a comedy. Am I hopeless for believing all writing such as this offers a message and is far more than entertainment? There is tremendous power in how we use words. Actions are even more powerful. We have more strength and ability than we realize when facing injustice, tragedy and perceived or actual inequality.
Women, I beseech you. In the next 50 years, rise up, and not in protests or withholding but in owning your sacred power. If only I had stood up to my son’s father when he shamed me for going commando, flashing him, aiming only at him, for his viewing from across the room. I angled my chair and spread my legs only when I caught his gaze, just as Cosmo suggested. On my left, Ray Carriere, his friend and co-worker, would have needed exray vision and a periscope with angled mirrors to witness my ‘invitation’ to Korby. (Later rejected with an extra scoop of scorn.) What was he so angry about? Did he think I offered up my precious yoni to anyone but him?
I didn’t though I wished 95 times, at least one wish for every month of marriage the church later annulled. He never knew how I wanted the rules that contained me in the laws of monogamy to disappear. Not because I wanted to be an adulteress. I wished for an affair to prove my body was normal and that his once-a-month dry push into my sacred centre was the cause of the burning pain. His mode of release never once fulfilled the sacrament of marriage.
He didn’t deserve my yoni. After him, my yoni gasped in pleasure with the plumber’s deft touch. The philanderer didn’t deserve it either when he uttered his scathing comment that burned away my desire to voice an invite to play with toys. Did any of my lovers deserve my sacred oasis years?
Women, if in 50 years, we haven't communicated to our lovers how to honour our power and collaboratively build humanity up instead of tearing others down… If we haven’t taught our daughters, modelled for our sisters, shared with our nieces to hold, releasing only when it is their time to blossom of their own free will… If we haven’t taught our sons to embrace, learn, cherish and empower the way of the mindful woman warrior goddess, we will have failed His Holiness, the Dalai Lama and the future.
What are you doing with your words?
Use your words, and tell your stories, so other women know they are not alone, as I was in a marriage that was more abuse than a sacrament. Know this: when words used ethically fail, it is not you. It is time to move on.
We must succeed as a unit. For us all to rise, we must reach out for each sister’s hand. Celebrate each other. Hold each other when there are tears. Listen to the words we speak and those we whisper or plant on the page. Sometimes it is you that needs to speak or write them. Sometimes it is you that needs to listen. Walk with me. Walk with each other.
A draft excerpt from my memoir, To the Sons of Angry Mothers: Owning My Mistakes With Men, will be launched in Spring 2023. If you want to try your hand at writing, receiving feedback at the moment on marketing, biz writing, or any genre you choose, or write yourself free of past traumas or blocks, try out the three-hour Writers’ Lounge every month on the second Saturday.
~ Rusti L Lehay
Learn more about Rusti:
Rusti L Lehay, a global editor and book and writing coach, created over 40 articles guiding writers to authordom. She offers bi-monthly online writing STAY-Treats and monthly lounges and teaches weekly creative writing classes. Her primary mission is to inspire, provide value and make writing fun and easy. Special guest speakers at her STAY-Treats are amazed to see the writing they can do and accomplish in the events.
Links: https://linktr.ee/rustilehay
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