Mediation Zine 001
The Feminization and Rejection of Empathy shelby moring
I don’t remember when I stopped engaging with men. I don’t think it was a specific moment triggered by a specific event, but I know that the more I started to love myself and recognize my desire to preserve my spirit, that was when the shift took place.
This isn’t about men, about not liking them or liking them or tolerating them. This is about me, women, non-binary people who have constantly felt threatened by the presence of someone who embodies all things colonialist, sexist, and oppressive. This is about feeling safe in spaces we have carved out for ourselves, not about how we don’t feel safe in spaces where we are carved out.
I work my most intuitive, empathetic magic when it is night. Guided by the Moon and my own need to welcome the night, I find peace in meditating, candle lighting, card reading, crystal healing, and incense burning. There is something inherently magical about the way I perform self-care and it starts with my connection to the Earth and the Moon.
My heart burns for the Earth and the people who continue to suffer here. There are some nights when I can’t bear to think about the countless injustices inflicted on so many marginalized, forgotten people. Many of them my sisters. It was with tragedy and empathetic intentions that I started to practice active energy working. I started to project my meditations on the people of Standing Rock, the people of Flint, the women all around the world who yearn for freedom from something. It is when you can visualize them, truly see them as individuals and not blurred faces on the TV, that this meditation works. It’s a direct transfer of energy from the deepest, most sincere depths of your soul to theirs. It is action through reflection and love. Of course, my activism does not end here, but I think this is an important place to start. Empathy has been rejected and written off as a feminized, impossible method of mending the world. But we need love, we need the preservation of spirits. It starts with self-love, because we are all united, even if our ability to express empathy is buried deep down beneath layers of individualistic, selfish, separatist apathy. With self-love comes one love.
Put love forth. Let hate go.