You know you are in a powerful conference space when there is a buzz around you of inspiration, innovation and creativity. The concluding morning panel is a discussion with all the morning panelists about what they are getting out of the conference so far and how they do the work they do. I thought the answers about how the overcome fear were the most powerful.
What is the practice or script you use to push yourself past fear?
Sakena Yacoobi: "Every time I am walking out of my house I am taking a risk...it is my faith that carries me through, side by side."
Alberta Nells: "Spirit, tradition. Instead of wallowing in fear, I pray and go into ceremony so my fears won't happen."
Gloria Steinem: "I was too afraid to speak in public until after 30 and finally decided to speak because of the women's movement and I still was terrified, but I realized if women can't do anything fucking right anyway, might as well do as you please."
Jensine Larsen: "Still have knots in my stomach, I fear I am not doing enough. I go to my stomach and think about my sisters in the struggle around the world and trust peace and that things will happen in time."
Lateefah Simmons: "If my grandmother had a soapbox or a bullhorn, what would she do? I try and garner their strength and all the women that came before us."
I also have to appreciate that Gloria Steinem brought up the irony of us asking Alberta Nells what feminism is to indigenous movements, since indigenous resistance and practice were one of the inspirations to the women's movement in the United States, but was polluted by the legacy of colonization. "Feminism is about memory," she said, and I would add, feminism is about our collective memory and our overcoming the way we have been taught to remember to forget.
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As a student of history, I know how difficult it is to keep a sense of collective memory going. What we often talk about are the limitations of institutional memory, which rarely lasts more than a couple decades at a time. Part of this is due to the fact that, as you mentioned, people are either coerced or encouraged to willfully forget what has come before. Part of it is that a new generation who never experienced for themselves what transpired in a different time comes into its own.
But a good bit of it, too, in my opinion, is that every time has its own Zeitgeist and we all collectively sell into it. We often think of change as slow to arrive, but if we look at change in hindsight, we get a perspective of how very different other times were than our own. While the human condition is usually constant from age to age, every age has its own undercurrent.
That panel was one of my favorite parts of the conference this far. I also really liked the comment about consciously not being afraid to take up space.