#matriline

As I navigate through healing my traumas, I often think about how many women in my lineage have endured the same painful lessons I have. Our traumas run much deeper than this lifetime; our current reality is built on the back of a capitalist patriarchal society that relentlessly attacks the divine feminine. In order to truly know myself, I must know and accept my matriline. The women before me are all reflections of the woman I am today.

What did the women before me go through?

What have they passed on to me, from generation to generation?

What strengths of mine belong to them? What pain of mine belongs to them?

I admire the women before me for their strength needed to navigate in a patriarchal world that disparages women. I empathize with the generations of powerful women who had to sacrifice, fight, protect. Who were made to neglect their needs, stay small, remain silent..

I commend my matriline for their resilience, though I know their fierce femininity inevitably grew battered and bruised.

I accept the pain and trauma they have passed on to me, for if I don’t recognize it, I may continue to pass it on to those after me. I accept my ancestral trauma because I am the one in the bloodline who will transmute it.

I don’t just identify with their wounds and suffering; for they also passed to me their strength, vigor, and power. I come from a bloodline of magical, intuitive women; of serene stoics. My matrline has passed down keen judgment, sharp observation, honorable virtues, unshakable intelligence. I come from a matriline that have razor-sharp instincts, even if they didn’t always know how to follow them. I sit on generation after generation of wisdom.