Author Archives: Susan McNamara

“Contradictions” In Being

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Multi-Flora Rosa is considered to be an invasive in Massachusetts. It is a plant known for the way it will spread, and spread, and spread; making its thorny and flower-laden way through the landscape, while crowding out other plants. Oddly enough, I love her for this. She is both delicate and ferocious. She knows how to give, and she knows how to take up the space she needs. And she is immune to the notion that she is a problem.

I love her hardy nature and her fragrant offerings. I love the powerful, deeply feminine, heart-opening medicine she so freely gives. I love how she feeds the bees in spring with her pollen, and the birds in fall with her rose hips. I love the shelter she provides for animals, and the beauty she so generously bestows.

Most recently, I have come to truly appreciate the contradictions she contains. She is both open and defended. Soft and unyielding. Generous and boundaried. I find it comforting to know that within one being, the pairs of opposites can co-exist so beautifully and so beneficially; not just for her, but for all. A kind of coexistence in the balancing act of containing all that one needs to be, while bringing yourself forth in the world. She provides me with a map about not only what is possible, but what is inherent, natural, and necessary in a life. A clear reflection that says you get to be everything that you are. No matter what.

Nature un-self-consciously embodies what we humans struggle to integrate within ourselves. What I mean by this is that without effort or apology, the natural kingdom takes on every quality it requires in order to live and to give; without judgment, shame, or conflict within. I find this more instructional than the beliefs and the ideas we humans take on about who we are and how we get to be in the world.

Is there something you struggle with regarding yourself? Maybe who it is that you allow yourself to be? If so, is there a plant, a tree, or an animal that you feel particularly drawn to? What qualities does that being naturally embody that you could use and relate to? And if you do not currently resonate with something in nature that could serve as a role model for you, would you be willing to look around and see if something speaks to you?

Can you imagine a life where all of your qualities were seen, affirmed, celebrated, and nourished? If you do, and can’t quite get there in the human realm, check out the natural kingdom for a more honest reflection about what a life gets to be without apology.

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Two Hawks Dancing

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While away several weeks ago, spending every day in the deserts of New Mexico, a mantra of sorts organically arose during the days I was out on my own. And while it took some time to get there, after the dust of my habitual mind states had settled down a bit, this is what came in: It is everywhere. It is in me. It includes everything. It is always available.

I walked my steps to this. I breathed this. I returned to this when my crazy mind went crazy. I opened to these truths as fully as I could. And in a relatively short period of time, It was not something I experienced as being separate from me. More to the point, I was It. “It” being Something Far Greater than me, yet including me somehow. It knew me. Considered me. Responded to me. Was aware of me. Was me.

Out there on my own, without my usual distractions and agendas, I was able to live that in a way that was immediate, visceral, and magical. Completely aligned with It, every prayer was answered, every yearning was met, every fear was allayed, and every deepest hope was known.

So, perhaps you will not find it a surprise that I am left wondering how it is that I will bring the woman back from the desert who not only knew, but embodied the magic and the mystery of knowing what she is inseparably a part of. And how it is that she will meet up with the modern woman who lives in a world that does not so naturally orient in that direction.

As I was wondering about this one morning in practice, I saw a shadow moving over the land, and peeked out to see that it was a hawk flying over head. Right behind it came another hawk. They soared together in the most magnificent dance; spiraling, descending, ascending, and moving in a kind of unison that defied the rational. When one finally broke off and flew away, the other followed. As tears came to my eyes, the phrase, “Two Hawks Dancing” came to mind.

In that grace-filled moment, I knew, as reflected by what I had just witnessed, that the worry I had about weaving the desert woman into my life was unfounded. Based on what I had just seen with how the hawks moved together, I knew in my bones, that the desert woman would do a dance with the modern woman with ease and agility; where one or the other would take the lead, and that lead would change depending on the circumstances, and in exactly the right way and with exactly the most precise and exquisite of timing in how each showed up. There was, as I had feared, no division, no choice to be made about who to be. Or how to be in the world.

When we are present to more than our version of how things need to go, our addiction to busyness, or our ingrained, unconscious habits, knowings, affirmations, and guidance can be found and reflected in the observation of, and the experience of, absolutely anything that is around us. Or in us. Because, It Is Everywhere. To be tuned into this possibility requires a level of attention, care, openness, and trust. Most of all, it requires a kind of slowing down, almost to the point of stopping.

What would it be like to hold a question, or a wondering in your mind, while you sat quietly and openly? Would you be willing to allow whatever arose in you or around you to serve as guidance? For in truth, is this not what we are all so hungry for? Is this not what we are in desperate need of at a time in our history where far too many of us have turned our lives over to something outside of us? Something or some number of things decidedly not superior in intelligence? And that does not carry our best interests at heart?

When in doubt, look to the Natural world for a clear and connected reflection of who you are, and what you need. Suspend what you think you know about things, and what they stand for. Instead, see if you can open to what something might stand for in light of your question. See if you can let something stand for other than your preconceived ideas of what it is.

And then, let yourself be with the alignment that comes when you can feel that all the way down to your bones. No matter what your mind might say. No matter what you can or cannot “prove” to anyone.

 

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Not One Thing More

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For thousands of generations, human beings have evolved with the natural world. The light/dark cycles, the turning of the seasons, the very pulsing of the earth’s electromagnetic field. It has held us. It has grown us. It is imprinted in our DNA. It is what we pass on to our offspring. It is what we historically not only leaned into, but fully embodied, knowing without a shred of a doubt where it was that we came from, were inseparably a part of, could count on, and would, ultimately, return to.

I recently spent two weeks outside in the deserts of New Mexico. I slept outside on the ground each night. I ate all of my meals outdoors. I did my morning practice outside. And I gathered, shared, and communed with a circle of women under the expanse of a southwestern sky each day. So, perhaps, in some deep cellular memory kind of a way, it is not surprising then, though it has been to me, how much of a transition it has been to go back to living more inside, than out. It is as though I was returned to something I did not even know had gone missing in me, and I am fiercely, as well as worriedly, reluctant to lose track of it again.

It is strange to be feeling this way as much of the experience of being outside during that time was most definitely, not comfortable. Whether it was spending time under a tarp with the relentless heat or winds of the desert, day after day. Or the efforts to eat; whether to keep food alive in a cooler that sat in 90 degree weather, or what it took to keep a camp stove lit in the wind. Or how it was to climb out of a tent in the middle of the night to pee; careful to not startle a rattle snake or step on a scorpion. Or all of the additional calisthenics it took to do yoga and meditate while in a fleece coat, hat, and gloves, still being chilly, with bats circling over head, at the start of each day.

As I write this, it sounds like nothing I would want to be a part of. Yet, I was; “comfortably” and gratefully so. Why is that? And why would I be missing all of that “discomfort” so deep in my bones that it sometimes hurts just to think about it? And why is it that every day since getting back, I am left wondering how it is that I can keep from closing myself back in?

Despite any “inconveniences,” what I miss is how naturally in tune I was moment by moment with my entire being; sights, smells, and sounds sharpened to the point of animal knowing. I miss the relentless simplicity of living without unnecessary distractions or senseless activities. I miss the ease and the straightforwardness of living that arose from tending only to real needs; leaving me intoxicated with the Source of that experience.

I miss how as sure as day followed night, the intense heat would give way after sundown, gifting us and the land with the much needed and yearned for coolness. And I miss equally how the morning cold would be transformed into a brief, momentary warmth that would leave you grateful for the heat, despite the fact that in a few short hours, you would curse that very same heat.

I miss all of the actions and the routines that had to be established to make it through a day; ones that were so vital, necessary, and attuned to keeping a human being alive and in community. And not one thing more.

I miss the truths offered up each day by the environment that had absolutely nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with  my plans, needs, wants, or inclinations. It left me with an unexpected ease around how much bigger, wilder, and wiser Nature is than my own personal agenda; allowing for a kind of natural surrender, liberating me from all of the managing, hoping, and anticipating that normally goes on in my modern day mind.

In the end, I went from a visitor on the earth to an inhabitant. I deeply, deeply miss that way of being, and am left wondering how it is that short of moving out of my home and into the woods, or experiencing some apocalyptic disaster, that I can live closer to what I discovered in the desert. One thing that I have brought home and am experimenting with is the choice to be outside without agenda. Time spent in nature that is not goal-oriented like going for a run in the woods, tending to the garden, gathering herbs, or feeding the chickens.

Instead, and of the utmost importance in returning to the truth of my nature, time to just be. And not one thing more.

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Hunger

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I am just back from fasting for four days in the desert as one part of a much larger experience of self-discovery. While it may seem horrific and insane to go willingly without food for so many days, I will tell you that while I experienced extreme levels of physical discomfort, hunger of the body turned out to be only one part, and perhaps, most importantly, the least part, of a much larger revelation.

Beyond physical gnawing, sickness, and cravings, beyond emotional crutches and confusions around food, there came the most unexpected waves of soul hunger; wrenching,clawing, and desperate pangs for primal needs known deep within, but often left unspoken. Or worse yet, unrecognized.

For all of the material abundance and unfettered access to food so many of us experience in this nation, we are a culture famished; literally starving to death for what matters most. We, who throw out upwards of 40% of the food we produce, spend day after day deprived of the true nourishment that human beings require to live whole, connected, and well. Things like clean air, food, and water. Things like a human pace in our daily doings. Things like authentic connection. Things like being valued for who you really are. Things like acceptance, safety, dignity, and respect. The list is both endless, and unmet in too many ways, and for far too many of us.

Day after day, and sometimes moment by moment, when the physical sensations of food deprivation felt unbearable, leaving me unable to move, I spoke my hungers into the desert floor. When I felt as though I could not bear it for one more second, I let pour out of my mouth my physical, emotional, and soul hunger; all of the things I was ravenous, and literally, dying for. All of the things I needed to feel nourished, sustained, and at home in this world and in this body of mine. I prayed my hungers. I wailed them. I screamed and whispered them all. Peace. Justice. Equality. Protection of children. Reverence and respect for all Life. Healing. Recognition of the Sacred in the day to day. On and on it went, seemingly without end.

To be human is to hunger. And to know the feel and the scope of real hunger, at any level, is to live honestly, authentically, and guided by the Truth of Existence Herself. Unfortunately, we live in times where our truest hungers are being sidetracked, obscured, and forgotten. Unfortunately, we live in times where we have come to fear, deny, and escape from the very ache that would set us right.

Try it. Step outside and speak to the trees or the sky everything you are starved for. Or whisper it into your pillow before you fall asleep at night. At first, it will break your heart. You will feel ruined by the intensity and the seemingly impossible hope that any of what you must hunger for could be sated. But once the sorrow clears, a great conviction, clarity, and commitment, in a world lacking all three, will reveal itself. And it will remind you of who your are, what you stand for, and what you know to be true. Despite the ache. Because of the ache.

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Distractions

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Bear with me as I cycle back to the woman from the yoga class that I struggle with. This past week, true to form, she comes in late, creates a little disturbance as she sets up, and then gets back up, goes to her bag, and pulls out her cell phone. She starts checking something, and than makes an audible sound as if to signal that this important thing has come in, and even though it is an inconvenience, she must absolutely attend to it. Right now. She then steps just far enough outside of the room, but not so far that her conversation cannot be heard by the rest of us.

My mind is exploding. It is like a feral animal locked in a cage as it hurls itself around this topic. I am lining up all of the ways that I am going to approach the teacher, and maybe even the studio owner. I have got this cold. My argument is irrefutable. Her transgressions egregious and worthy of reproach. Her awareness of others so non-existent as to be justifiably offensive. Her behavior so very un-yogic. And then…

I notice myself. I see how much attention I am giving this and I begin to wonder why. Suddenly, it hits me. My body is struggling today. Muscles are stiff, and things that usually are not a problem, are hurting. As I turn towards all of this bodily sensation, I am moved to emotion by how much we must navigate each and every moment of every single day as part of the human experience. Some things desired in terms of the sensations we feel. Some things not.

That is when it dawns on me that it is much easier to be railing against her than it is to be in my own body. It is much easier to blame another for the experience I am having. It is much easier to distract myself from my own experience than it is to be with what is too uncomfortable to be with.

It is so human to want to get away from the intensities of being in a body. There is so much to be felt; other people, stress, traffic, weather, politics, pollution, body ailments, moods, emotions, mind states, and more. A continuous stream of sensation that never ends. And depending on how we are choosing to live, that stream will be more or less intense. More or less confusing. More or less tuned into as a source of information and guidance

So, what are we to do given, that through our use of the screen technologies, it has never been easier to distract ourselves from ourselves? How are we to be with the truth of our bodies, and what it is to be alive? Maybe you can try what one of my college students came up with. On her screen she has the words “Turn Over.” Every time she picks up her phone, she sees this, turns her phone over, and reads the sticky note she taped to the back. There, she finds the big, bold question “Why are you here?”

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Embodiment

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I recently saw a flyer for a cuddle therapist. It seems that now, in yet another way, we have moved far enough away from what it takes to be human, and what it is that we truly need, that we now pay for hugs. Not that this is new for us; prostitution is as old as the ages. And yet, it is examples like this that really point out how far we have strayed. How much we truly do not understand about ourselves in terms of what we need, and exactly what it takes to satisfy those needs.

To be human is to be in a body. To embody is to incarnate. It is to inhabit. It is to sense and it is to need. It is reflected by, and embedded in the natural world; the very body of the Earth herself. And always, and in all ways, it is to risk. For it is a deeply, deeply vulnerable experience to be in a body.

There is so much at stake. There are old hurts. There are rejections and needs gone unmet. There is exposure and ridicule. There is shame and doubt. There is harm and violation. There is fear and anxiety. There is confusion and inability. There is disappointment and frustration. There are false standards and the wrong information. And there is so much more.

But what if we could go back to the beginning? What if we could begin the journey of simplifying something we have made dangerously and overly complicated? What if we could untangle from all the thoughts and beliefs that have separated us from the truth of our bodies? They say that seeing is believing. Can you imagine seeing your way into a simpler, truer, more harmonious existence with this body of yours?

Lately, when I find myself disconnected from the body and habitually hooked into the busy, planning, judging, past-obsessed, future-anticipating mind, I am simply coming back to some sensation in my body. Any sensation will do. When I can catch myself, I breathe, and I let all of my weight pour down the length of my body; weighting myself into this moment and what is real. This gives me a sense of here-ness, solidity, and rooted-ness. Sometimes in these moments, I even get myself outside to touch the earth, and maybe even pick up a handful of dirt as a reminder of what it is that I am and can sink myself into.

I got this idea when I heard the story about what the Buddha did on the eve of his enlightenment. It seems that a terrible demon visited him and presented Buddha with all of the scariest images and button-pushing fears he could muster. Content that would push anyone over the edge.The Buddha did not fight, he did not recoil in fear, he did not run away. He simply reached down and touched the earth; in effect opting out of engaging with illusion in favor of what was real.

In our increasingly disembodied existence, where from our own minds and coming from all around us, we conjure up one distortion and distraction after another, there is a sure fire way to get back to the truth, and it is through our bodies. Otherwise we find ourselves victim to the cultural norms that encourage us, at ever-accelerating rates, to detach from and deny the needs of the body in more and more extreme ways.

Do not be fooled by how obvious or sophomoric this sounds. Don’t be put off because you have no language or good models for how to be with your body. Don’t turn away because you have been at war with your body for a lifetime. Some part of you knows the way. Some part of you has never forgotten. It is built into us as humans to inhabit this body of ours, and to instinctively and intuitively know how to respond to our truest needs.

Start simple. Start now. Each and every morning, before your feet hit the floor, pause for as long as you can to feel what is there. Before the busy, rational mind kicks into overdrive with all of the things you must get to, ask your body one simple question; What do you need?

And then, do two things: Don’t move until you hear or sense or feel an answer. Respond as soon as you can.

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Who We Are

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I am no longer what I once was. I am not yet what I will be. I can only be as I am in this moment. This comes to me in a yoga class as I am looking out over my life around where I have been, and who and what it is that I am trying to grow into.

Have you ever noticed how often people angst over what has come before, along with how often we long for what is yet to come? How many of our thoughts go to revisiting, living in, or fighting with, what came before? How much of our attention centers around anticipating, struggling with, or glorifying, what will be? And yet, we can only be whatever it is that we actually are in any given moment. We can only change, act, create, or anything else we can do or imagine, from this moment.

Can you envision what it would be like to get back all of the hours, days, weeks, months, and ultimately years, that you have spent in your mind in either the past or the future?

It is such a propensity of the ordinary mind to fret over the future, or to drag the past around. Both are a trap. Neither offers happiness. Or peace. Or anything else for that matter that we really want. And yet we do it, over and over and over again. Interestingly enough, as bad as this is for us, it is getting even worse. How? Through the amplification of both of these tendencies brought on by how we are using the technologies.

There was a time when you could leave your past behind. You could make the choice to break from who you were at a younger age, or from ways of being you no longer wanted to be associated with. No more. Everything we are doing is being documented. And saved. Indelibly imprinted on The World Wide Web. (Unless of course, you are rich enough or have the kinds of connections that can make anything go away, but not the kind of power most of us possess.)

And then there are all the ways that we can spend our days polishing and performing the ideal version of the us we most want others to see. We can create our future yearning, our idealized self without actually making a single change in how we are living. Without any of it actually being real.

I often joke with my college students, “Thank God, nothing I did in high school, college, or through my early twenties lives on through the Internet.” They laugh. Partly because somewhere they are nervous for themselves, and what they have posted. And partly because that admittance on my part, surprises them; for in many ways, and in the most important of ways, the woman that stands before them in no way resembles what came before. And that is exactly how I want it.

Why would I want to move beyond and away from aspects of my past? Because I want the freedom to be able to reinvent myself; to cast off aspects that were not the truth of who I was, and therefore who I truly am. I want the chance to move beyond old habits and ways of being that do not serve my current values and ideals. I want the opportunity to be different. I want the space to transform.

Don’t we all deserve this? The chance to remake and reshape ourselves into the best version that we can possibly imagine for ourselves? And to actually do it for real? By that I mean, not the fantasized versions that so many post, calling it them and a life, but honest to goodness transformation of who we are and how we live through real world blood, sweat, and tears.

The opportunity to move beyond our old selves and to claim a true and authentic representation of who we are is not just necessary for us, it is necessary for the world. We are here to learn and to grow in the service of our fullest expression with the result being a greater contribution to all of Life. How will this be possible for the generations coming up where everything they have ever done will follow them around like a bad smell for the rest of their lives? How will they ever be allowed to be solid with who they are at any given moment when the driving zeitgeist is to be constantly reinventing yourself in cheap, showy, unreal, and shallow ways; performing that out in virtual reality as the new and improved version of yourself?

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Quantity vs. Quality

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My children are in Nashville and Seattle. Sometimes we speak one or more times in a week. Sometimes several weeks will go by with no contact. I have no rules, nor any expectations around the number of connections we make within a specified time period. And when I am not holding myself up to what I often see happening around me, I feel the rightness of this for our relationship; for what I am personally after is quality, not quantity. What I am after is a give and take in relationship that honors where everyone is at; recognizing each person’s need for both sovereignty and interconnection, while understanding that that ebbs and flows over time.

This flies in the face of how many of us relate to one another now via our devices (With “to” versus “with” being the operative word). I hear this regularly from college students who text intimate others or parents multiple times a day; even when there is nothing to convey. It is less a communication than a neurotic, obsessive, dogged obligation. Too harsh? Maybe. But when you line up that for all of our ways to be in contact, too many of us do not allow, and are not allowed, any space to exist in the relationship outside of continuous contact, obligation gone bad becomes the most apt description of what is happening between us. For how else would we label how no to little time is allowed for anything of significance to arise or happen to us before we are back in contact again? How else would we label how we leave no to little time anymore to be on our own, or to digest an experience before we report it back out?

These same ever-in-contact students often talk about feeling harangued, dissatisfied, and burdened with so many obligatory and meaningless exchanges. But they find it impossible to break free as this way of doing things has become the new agreed upon currency of love and connection. Without which one risks violating a social norm of what it looks like to care. Without which one runs the risk of looking like there is not much of a bond between you and those you care about.

Why have we done this to one another? Why do we continue to do something that so burdens and diminishes what is between us? Why have we taken something so precious and so life-giving and reduced it down to a neurotic numbers game. Have we so little faith in each other? Have we so little faith in ourselves to experience life without immediately reporting out every last detail ad nauseam to anyone that we can text?

Texting is not talking. And quantity does not equal quality. It never has, and it never will.

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Tall Poppy Syndrome

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Years ago I heard someone talking about “The Tall Poppy Syndrome.” It was described to me as the way that we will make ourselves small; how it is that we will measure out just how far we will stick out beyond others. Always with an eye, consciously or unconsciously, to not get too big.

Why do we do this? Why do we minimize the truth of who we are and what it is that we do, want, or believe in? Why do we fear recrimination when we have done or created something positive in our lives or in the life of the world? Why do we suffer comments made by others, and even ourselves, the very ones that are meant to put us back in our place, without refuting the harmful put down? Why do we allow “what will they think?” to run the show? Why do we submit to the experience of “otherness” in our thinking and let that dictate how much we believe we can be? Or do. Or want.

This has come into full relief for me over the past week during a cleanse I have been doing with others. This is my first experience at this, and as such I was expecting what others had described to me; headaches, skin eruptions, trouble eliminating, cravings, dulled appetite, difficult emotions to wrestle with. And yet, not one bit of that has been my experience. In fact, it has been just the opposite. I have felt energized, clear, and optimistic. Excepting for Wednesday of this week; affectionately referred to by our leader as “hump day.”

It was on this day that I decided to email back the leader describing that surprisingly enough I had been feeling great; really vibrant and aligned mentally,emotionally, and physically. It felt like a good choice at the time to contact her. I, too, wanted to be part of the email exchange, even though I did not have difficult things to report. Prior to this day, I had been holding back because it seemed like maybe there was no place for my “positive” experience. This was my attempt to break through this feeling of self-imposed isolation. Only, shortly after I sent the email, I felt a vulnerability attack come over me. Why did I send that? I should never have done that. She’s going to be mad at me, or think I believe I am better than everyone else because I am not struggling.

This went on for a bit and then turned into the wildest mental food cravings; fried food, peanut butter cups, cup cakes, pizza. All the things I was going to eat as soon as I could once the cleanse was over. To hell with all the work. I just couldn’t wait to get to all of this food. At one point, though, a little wondering came in. What happened, I thought. How did I go from no struggle with food cravings to an all out orgy in my mind? Then it hit me. This was my unconscious attempt to dull myself down to fit in so that I wouldn’t be excluded or judged. And behind that was my fear that it was not safe for me to be OK while others were not. Truth be, it went even further than that and right into; Do I have a right to my own brilliance?

As soon as I had this realization, the orgy thoughts immediately went away and I was back to feeling good again. It really does pose a couple of very serious questions for us as human beings living and interacting with one another, as well as human beings here to express the truth and totality of who we truly are. “Just how far will we go to not stick out, to dim our light, to top ourselves off? Just how far will we go to keep others in their place; not allowing them to grow beyond us?”

If we have any hope of being happy and fulfilled individually, and if we have any hope collectively of living together here on the earth in harmony, and with an eye towards making things better for all of us, we truly need to figure this one out. Right now, more than anything else, we need for the tallest poppies in all of us to grow up and step forward.

 

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Monsters

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I am in the check-out line at the co-op this week. I often enjoy this time as I get to interact with all kinds of people; many of whom are twenty-somethings, and I love to hear what they are into. Some days it truly inspires me. Some days it truly breaks my heart.

On this day, when I ask the young woman how it’s going, she responds by saying, “Tired.” She then cheerfully adds, “But that’s OK-I’m always tired.” Even though I know that social etiquette would say that now it’s my turn to say something, I pause. She then picks the conversation back up by saying, “Well, it’s my own fault. My hobby keeps me up all night.” Hmm. At first I am wondering if it’s something like reading, knitting, cooking, or art. But because it somehow doesn’t seem to fit in with being up all night, I ask, “What’s your hobby?” She smiles a big, wide grin at me and says, “Gaming.” Pause. Pause. Pause.

Truly, I do not know how to respond. Where would I even begin? Since when has spending time in front of a screen been given the lofty designation of a hobby in the life of a human being? Since when did we collectively agree that depriving your body of one of its most basic and health-promoting needs is something to be proud of? And since when did women start jumping into a pathologically imbalanced male-dominated arena, leaving us now just as vulnerable as the men in making the wrong thing essential? It is so eerily reminiscent of women trying to be like men in the work force; ultimately putting us on the same level as them when it comes to rates of stress and heart disease.

Because the woman part hits me the hardest, I decide to wade into the pool on this one.

“Oh,” I say, “I haven’t run into many female gamers.” She tells me that’s because up until a few years ago it was really hard to break into the gaming circles if you were a woman, but that now it’s gotten way easier. “Why’s that?” I ask. Because, she tells me, the companies have figured out that they are losing money by not including women, so now they are much better at monitoring these sites and squelching bad and exclusive behavior on the part of male gamers.

“As a matter of fact,” she tells me, “there was a recent study that proves that the number of female gamers is the largest growing group. Even bigger than teenage boys!” She is absolutely glowing with pride as she tells me this. Pause. Pause. Pause. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. “Now they’ve got the women,” is all that I can think. This is truly terrifying.

This precious young woman has not even begun to consider what this “hobby” of hers is doing to her physical health, and her ability to be in her real life in any kind of a meaningful way. She has not stopped to consider that the open access that the companies have created for her and other women like her is being done at the expense of not only her body, but her very heart and soul sensibilities as a woman. She has not stopped to consider that this league of which she is now a part is a littered graveyard full of wasted human potential.

The irony of it all? Her favorite game is Monster Hunter. What she loves most of all is the skill set she has developed. The one that allows her to identify where the demons are and, even getting good enough to be one step ahead of their clever, demonic, and dark adaptations at eluding extermination. Would that she turn these skills on the very real monsters that haunt and elude her in the real world, she might just have a chance of getting out with her very own life.

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