Image of Kamala Harris by Gage Skidmore & Celestial Images
By Taina Lyons
Earlier this week, I was spending the day with my partner at my home in rural Vermont—I’m a transplant here, having moved from Finland to New Jersey to Vermont.
Despite the farming culture of the area, I’m not much of a gardener and tend to leave the vegetable growing to the many local farmers. I rent part of a drafty farmhouse besides a beautiful, hilly meadow. The folks that live here are friendly neighbors, sometimes leaving baskets of fresh garden goodies on my doorstep, or inviting me to an impromptu gathering around the fire pit.
Author recreating the painting Christina’s World by Andrew Wyatt on the farm. Photo by Moti Zemelman
Last week the woman who owns the farm was planning a trip and asked me to take care of her chicks for two of the days she was away. I agreed and she showed me their water and feed, and how to collect eggs from the broody mama hen.
A few days later I was enjoying the sweetness of ambient late summer sounds with my sweetie, when my heart suddenly sank—I’d forgotten to tend the chicks the previous day. Shit. Needless to say, a bit of panic set in, and I jumped up to go to the chicken coop atop the hill.
As we walked a path mowed through the tall grass of the meadow, I recognized that I was in what I’ll call an “ancestral portal”—when my experience creates a sort of palimpsest with an ancestor’s life experience. It’s one way I connect with the dead. Through this portal I can feel an aspect of their lived experience. In this moment those chicks in the coop need tending, I feel like an irresponsible asshole, and if they die I won’t be able to forgive myself.
Photo of an actual ghost-of-woman-past in author’s previous home
But for my mother’s mother, Kyllikki, a Finnish farmer, tending animals, the farm, and home was a daily responsibility, morning to night, without any breaks or vacations. The animals—mostly cows—depended on her, and the family depended on them for food and income.
Under my growing panic, I tuned into a quality of deep care, the bond my grandmother had with the animals on her farm—and the weight of this responsibility. (The chicks were fine, by the way.)
My grandmother was a true caretaker, much better than I, concerned with the wellbeing of her human and non-human brood. She fed and over-fed us with every visit, and teared up when we waved goodbye from the back seat of the car as it pulled away from her house at the end of our trip to the farm.
My grandmother did not go to high school, yet she taught gentleness, care, and connection with nature through her daily work. This was a huge gift to me and my future children and community.
Author’s grandfather, Pekka, and grandmother Kyllikki, stand with their children L-R Ilpo, Lauri, Auli (writer’s mother), Taina (in arms), unknown friend or relative, and Marketta
My father’s mother Florence was a nurse in New Jersey—also a caretaker, a more hot tempered family matriarch. More often than not she had a crocheted blanket spreading over her lap, emerging from her quickly worked yarn.
She gave needle-point gifts. She cooked meatballs. She collected spoons, but somehow didn’t seem to have enough spoons. (If you don’t get this reference you can read my post about “spoons” here.) A certain contained resentment and discontent simmered just below the surface.
Was it due to the rupture created by a loss of culture through her parents’ emigration? Was it the result of not having a partnership after the death of her husband in his early 50s? Or maybe…sexism, misogyny, and patriarchy hobbled her self-expression and she became unwell in an unwell culture, disconnected from community.
Author’s grandmother Florence
My grandmothers, as different as they were, did what they could to survive and were dignified despite living lives with many hardships. These women did what they needed to and were expected to do, which was mostly caretaking.
Did they want the roles they had? This question is a modern one, a privileged one, that they were probably not considering as they raised their families and worked.
It’s not news that Gender roles have defined what people are “allowed” to do in the world, how they “should” behave, who they “should” be, and what “should” bring them enjoyment for generations. This is the proverbial glass ceiling.
While writing this piece, I was working one of my jobs at a preschool. A new sub, an 18 year old, and I were sitting together and she spontaneously said, “Can you believe I was going to be a mechanic? I started doing the training and everything. It was pretty rad. But I had an awakening that I could have more impact taking care of little kids.” My curiosity was piqued. I wondered if the shift was at all a result of internalized stereotypes, or values around women doing caretaking work. I asked some questions about this.
“You know, I never before in my life thought about gender roles,” she said. I encouraged her to keep working on cars, at least for fun, if this excited her.
If a person has an awakening that they want to work with children, more power to them—it’s a necessary, challenging, rewarding service and livelihood. But I was struck with the feeling that it wouldn’t be any more valuable than being a mechanic, if working with cars was more aligned with this young woman’s belonging. Not to mention (to mention, rather!) that women have been carrying the burden of caring for societies’ children, and they’re often burned out and underpayed.
As we approach the 2024 election, with the shift in trajectory brought on by Joe Biden’s stepping down as the Democratic presidential candidate and Kamala Harris stepping up to potentially become the first female president of the United States, I’m thinking about where women find their belonging today.
And I don’t mean the warm fuzzy kind of belonging that people sometimes associate with the word belonging—the I’m-loved-and-accepted belonging, the people-like-me-and-want-to-include-me type of belonging. Which is all good, but here I’m using belonging in a different way.
I’m curious how we discern, “Where do I/you belong and where don’t we belong?” Belonging meaning that your position in community and your influence reflects your gifts that bring beauty, connection, healing, peace, or other benefits to yourself and others. It is something along the lines of “Right livelihood,” which refers to one of the eight ethical guidelines for living taught by the Buddha centuries ago. Right livelihood refers to doing compassionate, ethical work in the world. I think it also means doing work that is a good fit and is fulfilling - and maybe also getting out of the way of people who belong in positions of power or shared power, leadership, spiritual guidance, and policy making in an era of global crisis.
Sometimes belonging means seeing where you don’t belong, or which roles you’ve acquired through gender biases or socioeconomic, racial, or other kinds of privilege.
Sometimes it means tending the precious flame of your self-expression when the winds of oppression seek to extinguish it.
I believe we would all like to do what bring us enjoyment and occupy roles that are a good fit for our strengths and capacities. I imagine gender liberation simply as, feeling free to move your body, feel your feelings, and express yourself—and this freedom is reflected in your relationships, your work, and your creativity. Unfortunately for non-binary, trans, femme, and cis individuals, this freedom has been oppressed under current gender norms.
Community has the power to reflect an individual’s gifts and belonging back to them. We can help each other repair from these harms.
People around us shape us both in how they encourage and limit us. Ideally, we would be limited from causing harm, and encouraged to have positive impact. But with a capitalist overculture, instead, people are often limited in expressing their gifts and are encouraged to adopt roles that are not a good fit or support extraction of resources. Additionally, we collectively perpetuate the codes of racism, sexism and ableism that limit people from being seen for their capacities, and place people in roles based on how well they reflect the values of a white, male, cis-gendered, able-bodied dominant culture.
Obviously this bias has impacted who has been president of the United States for the last 235 years.
I’ll save in-dept political discussion of Kamala Harris for another time and simply say: Limiting Donald Trump’s access to power and influence is a national responsibility.
He’s an expression of racism and misogyny, and he will not in this lifetime wake up to the harm he causes. He’s possessed by a spirit of fascist dictatorship, as he expressed in the July 26th statement that, “In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote."
Art by Blcksmth
I would be surprised if anyone reading this article is a Trump supporter.
But if you are, I’d encourage you to support Harris instead. My hope is that electing Harris as the first female President brings forward more sane policies on a variety of issues and at least somewhat limits Trump—who is not fit for being in a position of power and influence—from causing harm. The country’s first female president will move the dial forward, creating pathways of opportunity for more people to find their belonging in work and their communities.
Image by Brittany Paige designs
I’ve witnessed a lot of transformation in the way we hold gender norms for women, focusing on empowerment and uplifting women and “women’s work” as way to repair from millennia of misogyny and patriarchy that has limited what women can do in the world.
I would love to see a similar shift among men, who are oppressed by expectations around how they express their emotional life, vulnerability, sensitivity, and creativity. Men have been particularly vulnerable to supporting the military industrial complex, and to the spiritual/emotional consequences of inflicting violence or being injured. (Though women and queer folx are fortunately or unfortunately gaining this privilege, the US military is comprised of 83% men, according to a 2021 US military demographics profile.)
Sometimes people stay in their limited roles (gender or otherwise) because on some level they’re avoiding the grief and anger they would need to face to acknowledge the ways they’ve been limited. The time lost, the harm done, the opportunities missed.
This perpetuates a complacency with systems of oppression that benefit from people being disconnected from their creativity, their eros and their truth.
Meanwhile, these unexpressed parts, or what western psychology would call “the shadow,” become more and more insistent or even violent at their oppression.
I’ve experienced this in the way envy shows up in my relationships. As uncomfortable as envy is, it has been a signpost or a guide for what I deeply long for and want to work toward. It has directed me to acknowledge how important a good fit in partnership is for me, how important creativity is for me, and how important self-expression and a healthy relationship to sexuality are. Because when I witnessed people expressing these things freely, I’ve at times felt deeply envious.
You’ve heard it before, when someone gets cut down: Don’t pay them any mind—they’re just jealous. Maybe the ones who really need the help are the jealous parties! (I believe this is why there’s so much violence directed toward the free, joyful expressions in the LGBTQIA community—it surfaces loads of grief and rage of unexpressed parts of self.)
What happens when people don’t have the emotional intelligence to feel an uncomfortable feeling, such as aversion, envy, grief, or vulnerability? For a case study of this, take a peek at the backlash to the joyously flamboyant performance of a Dionysian feast in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games.
Image from controversial performance created by French singer/actor Philippe Katerine in the 2024 Olympics opening ceremony in Paris
When I acknowledged my longings and live from a more authentic place, I can uplift others, especially women and marginalized folx. It’s part of how I dismantle internalized misogyny.
As a practice of Belonging, I invite you to see the longings under your aversions.
Maybe you can think of a person who really supported you to be yourself, someone who loves your whole expression. Maybe there haven’t been many in your life, or maybe you’ve been fortunate enough to be encouraged to be yourself. If no one comes to mind, you could imagine an archetypal figure or creature or ancestor who is really rooting for you, and imagine they’re saying these words to you: I see you. I see the brilliance of your nature. I love watching you grow, create, love, and be loved. You belong.
May you blossom into your belonging. May you be-your-longing.
As I was writing this post, I tuned in with these two grandmothers Kyllikki Karvonen and Florence Lyons, asking them about their feelings about their roles in work. If you don’t have regular communication with the dead, or practice ancestor reverence, I encourage you to try it—it can be powerful, spooky, deeply supportive, and revealing.
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