beyond the edge and home again

Non related, but pretty cherry blossoms from Washington, D.C. 2009

I'm reading "Dance of the Dissident Daughter" by Sue Monk Kidd (author of The Secret Life of Bees). The book is about the author's feminist awakening and search for the Divine Feminine. She grew up a very active devout Southern Baptist but as her children reached their teenage years she began to see how damaging patriarchy is to women.

I want to share this paragraph that really struck me as I was reading yesterday. Perhaps you will be able to relate. This can apply to much more than just feminism.

"Despite the growing disenchantment women experience in the early stages of [feminist] awakening, the idea of existing beyond the patriarchal institution of faith, of withdrawing our external projection of God onto the church, is almost always unfathomable. It's that old the-world-is-flat conviction, where we believe that if we sail out on the spiritual ocean beyond a certain point we will fall off the edge of the known world into a void. We think there's nothing beyond the edge. No real spirituality, no salvation, no community, no divine substance. We cannot see that the voyage will lead us to whole new continents of depth and meaning. That if we keep going, we might even come full circle, but with a whole new consciousness." (p 48)

I especially love that last sentence. It gives me great hope to think that I can go on this journey of exploration and still be able to return home, just all the better for having made the trip.