Moving Mountains

“When sleeping women wake, mountains move.” Chinese proverb

I’ve always loved this quote, though it never occurred to me to ask why these women had been asleep in the first place, even though I instinctively knew.

Like many others, I’d been silenced in my marriage for so long and understood that these women only seemed to be sleeping, because I had done the same.

It was their way to protect themselves, for they did not know it was even possible to push away the hand that had silenced them.

In this silence women begin to fade away. Soon their gifts and their dreams disappear and all that remains is an outer shell…something that looks like a woman but is not. Eventually the weight of this hand and the ramifications of staying silent become too much to bear.

Yet, we believe that if we speak our truth it will destroy us, so it often hides, shaking with fear in the shadows and dark corners of our lives.

Then one woman finds the courage to speak her truth, and her truth gives other women the courage to speak theirs and the mountains begin to move.

The truth can be incredibly hard to say and can be even harder to hear, and though others may ignore it or shame us, the truth remains. …and the mountains still move