The Permission to be a Woman

Give it to yourself.

The autumn equinox is to come and it is the season of the ripening of the fruit and the harvest. Volupta herself is entering the sixth month and to honour that and to harvest the fruit of this half, instead of doing the usual exploration and guides, I shall wrap it with something simple and short (unlike the standard 10-15 minute reads). The guides shall return next week.

This week, I was reading Jami’s “Salaman and Absal” (X). It is a Sufi story that tells of a young prince’s passion towards his wet nurse and of her equally passionate feelings for him. The subtle, esoteric meanings of a romance between a young man and his wet nurse (and yet she isn’t his biological mother), as well as what is demanded of them in the story, are many and the whole poem is an allegory to the spiritual secrets. But that is not what this publication focuses on (of these realties I write on my Website and Patreon), so I shall not go in that direction.

At one point, in this poem, there is a well-known and so often heard and sung of, frustration that a man feels upon witnessing the faithlessness and inconsistencies of his Beloved. She tells him that she loves him and then tells him to get away, degrades him and insults him; he showers her in gifts only for her to complain how he never gives her anything; a thousand of his good deeds are erased by a single error. She fills him with such intense feelings, inspires in him almost an involuntarily devotion and from being so passive to her, he both he hates her and loves her for it. The poem says:

“For what is a Woman? A Foolish, Faithless Thing.
To whom The Wise Self-subjected, himself
Deep sinks beneath the Folly he sets up.
A very Kafir in Rapacity;
Clothe her a hundred Years in Gold and Jewel,
Her very Night-gear wrought in Cloth of Gold,
Dangle her ears with Ruby and with Pearl,
Her House with Golden Vessels all a-blaze,
Her Tables loaded with the Fruit of Kings,
Isfahan Apples, Pomegranates of Yazd;
And, be she thirsty, from a Jewell’d Cup
Drinking the Water of the Well of Life —
One little twist of Temper, — all you’ve done
Goes all for Nothing. ‘Torment of my Life!’
She cries, ‘What have you ever done for me!’ —
Her Brow’s white Tablet — Yes — ‘tis uninscrib’d
With any Letter of Fidelity;
Who ever read it there? Lo, in your Bosom
She lies for Years — you turn away a moment
And she forgets you — worse, if as you turn
Her Eye should light on any Younger Lover.

Once upon the Throne of Judgement,
Telling one another Secrets,
Sat SULAYMAN and BALKIS
The Hearts of both were turn’d to Truth,
Unsullied by Deception.
First the King of Faith SULAYMAN
Spoke — ‘Though mine the Ring of Empire,
Never any Day that passes
Darkens anyone on my Door-way
But into his Hand I look
And He who comes not empty-handed
Grows to Honour in mine Eyes.’
After this BALKIS a Secret
From her hidden Bossom utter’d,
Saying — ‘Never Night or Morning
Comely Youth before me passes
Whom I look not longing after;
Saying to myself, ‘Oh were he
Comforting of my Sick Soul! —’

If this, as wise Ferdusi says, the Curse
Of Better Women, what should be the Worse.”

And while to those who see only the words and are easily offended by them, such poems may seem an expression of hatred towards the Feminine, it is in fact, very often a subtle, veiled and hidden veneration. If one is to feel the poem and not just read it, one can even feel a man’s pleasure, satisfaction and joy from the fact that she is so and that she makes him feel so. The man who writes such a poem, subtly affirms the power of his mistress and his subtle submission to her who is far greater than him. After all, he implies that no matter how great, strong, rich or powerful he is, she will cast him aside to do her thing. Yet if he were to express his devotion in a manner that is meek and self-debasing, it would defeat all his dignity and self-respect and she herself wouldn’t be pleased with such a veneration because in doing so, he would become needy, subtly placing demands end expectations on her to “lift him up”.

Even the great Solomon (Sulayman), the man who built the first temple and the man who controlled jinns, could not fully “hold down” his Queen nor her eye from enjoying the sight of a handsome youth. The man’s pleasure in this also comes from the fact that he then must remain always “erect”, always firm, virile and strong, in short, always a master and always a king, because a moment of weakness and her eye will “light on any younger lover”. Youth in allegorical stories is not simply to refer to an age as such but as a symbol of vitality, virility, passion and desire.

Seen from this angle, such poems are not that much different than when men sing of the expansive, boundless and “impossible to be held down” aspect of the Feminine in a gentler manner. Qabbani sings:

“I have no power to change your nature
my books are of no use to you
and my convictions do not convince you
nor does my fatherly council do you any good
you are the queen of anarchy, of madness, of belonging
to no one
Stay that way
You are the tree of femininity that grows in the dark
needs no sun or water
you the sea princess who has loved all men
and loved no one
slept with all men… and slept with no one
you are the Bedouin woman who went with all the tribes
and returned a virgin
Stay that way.”

or

“There is a woman in your life, my son
Her eyes are so beautiful Glory to God
Her mouth and her laughter
Are full of roses and melodies
And her gypsy and crazy love of life
Travels the world
The woman you love
May be your whole world
But your sky will be rain-filled
You will seek her everywhere, my son
You will ask the waves of the sea about her
You will ask the shores of the seas
You will travel the oceans
And your tears will flow like a river
And at the close of your life
You will find that since your beloved
Has no land, no home, no address
You have been pursuing only a trace of smoke
How difficult it is, my son
To love a woman
Who has neither land, nor home.” (X)

Perhaps some of the readers have picked up the subtle message in all of the Volupta’s texts — and that is simply a message of giving you, or in inspiring you to give yourself, a permission to be a woman.

And to the many men reading and who are subscribing (in spite of this being a publication aimed towards women, I am glad that men are curious), it perhaps gives a permission to dive deep into her mysteries, a permission to indulge the boyish fascination of looking at his grandmother or mother do their make up and apply perfume, and to give himself a permission to admit to himself that indeed, he loves her when she makes him feel many things, even if it makes him uncomfortable and forces him to fight with himself.

One may ask why is a permission needed? It is because we often deny ourselves the most fundamental, simple Truth of ourselves. Sometimes, we do not even see it beneath the things we tell ourselves. Very often, the world denies it to us too. And so we need to Other to give us space to explore ourselves.

The “I am just a girl” meme that is going around may be an expression of a desire to just be allowed and given permission to be a girl or a woman. But the meme, lacking any wisdom at its root, and being simply an external projection and not an internal inspiration, doesn’t actually liberate the woman from the chains that she feels tighten around her. In the meme, a woman makes herself yet again infantile, small and safe, a “food” easy to digest, so that nobody may be offended by her desires, needs, thoughts and feelings. It is rooted in fear of taking space, of being seen, heard, and eventually experienced.

But that is not what I wish to invite you to do — I wish to invite you to allow yourself to be the woman that a man, in his poem calls faithless and foolish. You need to give yourself the permission to be everything that they pejoratively associate you with — be inconsistent, be irrational, be rapacious and full of desire, be vast, be shameless, be foolish, be materialistic, hunger for experience and demand for the experience to be given to you, be faithless and abandon the land without sunlight and rain, be audacious and with both your hands and all your teeth grab into every opportunity that comes to you. If you do not bite into that which makes you feel alive and fills you with the Juice of Life, your life will be devoured by the mundane and it will amount to nothing but the hours passing. Your own life will feel frivolous and ridiculous, not to others, but to yourself, and you will feel, that somewhere deep inside, all you did was betray yourself as a woman, as a creativity, as a movement, as an oceanic current that never wants to stop. Break the dam and summon the Flood — the Prophet knows how to buildthe Ark and how to survive in the Belly of the Whale.