Eve Ensler on Lion’s Roar

Jeroen

I thought this was a good article...

As creator of The Vagina Monologues, she changed the way the world regards women’s bodies. Then she started a global movement to stop violence against women. Now, Eve Ensler tells Lindsay Kyte about the long journey of coming home to her own body. Trigger warning: sexual violence.
Eve Ensler once feared what she’d face when she was alone with her mind in nature. Today, at 65, she welcomes the connection to herself and the natural world. Photo by Paula Allen.
Famed for her fearless work as an activist, author, and theatre artist, Eve Ensler has found peace in a quiet country home where a statue of Tara sits in the stillness of the pond in her yard. “Tara has been for me a beacon of the way, being the mother of all the buddhas,” she tells me. “As the first feminist buddha, she is a powerful force of guidance and inspiration. She has to do with compassion, wisdom, and connection, and that is essential to my life here in the country.”

https://www.lionsroar.com/the-fierce-love-of-eve-ensler/

adamcrossley

It's such an inspiring article. I found it a very resonant read. I love what she says about life in the city, separated from the world's natural rhythms:

I did not live in the forests. I lived in the concrete city where I could not see the sky or sunset or stars. I moved at the paces of engines and it was faster than my own breath. I became a stranger to myself and to the rhythms of the earth.

Having a relationship to nature is very important to me too, as I think it is for all of us.

And then her activism on behalf of women is jaw-dropping. I want to read everything she's written now.

But Ensler also witnessed an unrelenting hope and strength in those whose stories she was hearing in the Congo. The women had conceived of an imaginary place they called “The City of Joy,” a sanctuary where they would be safe, could heal, come together, and release their pain and trauma. “When you’re in community, you begin to not be separate,” Ensler says. “You begin to be your right size. You’re not too small and you’re not too big. You’re just the right size within that community. When you’re alone, you’re either terribly diminished or utterly grandiose, you know?"

This is very insightful, the power of community. Take refuge in the Sangha.

So much of my practice now is about how do I serve this world, this earth, this nature, this mother.

Lionduck

To recognize the potential in everyone and to enable and encourage that potential in each to manifest, heart by heart, is this not the true roar of the Lion?