Book Review- The Power of Yin, Celebrating Female Consciousness

The Power of Yin, Celebrating Female Consciousness
Cosimo Books, 2007

Sadly, the conversation is as fresh, relevant and needed today as it was back then; perhaps it is even more needed today when the resistance to emerging ideas, science, and wisdom is greater than ever as the imperial mindset tries to hang on for dear life.

In 2009 I joined a teleseminar entitled “Women on the Edge of Evolution”, featuring, among other women, Jean Houston and Barbara Marx Hubbard. Not content with telephone and online conversation, I joined with other women locally to form our own spiritual support circle. We met regularly to share our hearts, food, challenges, wisdom; those deeply personal exchanges were mirrored thirty years ago by our elders. The conversation covers the span of human existence, the spiritual, agricultural, technological, emotional, and political evolution of consciousness, interspersed with the realities of individual human lives, hungers, and needs. Undoubtedly Hazel, Jean, and Barbara did much to seed the ideas that continue to grow, bear fruit, and shape the consciousness of growing numbers of the human population; whether or not they or we will help midwife a transition of our species from a tribal, national, consciousness towards a planetary, global, or Universal consciousness remains to be seen.

Hazel focuses on overcoming the blind spots that prevent us from joining harmoniously with the community of life on this planet. Barbara is already racing down the interstellar evolutionary track which resists the biological limitations that we are threatening on our home planet. Jean, the priestess, tapping into the unharnessed power of the human mind, and the Universe, along with the humorous earthy history of her childhood and the archetypes that drive human development, adds her rich, spicy, seasoned opinions to raise the questions that all of us need to ask ourselves: Why? Why not? What is driving us? Our egos? Our higher selves? How can we tell? If the male-driven trajectory is driving us off a cliff, can women help steer us towards a more promising future? Do women share that responsibility? What are our unique strengths? What power can we exert to influence those we come in contact with, whom we can touch through our writings, words, actions?

This book is a feast of ideas, glimpses into the hearts and minds of some stellar women whose radical ideas will probably take a lifetime to nurture any measurable shift in human thinking and actions. They are worth listening to, and learning from, and joining with in their efforts to understand, fully live in, and love this world that we all share.

Hazel Henderson will be my guest on the Community Currency Radio Show on Progressive Radio Network Thursday, March 24, 2011 from 2-3 pm (Pacific Time). All shows are archived.