Feminine Healing

 

All it takes to make or break a man is one woman, and the way he goes depends on whether she is inclined toward healing or toward destruction.

Some women have blood-red hands with tearing nails, and some women have wash-water-rough hands with scratched-up knuckles. Healing hands, or harming hands? Which suit a woman better?

They say that when a woman fancies a man, her hands will stroke something, as an unconscious sign of her attraction. That is a sweet sign of the desire to be soft and gentle - a healing gesture.

Sometimes, when a child has a dirty face, their mother will lick her thumb and use it to wipe their cheek. A healing gesture.

Healing gestures occasionally aren't so obvious. They might be shown in how a woman gives in to pleading, or how she does not give in to pleading, or the ease with which she turns her man's thoughts in an upward direction.

Healing gestures are often obvious as being gestures meant to heal. It is obvious, when you lead someone into better light so you can see their splinter, that you are concerned with removing their pain as efficiently as possible. It is obvious, when you make your lap or your shoulder a soft place to rest a head, that you are concerned about that head's comfort and restfulness. It is obvious, when you bring someone a hot drink, that you are concerned with the wholeness of their being.

Many of the things that we think of as feminine are healing-adjacent. When something is sick, it must be nursed, nurtured, and comforted. The birthright of women is to heal.

How to heal a tormented world? Birth pure life into it, and coax that life into something good and honest and noble. How to heal a heart-troubled man? Kiss life into him, and coax that life into something noble and honest and good.

Is it possible that we don't need to heal the whole world, sisters? Is it possible that our seat is beside a man that we are helping to heal? Have we forgotten the settling effect of which we are capable, or do we have nothing left except to stir up and separate? Could we, by any chance, disregard the theoretical economic intricacies of providing food for five hundred thousand, and dedicate ourselves to the feeding of three or four or five?

Children should look first to their mother for healing, and mothers should not look first to men for the healing of their children. Little ones ought to have the opportunity to watch their mothers prepare the medicine they need, and listen to her voice explaining how it will help their bodies. That experience will help their souls.

Men have systems. They do. They build scaffolds in which society operates. We can't bandage those whole things when they fall apart. But we do have the capacity to put Band-Aids on small fingers, and say "my heart, your eyes look tired."

It would be a shame for women with soft hands not to use them to heal. Start small. Work your way up.