Welcome back to 🌿🌙 THE EARTHY WRITER: My Rewilding Year 🐝✨
This is episode nine, where I’ll talk about the sister wound, what it is why it is so important that we heal it, starting off with a an encounter I had with a female journalist a couple of years ago and how it affected my understanding of what it means to be a woman today.
In this Rewilding Episode you’ll learn:
- The concept of the “sister wound” and how it affects relationships among us women.
- The historical context of women’s communal living and support before the rise of patriarchy.
- How patriarchal structures disrupted women’s communal bonds and enforced competition.
- My personal reflections on writing a novel about witches to explore these themes.
- The role of the witch hunts in our healing today
- The connection between healing the planet and nature and healing the sister wound.
- Steps to recognise and heal from the sister wound in today’s society.
About your host:
Hi 👋, I’m Gisele Stein. I’m a novelist and a nature-lover, writing magical women’s fiction from my cosy cabin on Wadandi Boodja in Western Australia.
Get my free novella ONE WILD EMBER, the prequel to an intoxicating new urban fantasy series. ‘Practical Magic’ meets ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ in this rich and rebellious story of magic and matriarchy, love and loss (series title & full blurb tba)❤️🔥
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Episode Transcript Summary:
Happy New Moon, everyone, and thank you for choosing to spend some time with me again today. As always, before we begin the episode, let’s take a moment to acknowledge the wisdom of the people, the traditional custodians of the land that I’m speaking from. Today, I would like to start off by telling you a very personal story, a story that I haven’t told anyone outside my family. And for those of you who don’t know my history, I am originally from Germany and a couple of years back, I wrote some travel memoirs because I went on safari in Southern Africa and wrote books about that. Those books took off a bit in Germany, so every once in a while, I was asked to do an interview with a journalist for a magazine or a TV show, and it’s one of those interviews that I would like to tell you about today.
Healing the Sister Wound: An Unexpected Interview in Berlin
So, I still lived in Berlin at the time and then got this request from a young journalist. She was still in training, working for a very big German magazine, and she asked if we could meet for a coffee. So we met in a café in Berlin and sat down and started to chat. It became clear very quickly that this wasn’t going to be an interview. It felt much more like a chat. I was a few years older than her and I came from a similar industry. I had worked for television for a while before I did the safari thing and then became a writer. She asked me for advice a lot. She wasn’t all too happy with her training and the way it was going, and we had a very honest conversation. We were just really getting along and we both went our separate ways. She wrote her piece and sent it to me. It was a beautiful article, but she still needed approval from her boss. So she sent the article to her boss, but then her boss came back to her and said that this wasn’t critical enough. The piece that she had written wasn’t critical enough, and she had to go back and basically find some dirt on me, find a more critical approach, something negative. And that is when that interview died because clearly that wasn’t something we both were up for.
Recognising the Systemic Nature of the Sister Wound
I’m telling you this story because all of us women know stories like this where we behaved in a certain way because the system that we live in forces this upon us, be it competing with another woman, being jealous of another woman, or being against one another rather than for one another. But once you start delving deeper into these topics, you will very naturally land on the patriarchy, and you will land on the feminine that has been suppressed and that is now rising again. And what you will discover is that it wasn’t always this way. As women, we didn’t always treat each other this way. There used to be another way we interacted with one another. And it’s for this reason that I actually ended up wanting to write a novel, my newest novel about witches, about sisterhood, about how things were before and how we are now starting to come back to ourselves and come back to the way women used to interact with one another.
Understanding the Sister Wound
There’s a word that I came across during this research that deeply resonated with me. And in this episode today, I would like to talk to you about that word. And the word is the sister wound. The sister wound is basically that feeling, that pain, and that mistrust that many of us women feel towards each other. And I know we all have stories like that. Stories of jealousy, insecurity among other women, comparison, feeling you have to be better than another woman to get ahead. All these things are ways in which this wound shows itself and shows up for ourselves in everyday life. The crazy thing is, our society is designed that way. This is a calculated process that has developed over hundreds of years, and it’s a way of interacting with one another as women that we have internalised. We are so used to it. We don’t even know another way anymore. And thankfully, it’s starting to go in a different direction. And this is why I feel so passionate about this new book that I’m writing because that is exactly what it’s going to be about.
Historical Context: Life Before Patriarchy
So what is the sister wound and where did it actually come from? The sister wound is deeply rooted in the patriarchy, and before the patriarchy took over, there was another way to live. Women lived in societies that were much more united and communal. We depended on each other for survival and for support. Women would gather food together, cook together, and look after their children together. The result of this shared living experience, where women shared their knowledge and wisdom and looked out for each other, resulted in very strong bonds between women—a very strong sisterhood that many women today have never experienced. It was a lot about nurturing, celebrating one another, celebrating another woman’s strength, celebrating another woman’s beauty, and helping one another out.
The Shift Towards Patriarchy and Its Impact
To many of us women today, this is such a foreign concept overall. We might have great relationships with our best friends or with our sisters, although that is also not a given. But overall, in society today, it’s still a lot about mistrusting one another, a lot about jealousy, a lot about comparison. We are not immune to that yet. We haven’t overcome this wound yet. Not entirely. Not as a collective, especially not because, yes, in Western society women are becoming more and more equal to men. But in other parts of the world, that dream is far-fetched. That is a far cry from reality. So there’s still a lot to overcome. But before the patriarchy took over, in those societies, women’s roles were incredibly important. They were healers, they were leaders, they were caretakers.
The Rise of Patriarchy and the Witch Hunts
But as human societies grew, there was a shift that happened, and the shift went towards a more male energy. We became a lot more organised and industrialised, a lot more militarised. Religions were changing towards Christianity and towards cherishing one God that was high up in the sky and apparently male, instead of worshipping the gods that are all around us—the trees, the rivers, the ponds, the animals, and everything that is on the ground that we’re surrounded by. Suddenly the system changed. Women’s knowledge became dangerous to that system and wasn’t cherished anymore. Suddenly women found themselves in this whole new situation.
Now we’re coming to the witch hunts, where women suddenly had to choose between conforming to that male-dominated society or risking being outcast. As this division happened, the collective power of women was more and more weakened and destroyed. Because to succeed in that patriarchal world, which is a lot more about competition and survival of the fittest, women often felt like they had to compete. And we still feel that way. We have to hustle. We have to chase. The patriarchy introduced this notion that women’s value is tied directly to their relationship with men.
Many of the women who were targeted in those witch hunts were healers, midwives, and especially older women who had gathered a large amount of wisdom and knowledge of medicinal herbs and natural remedies. That knowledge stood in direct competition with the more male-dominated medical and religious institutions. So back then, as a woman, you had a choice. You either ratted out your sisters and followed the new order, the male order, or you risked becoming an outcast, being judged, and in the worst case, literally being burned at the stake for your beliefs.
The Long Shadow of the Patriarchy
It might seem like this was forever ago and this is some dark chapter in history, but it is something—and this is what’s so crazy about history—how long the tale is and for how long things tend to affect us. Because till this day, most of the organisations, most of the systems that we find ourselves in are still geared towards male energy. It’s all about hustling, competing, getting ahead, and pushing. And I’ve talked about this before in another episode. That is something that is not natural to women. That is not how women naturally behave. We are much more about—well, the female energy is much more about sitting back, letting things come to you, taking it slow, listening, tuning in, nurturing, attracting like a magnet. We attract things towards us. We are not about the chase. And the whole capitalistic society is not geared towards that slowness and nurturing.
I want to make it very clear that this is not about being against men. I love men. And I believe that in order to achieve balance in this world, we need both male and female energy. But it’s when there’s too much of one energy that we get into trouble. And it’s for this reason that the topic of women’s persecution and the patriarchy rising and how this actually happened and how so-called witches were hunted and killed for their knowledge and for their connection to the Earth, I think today this is more relevant than ever because there’s a direct relationship between the system that we humans have designed and the way our world is currently deteriorating and how we are destroying nature.
The Dalai Lama’s Perspective: The Role of Western Women.
It was actually the Dalai Lama who very famously said that he believes this world will be saved by the Western woman. It was a very controversial thing he said at the time. But what that means is that we—I mean, I would argue that Western women are still not equal to Western men, but we are far further along on that journey than many other societies. The Western woman as a symbol, as women who remember their power, and by power, I don’t mean that male power of getting ahead in life and competing and hustling. By power, I mean the power to nurture, the power to heal. And in that regard, this might just be the most exciting time to be alive right now, because there’s this massive shift happening towards the feminine, towards rediscovering our connection to the rest of nature.
Reconnecting with Nature and Ourselves
And I say this on purpose: the rest of nature, because to me there is no difference between humans and nature. We are nature. And it is crazy to me that today we have forgotten this. Like, I grew up in a world where my parents always took me outside and I always played outside in the garden or in the forests and stuff. But still, I grew up in the world. I grew up in a human world. I grew up surrounded by agricultural fields and in a town with roads. So I very much grew up in a human world. And it was only when I did my safari guide training in Southern Africa that I learnt about ecosystems, and then I learnt about how everything connects and that I am not separate from the rest of this world.
Healing the Sister Wound and Healing Nature
So I think it’s a very exciting time to be alive because we can actively shape the future. And it’s very important that we do and it’s very important that we take a stance. But in order for that to happen, I think it’s very important that we first off become aware of the sister wound and that we then start to heal that wound. So at the end of this episode, I wanted to share some steps with you on how we can, as a collective, as a female collective, work through this and overcome this wound.
Steps to Heal the Sister Wound
- The first step is, of course, to acknowledge that this wound, this hurt, this pain took place, and to become very honest with ourselves and recognise all those thoughts and feelings that we have towards other women. And I am not perfect when it comes to that. I have internalised this as well and it comes up, but mostly it comes up in the form of comparing and jealousy. But what I have managed to do is whenever I feel that, whenever I feel that jealousy come up or I start to compare myself, I take a step back and ask myself, “Okay, why are you feeling jealous right now? What is coming up for you there? What does this woman have that you don’t have?” This can be a very empowering step because you put the power back into you and you can simply acknowledge that you can be happy for this other woman. And I always am. You can be happy for this other woman and simply acknowledge that she’s got something. She’s at a place in her life that you would like to get to. And if anything, that should inspire you. That woman should inspire the hell out of you. If she is somewhere where you are not yet, that woman is your biggest inspiration. And you should champion her. And you should celebrate her and look at her as someone you would like to be in the future.
2. So that is the second step: Let’s support one another. Let’s be excited for one another. If a woman dares to step out of the system and be brave and do what she feels called to do, support the hell out of that. Let’s champion one another in our endeavours and in our passions.
3. And then the third step is, and I would say this one is optional, but it often comes very naturally, that once you know about all of this, to find some way to include this into your life, either into your work or into your conversations. How can you help overcome the sister wound? How can you? For me, I’m doing it in my writing, and that is why I am writing these new books. But how can you include this into your life? How can you help tell this new story of not competition, but collaboration, of working together? What can you do? How can you support other women? And I think it’s also very important that we look beyond borders and see what’s going on in the rest of the world. Because as long as there is another woman that is not free, I also will not be free. So it’s a team effort and there’s definitely still a long way to go. But as I said, I think this shift that is happening, this coming back to ourselves and remembering who women once were and the knowledge that is still hidden, buried in this earth and in the wisdom that other women have been carrying into the present time, this is our biggest reason for hope, and this should inspire us. And this is why I am doing this rewilding idea to strengthen all of this.
And I think if we want to heal nature, healing our relationship with other women is directly linked to that. And I think many of our female wounds are being brought to the surface right now and they are being healed. And we are being called to remember that we are not separate from each other and that we’re not separate from this planet. So another woman’s success is your success. Remember that. Another woman’s pain is your pain, but another woman’s light is also just a mirror of your own light.
So thank you for listening today. Before I say goodbye, of course, I would like to share this month’s rewilding challenge with you. And this challenge is a spontaneous one that I came up with while I was doing my yoga class that I told you about in my last episode, my yoga class with the didgeridoo. This rewilding challenge is to explore the healing power of sound. So in the coming weeks, I will explore the power of singing, of vibration, of music. And I can’t wait to get back to you and tell you what I’ve learnt. Until next time, let’s continue to support and love one another. Thank you so much for listening. Bye bye.
Hi ♥️, I’m Gisele Stein, author of feel-good novels with a little magic and places like characters, which i craft from my cosy cabin on Wadandi Boodja in Western Australia. Have a look at my books here. I’m also podcasting as The Earthy Writer, to document my rewilding year: Every new moon, I set a new rewilding intention for the month, and every full moon I share my learnings with you…
