Success, purpose and the empowered feminine principle

One of the reasons I use the word purpose is that we as women have tremendous trouble with the word service. Let’s face it what women in her right mind wants to willingly chain herself to the post of servitude after spending years breaking free of the shackles of the subaltern stereotype? The word purpose however feels and sounds more directly about self and where we are going rather then how we assist others. Self first others later is still very true. As Dr Wayne Dyer points out in his book the power of intentions ‘you cant be poor enough to help the poor, you cant be sick enough to heal the ill’. But whether we use the word purpose or service the point is we all serve something higher then ourselves. Our purpose on this physical plane is without question intrinsically linked to our service to source. Some of us know and identify and name this source, it may be God, Buddha, Goddess, Creator or Universe, and some of us do not. Either way we know we are part of something bigger then ourselves. Let me give you an example, if your purpose in this life is to teach then your service is that of knowledge. It is your service to source to impart what you know in order to assist others in their purpose. If your purpose is that of a healer your service is to offer the tools of self healing to others so they can perform their service to source also. If your purpose is to clean and clear then your service is to provide spaces of uncluttered energy. Every one of us has a purpose, no matter how small we think it is; in the scheme of creation without you we would see the big black hole.

In her book ‘Know your power – a message to America’s daughters’ Nancy Pelosi tells us the story of her mother Anunciata D’Alesandro. We get the impression very early on in the book that Nancy feels her mother could have been more if it was not due to the limitations placed on her by Nancy’s father, not allowing her to take up paid employment, as in that time women required permission from their husbands in order to join the rank and file of the work force. I don’t think her mother saw the same lack of opportunity that her daughter did. In the chapter titled ‘An open House’ Nancy describes the amount of service her mother gave willingly each and everyday to those in need. How during the depression her mother would add more to their own evening meals to feed those who were without food and how her mother developed a giving back system which is noted in the book as the ‘favor file’ When someone can to the home of the D’Alesandro’s for assistance they were placed in the ‘favor file’ so when they got on their feet they would be the first in line to assist someone else. Nancy says of her mother, ‘she was not paid, and held no elected or appointed position but she considered it part of her duty to contribute what ever she could’. Anunciata D’Alesandro helped more people in her so called limited role then people who have to work within the limits of local governments, restricted by protocol and hierarchy, Anunciata D’Alesandro was not bound or limited by such things, making her more effective out side the system then in it.

In a performance orientated society we tend to get caught up in the socio-political rhetoric of success. This type of rhetoric sets the bars of limitation and says jump over it and you will be a success. The wylde woman sees no such bar and knows nothing of limitation, for every deed is a success, every step forward is a success and every open heart is the reward of service to something bigger then herself.