Sit At The Feet Of The Wise Women And Listen To Their Stories

Wise women are weavers of stories, transmitters of values, affections and universes loaded with symbolism. Sitting at the feet of our mothers, grandmothers or aunts to listen to them from the heart is almost like a ritual, as a way of connecting with our past to acquire new strengths in the present.

This type of oral legacy, passed on to us by older generations, often has a much greater impact than the simple genetic or even material inheritance that we can receive from our parents or grandparents. In these stories there is a clear intention, values, principles and a whole universe full of magic, spirituality and inspiration are threaded that we never forget.

From Anthropology they always remind us that women have been that great transmitter of culture since ancient times. She has been the one who has gathered the younger generations at her feet and on her lap to offer them the gift of the word and the offering of a story, a story or a legend.

, towards a more equitable progress, more daring as well as sensible.

We suggest you reflect on this issue.

The woman, storyteller

Often we look up to neighboring countries like those spread out across Egypt, Tunisia or Libya and imagine the classic submissive woman without a voice or vote cloistered in that kind of markedly patriarchal culture. However, if we think this we are wrong. Because women have never been silent, in fact, we could already hear their screams and see their faces vindicating the need for a change in the Arab Spring of 2011.

They have always been there, with their presence, with their wise gaze and above all with their voice, as did the most emblematic of all the storytellers: Sherezade. It does not matter that the context where they live is oppressive and discriminatory. They initiate peaceful revolutions in private settings through the word, through a language that combines sensitivity and intelligence, the traditional with the challenging.

On the other hand, it is very common for women to tell women’s stories because it is in these stories that their own life story is also integrated. They are oral legacies that are often silenced in the public sphere for being uncomfortable or too revolutionary. Hence, the importance of those intimate and complicit spaces where grandmothers, mothers or aunts gather the youngest to explain what another woman was capable of doing.

They are exceptional ways by which  the use of the word acts as a critical conscience, as a channel of progress and that impact that starts from the subjective and the emotional, to reach the public and real realm.

The use of the word is the art of all therapy, it is the tool with which to energize, with which to confront and with which to promote self-discovery and change. Therefore, we cannot deny that all those stories transmitted by women since ancient times have also been a form of healing and personal growth for subsequent generations.

A story almost always hides a series of values ​​and emphasizes vital priorities in which to inspire us. It costs nothing to sit at the feet of our wise women, of our elderly women to attend to their stories from the past, those that tell us about another era and other times where personal experiences that are well known to us are often inscribed.

Because love always speaks the same language, because disappointments are experienced in the same way in the past as in the present. Let us listen to their voices, let us be part of that legacy that should not be lost and seek moments of complicity with them to delight ourselves with their experiences, their beautiful looks, where time is inscribed and a wisdom that we all deserve.