Anger in the Feminine

Originally Posted October 2020

As we move into the darker months, we come closer to dark feminine energy. To the death that brings rebirth. And we love to just skip right to the happy lights and rebirth part… but we must first have the death.

Feminine energy is not just about sweetness and beauty and mothering. It is a power within each of us, regardless of sex or gender, and it has a dark and bloody side. There is an ancient female archetype, the Life Death Life mother to whom we can get very close, especially during this time of year. We must get closer to her, to assuage our fear of what we may lose in order to gain something new.

We have seen the power of anger in women this year, unlike in years past. It has reached a new level outside of what we traditionally think as anger. This feminine anger is seething, it tastes like metal and it snaps back at any hand that tries to hold it back. It’s eyes are not wide in fear, but narrowed in focus. 

When I heard that Amy Coney Barrett—the woman who could not even name the first five freedoms of the First Amendment—was so hurriedly appointed to the Supreme Court, I felt this new anger. It was resolved in me, but not hardened. I was so used to feeling outraged, angry in the kind of way that I wanted to break windshields, that filled my body like cement preparing for another hit. No, this anger was like a cold mist that settled on every small hair lifting it to sensitive attention. This anger flows, but does not fight within me. I’m at peace with this anger. 

I have been thinking of Demeter. Not the wistful mother longing for her daughter, but the angry woman scorned. She did not have to exert much effort from her home in her temple to create the destruction that she did through drought and the death of the crops. And she held out beyond the pleas of those that her gifts served, until a new deal was struck. 

In the same way that masculine energy can be soft and tender, so can feminine energy be enraged and violent. She can drown her opponents in the same blood they were born from. She can swiftly bring an end to what must be transformed in order to birth something new.