Rave on, wallflowers, rave on.

The wallflowers in the alchemical garden do not do what the patriarchs want. They don’t shrink away and quiver, shy and powerless in the way that ‘the feminine’ is still encouraged to disguise itself. Still! When will this nonsense stop. No, the wallflowers in the alchemists garden grow fiery red and yellow and orange hot and they shout and stamp and rave and scent the spring with their presence and nowness!

And the alchemist is a bit perplexed by this business of what ‘the feminine’ (do they mean women? what do they mean? I have no idea) is supposed to be. Like a wallflower, a person’s gender is a poor predictor of their qualities. Wallflowers do not grow by walls (unless they want to). They are not pastel shaded, and modest of presence (or only rarely so). The wallflowers which grow here are bold and bright and pumping out the fragrance like a party in Selfridges perfume hall.

I want to make a plea for the reinstatement of the energetic, powerful and robust in to the awareness of what we are talking about when we use the words ‘the feminine’. Maybe ‘reinstatement’ is not the right word, this has always been there. Maybe the word is something like ‘amplification’, or ‘celebration’. We know that power is part of the feminine archetype. A full and joyful embrace of the complexity of being who we actually are is the finest achievement of psycho-spiritual work. When we try to fit in to pre-defined boxes of what other people think we should be, then there is no peace.

Rave on crazy wallflowers.