If You Want to Change the World, Love a Man

If you want to change the world love a man; really love him

Choose the one whose soul calls to yours clearly who sees you; who is brave enough to be afraid

Accept his hand and guide him gently to your hearts blood

Where he can feel your warmth upon him and rest there

And burn his heavy load in your fires

Look into his eyes look deep within and see what lies dormant or awake or shy or expectant there

Look into his eyes and see there his fathers and grandfathers and all the wars and madness their spirits fought in some distant land, some distant time

Look upon their pains and struggles and torments and guilt; without judgment

And let it all go

Feel into his ancestral burden

And know that what he seeks is safe refuge in you

Let him melt in your steady gaze

And know that you need not mirror that rage

Because you have a womb, a sweet, deep gateway to wash and renew old wounds

If you want to change the world love a man, really love him

Sit before him, in the full majesty of your woman in the breath of your vulnerability

In the play of your child innocence in the depths of your death

Flowering invitation, softly yielding, allowing his power as a man

To step forward towards you…and swim in the Earth’s womb, in silent knowing, together

And when he retreats…because he will…flees in fear to his cave…

Gather your grandmothers around you…envelope in their wisdoms

Hear their gentle shusshhhed whispers,

calm your frightened girls’ heart

Urging you to be still…and wait patiently for his return

Sit and sing by his door, a song of remembrance,

that he may be soothed, once more

If you want to change the world, love a man, really love him

Do not coax out his little boy

With guiles and wiles and seduction and trickery

Only to lure him…to a web of destruction

To a place of chaos and hatred

More terrible than any war fought by his brothers

This is not feminine this is revenge

This is the poison of the twisted lines

Of the abuse of the ages, the rape of our world

And this gives no power to woman it reduces her as she cuts off his balls

And it kills us all

And whether his mother held him or could not

Show him the true mother now

Hold him and guide him in your grace and your depth

Smoldering in the center of the Earth’s core

Do not punish him for his wounds that you think don’t meet your needs or criteria

Cry for him sweet rivers

Bleed it all back home

If you want to change the world love a man, really love him

Love him enough to be naked and free

Love him enough to open your body and soul to the cycle of birth and of death

And thank him for the opportunity

As you dance together through the raging winds and silent woods

Be brave enough to be fragile and let him drink in the soft, heady petals of your being

Let him know he can hold you stand up and protect you

Fall back into his arms and trust him to catch you

Even if you’ve been dropped a thousand times before

Teach him how to surrender by surrendering yourself

And merge into the sweet nothing, of this worlds’ heart

If you want to change the world, love a man, really love him

Encourage him, feed him, allow him, hear him, hold him, heal him

And you, in turn, will be nourished and supported and protected

By strong arms and clear thoughts and focused arrows

Because he can, if you let him, be all that you dream

By Lisa Citore (www.magdalenewomen.com)