Today, women continue to be an oppressed group. That is why we are increasingly looking for a variety of ways to keep ourselves united. Feminist groups are a clear example of this, even though many people resent their existence for reminding them how backward we still are in terms of gender equality. This is speaking in a very general way. The differences, violence, and oppressions we suffer are not the same in all parts of the world or to the same degree.
In some places girls are mutilated, do not have access to education, and are married or sold at a very early age, in other places we can see particular situations where we are not allowed to exercise our sexuality, access to legal and safe abortions, we are given a role in which we are the caregivers, thus we are left with the household chores and care of everyone at home, creating the false illusion that forming a family is the only achievement we can reach.
There are privileged places where the differences and discrimination against women are very small. For example, there are opportunities in all professional careers but there is still a salary gap, household chores are shared among the members of the household, expenses are divided even if the woman earns less. Of course, there are always exceptions. However, we cannot forget that in all countries there are cases of violence and hatred against us.
Well, today I want to invite you to know another way in which women can support and free themselves from everything that patriarchy through time has demeaned and oppressed us. Leaving scars that are transmitted from generation to generation: Women’s circles. These groups are strong, supportive, and powerful groups.
They help us heal recent or past wounds, allowing us to be the best version of ourselves. While it may sound like a possibility for privileged groups, I invite you to reach out to the best of your ability. Since these circles give us the opportunity to improve our reality and that of our loved ones, improving our environments and that is the way to improve all environments. Without leaving aside that it is a call to the natural and essential. To our true being.
What is a women’s circle for me?
From my experience, I can say that it is a community of women, who have in common their femininity, understanding femininity as gender and not as a role.
It is a group of women who work on themselves and support each other in their individual processes. It is not about therapy, it is not just about chatter and gossip.
It is about getting to know each other deeply, healing what needs to be healed.
It is about really getting to know each other, giving us time for ourselves in a place free of judgments and prejudices. For me, it is also a powerful energy that drives us to always look for the best, the essential and natural, our true selves.
We could also say that it is the ancestral wisdom that the original peoples give us to return precisely to the origin and move away from everything that harms us and harms the planet. It is both the search for truth and the acceptance of who we are.
Where, when, how, why are the circles necessary?
Surely after reading what women’s circles are, you will say yes, of course, wonderful, but you don’t really explain what happens or what things can be healed or how is the process, or where I find them, how to enter or why they might be necessary for most people. You can not really explain what takes place in the circles, because each circle is as particular and varied as its members.
It so happens that we are talking about such a personal activity that we cannot go into it from that approach. What I can tell you, I am sharing it with you in this article. Read on so that you at least have an idea of what it really is.
Well, I know you have many doubts, women’s circles can be found everywhere, there are more and more, they are originating, as I mentioned before, from the millenary and ancestral traditions of the native peoples. If you do not find one in your city, you can look for those that offer distance service. It is also possible in this way.
Like any course, workshop, and any type of training system there is a guide. The guide is the person who is more experienced. We are possibly talking about a shaman and she accompanies us in the process and for her knowledge we have to pay, as we do with any training or service. Many times you have to register and pay for the duration of the program or depending on the modality that the circle manages, it may be that you pay meeting by meeting. As I have already shared with you, each circle is a universe, as big and strong as its women.
The particularities of the topics to be addressed within the circle are also determined by the needs of the members and the branch that the elder sister or guide follows. Because yes, in the circles there is a guide but not a boss, all are equal sisters, some at the beginning of their process, others have been there for a longer time and others are ahead, but all are equally valuable and all contribute to the female tribe to which they belong and to the world.
The need for these tribes is still alive and needed because there is still much damage to repair, damage caused historically by patriarchy. There are many valid reasons to integrate and join a circle. Don’t be afraid to do so. It can be a valuable resource for many in their daily lives.
Fanaticism, religion, or witchcraft
In the circles no fans or loyal followers are created, all the links in the chain are as diverse as the colors. Each one may or may not have a religion, they are independent. And we don’t care if they call us witches, for talking about shamanism and rituals that bring us closer and connect us with nature and our inner being.
All those kinds of prejudices fade away when you get closer and get to know someone who is already part of a circle. Let go of everything society has told you about how you should be and get to know your true woman. When I read myself I feel like I’m selling women’s circles, but I have nothing negative to say about them. And I have many reasons to invite them to grow the community.
Yaiza Herrera’s vision
Yaiza is a woman with years of experience and training in women’s circles, that’s why I asked her some questions, but I want to focus on two: what is a women’s circle, and what is its importance. Yaiza is a Spanish woman who lives in Germany near Nuremberg, her path has led her to enter this holistic world.
For Yaiza the circles are something that has always existed, it is the way for every woman to heal, through time the women’s circles have degenerated, as we have gone through the patriarchy in different measures, depending on the culture. That is how we came to the whispering circles. The circles are now recovering, returning to rescue the ancient sacred wisdom that all women carry within.
In these moments we need to heal ourselves from everything that has happened throughout history. The circles are sacred healing spaces that offer us support. It is a space to nourish ourselves, a necessary space for women, to heal ourselves from all that collective unconscious, our wounds, the wounds of our lineage. This time that we share in women’s circles and especially in our situation as migrant women help us and become very important.
I always try to transmit the exact words, but sometimes I do not succeed, but I certainly leave the essence intact. Well, Yaiza knows perfectly well that many believe that the circles are crazy women, sects, witchcraft, and so on, and she wants to tell us that this is just a cliché that is given from ignorance.
From Yaiza Herrera’s perspective, we can already see the importance of women’s circles for society, but she adds some beautiful words. We are currently living in a chaotic society, adding the situation of the covid, we can clearly see that violence surrounds us, femicides, domestic violence, xenophobia, machismo, patterns that are becoming more common, which are scary. We must emphasize that with the women circle protected, accompanied, although this can be found in groups of friends.
We must know that in women’s circles there is no judgment and that makes a little different and we can add that in a circle of women. Participants begin to connect with their essence as women, we are talking about reconnecting with their natural cycles, having a healthy relationship with their body, and freeing themselves from prejudices and this achieving a change at a personal level and as they walk with this difference they improve their relationships. The circles allow us to know who we are, to change our private lives and environments.
In Yaiza’s experience, there have been cases of women breaking violent relationships and she emphasizes that women’s circles do not exclude other types of therapy, they can go hand in hand.
Cárol Corrales’s Vision
In the same way, Cárol (Madrid) is an expert in the subject, she has her circle Movimiento GranÚtera, this she does with Esty Gomlez (Bilbo, North of Spain), with them you can be trained with movement, cyclic consciousness, gynecological self-management, and thanks to the diversity of the members, there are therapists of all kinds, singers, sexologists or dancers. Such is the case of Cárol with her project Danza Útera.
Cárol shares with us that she is dedicated to accompanying women in their transformation through joy, from that inner place connecting uterus-heart to achieve a connection between several wombs and also with mother earth. She works with everything related to feminine sexuality, awakened, and joyful femininity. I have tried to capture it just as Cárol told us.
At this moment Cárol invites all women to form women’s circles of any kind. From friends’ chats, intellectual circles, reading circles, embroidery, or commemoration of the earth or honoring the feminine. Going back to the origin.
The circle is to awaken the sacred feminine and potentiality of the talents of each woman, to make circles of women full of medicine, this is not related to pharmaceutical drugs. The more difference between the participants the better, because in this way mirrors are created. They all support the circle and they all support each other.
From the perspective of this very wise woman, the importance of women’s circles in society begins since we live in a world ruled by patriarchy, for a long time, more than 5000 years among many other things, the masculine had been focused on its organizational functions.
What is happening is that the masculine has lost the balance and we can say it is sick and this has infected society and the feminine, we have to pay attention that Cárol is not talking about genders, he is not talking about men as such, but about something more abstract like yin and yang.
This is why by awakening the sacred feminine, the sacred masculine is also summoned, and thus with this creation of links with nature, being each one in this healing process, we can bring healing to all our beloveds.
Concluding
The only thing left to say, I hope that your condition as women is privileged and that you have had a beautiful childhood, peaceful adolescence, and in general a free life.
May you be fulfilled and satisfied with yourselves. If this is your case, help other women to also be so, to overcome everything that at this moment does not allow them to enjoy life as you do, and if it is not so, women, look for a tribe, a real support circuit. And even if it feels super, I promise you that it will never be a mistake to join a circle of women.
Women’s circles are necessary in times like this. the thing is that by healing ourselves, we heal the world. Let us find that sisterhood and harmony among women. Let us find that femininity that we have wanted to erase. I am not talking about makeup, high shoes, and dresses. I am talking about the way we manage things, the way we conduct our lives. Let’s find that balance that humanity lacks and let’s restore order to nature.
