Power, Safety, and Feminine Rage

March 7, 2026 / Lauri Ann Lumby / 2 Comments

Warning: this promises to be a rambling and meandering journey of words through a dark and tangled forest of thorns.

This morning, I found myself unable to tend to my daily practice of meditation and prayer because instead of finding calm, I discovered only rage – the kind of rage that makes me want to tear down walls and burn things to the ground. Not being an outwardly violent person, I ran circles in my mind instead.

What is this rage?
Where is it coming from?
What is its source?
How do I need to respond to it?
What, if anything can I do about what is filling me with blind rage?
What can I do to calm the fire?

The really difficult answer that came through this tangled mess of questions was this:

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING I CAN DO.

This then, just made me more angry. But isn’t this typical? Isn’t this familiar? The deep well of (feminine) rage (not only women feel this kind of rage) over all the things happening to us and in our world over which we have absolutely no control.

The list of things over which we have no power seems endless. If you are reading this, I invite to take a moment and reflect on everything you see happening around you, along with the things you have experienced in your own life that have made you feel powerless. How does that powerlessness make you feel? If it’s rage, you are not alone.

RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE

Let’s talk a little about that rage. This rage could be a face of grief. If grief, the rage you’re feeling may be showing up as sorrow, depression, or paralysis. This rage could also be a response to injustice – what I call righteous anger. It could also be rage as a kind of acknowledgement of a need you have that is not being met. Or, as is most likely the case, the rage you feel is all of these:

Grief Righteous Anger Needs not being met

Today as I sit with my own person/collective rage, I am aware that it really boils down to one single thing:

SAFETY

As I examine all of the things in the past several days that have triggered me into feeling this rage, I realize it is because either the situation itself, or what the situation reminds me of, makes me feel unsafe. I’m also aware that the instinctual responses to feeling unsafe: fight, flight, freeze, are not available because I have experienced in my life that I have no power to change or correct the situations that make me feel unsafe. Instead, I feel like a tiger in a cage, restlessly pacing and seeking after a way out where there is none.

I believe this is how many of us are feeling. I’m also aware of the privilege I have and that my feelings of imprisonment are NOTHING compared to what others are currently experiencing on this planet. That being said, this privilege makes our rage no less real – and valid.

Now the personal part – I’m really sick of feeling unsafe in this world. I don’t want to play the “man card,” but the reality is that in nearly every situation where I have felt this kind of rage – it was because of something being done by or ignored by, a man. If it wasn’t a man, it was done by a woman complicit in the patriarchal system.

So I guess I can’t say men are the problem –

but the patriarchal system in which many are still entrenched IS the problem.

Let me provide a couple examples that everyone will be able to understand and relate to:

Women and children reporting rape and immediately disbelieved, or made to prove the crime (ending up being further victimized in the process).
MEN creating wars, destroying the world, killing millions of people for no other reason than their own inability to….. well….. that list is also endless. (communicate, share, have compassion, listen so as to understand…..)

I’m sick of it. I’m sick of all of it, including (but not limited to):

Men making bullying and demeaning statements in person and on social media.
Men dismissing women’s experiences.
Men sexualizing women (and children) ALL OF THE TIME. (alternatively, women sexualizing men)
Men dismissing or ignoring wisdom, knowledge, or expertise that is shared by a woman.
Women complying with the patriarchal (and pedophile) standards of “beauty” (including the recent starvation craze) and men being ok with it.
Women jealously defending their place in the patriarchal system.

It’s all so gross. And in the last 24 hours I was reminded of this is some deeply personal ways. One of which related to my past ecclesial abuse and some recent “strides toward inclusion of women” made by Pope Leo.

You know what, F the institution that continues to perpetrate their culture of clericalism that is at the heart of every single thing wrong with the Catholic Church. Throwing women a bone by saying the Church is planning to invite women into more positions of power (advisory only……) is to me more of an insult than a sign of forward movement. Until the system of clericalism is addressed, there will be no equity in the Church ever! As I learned from personal experience, the Church is only there to protect their own power. When I was being harassed and bullied by the local self-appointed inquisition, the Church did nothing to defend or protect me, instead it became one of my abusers.

The same is true of the patriarchy and all those complicit in the system. They are NOT here to keep us safe. They are not here to protect us. Instead, there are only concerned with protecting their own power – no matter the cost to any other human being. And this protection is done in all the obvious and insidiously subtle ways about which we are all excruciatingly familiar.

NO WONDER WE ARE SO DAMNED ANGRY!

Reflecting on this rage has made me aware that while the question of power is part of it, it is so much more a matter of safety. And I’m really f’ing tired of feeling unsafe in a system that really doesn’t give a damn about anyone but itself – and even more angry that there doesn’t seem to be a damn thing I can do about it. Until patriarchy is overthrown, this, it seems, is our fate. And that just makes me f’ing mad!

Living in Dark Times

July 7, 2024 / Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

We are living in dark times. In the United States where I live, we are facing very real threats to our liberties and our freedoms. In the past I have hesitated to call these actions “evil” because I do not believe in an external force of evil that is set out to harm us. As I no longer believe in an anthropomorphic “devil,” I cannot believe in evil as a malevolent force outside of us.

I still don’t believe in evil as an external god-like force, but after a week of deep prayer and meditation, especially around the evils I have experienced in my own life, I arrived upon an understanding of evil that I can agree to:

Evil is the physical manifestation of humanity’s fears.

When put into the context of what I believe about our human journey – its purpose and goal – which is to remember our original nature as Love/One by healing and transforming our unhealed fears, non-loving conditioning, trauma, woundedness, etc. I can believe in evil in this way.

Evil arises out of our collective fears and unhealed wounds.

History has shown this to be true. Nazi Germany – the Jewish Holocaust – and now the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Naziism arose out of the unhealed fears/wounds of WW1, which led to the Holocaust. Unhealed wounds over the Holocaust could be argued as the root of anti-Palestinian sentiments, oppression, and now genocide which has become the hallmark of Netanyahu’s hard-right Zionist movement. (to be clear…..I am not antisemitic. I am anti-genocide).

Caste

Something similar could be said of the United States – the core of our current (ongoing) troubles can be summed up in Isabel Wilkerson’s exploration of caste – a system based in the belief that “one kind of person is more deserving of freedom than another kind.” When western Europeans first settled in what later became “America,” they brought with them the wounds of the caste systems in which they were imprisoned. Never healing these wounds, they ended up inflicting the same kind of system on the indigenous who were already here, and later on every single group that was deemed “less than.” Caste, as Wilkerson argues, transcends racism. As such, Caucasians also suffer the effects of caste.

This unacknowledged caste system is at the root of our troubles and at the heart of it resides the unhealed wounds and fears of our collective past resulting in a lot of angry people who for generations have been ignored, oppressed, trod upon, denied dignity, honor and respect. When we examine this description, we see that nearly all of us qualify as suffering from caste in one way or another. The only ones who don’t suffer are those who have positioned themselves as “the ruling caste.” In the United States, these are extremely wealthy white men (and their complicit women) who have both stolen and been voluntarily given too much power.

Stolen power is easy to identify. Voluntarily given power is more difficult to comprehend. Who, in their right mind, would give an already powerful human more power? In short – those who feel most victimized by caste and who are desperately looking for someone to save them – specifically, those of the higher caste who promise to elevate another’s caste once put into power.

This is the work of evil – capitalizing on another’s unhealed wounds, vulnerability, and sense of powerlessness so that they might gain more power. The goal of evil is never to help or assist the “lesser-thans,” it is only to wrest more power from them.

Spiritual Warfare?

But what can we do in the face of such evil? Are we indeed powerless as the powerful and victimized would have us believe? The short answer is NO! We are not powerless and we do have tools and resources to help us combat this evil.

Yes, I said combat. I’ve never been one to jump on the “spiritual warfare” bandwagon, because that platform is rooted in the idea of a malevolent external source over which we have no power, and equally benevolent forces who we must call to our aid – again because we ourselves are powerless.

I do not believe in our powerlessness. Instead, I believe that when we understand the root cause of evil in our world, then we have an entire arsenal of weapons at our disposal – ones we can engage in and call on anytime and which are in our own power to use and through their use effect change.

To effect this change, we must first understand that the root of evil is unhealed wounds and unacknowledged fear. We must then understand that the transformation of evil occurs when we individually and collectively work to heal those fears. Finally, as Ulrich E. Duprée reminds in his book Ho’oponopono – the Hawaiian Ritual of Forgiveness, the fears and unhealed wounds we see in others are merely a reflection of the same fears in ourselves. When we engage in practices which support our own healing, there is a ripple effect that helps to bring healing to others.

With this, I offer two solid and effective practices for healing the unhealed fears and wounds in ourselves which can then help to support healing in others:

Ho’oponopono:

Recite the following mantra, directing the words toward yourself and to any feelings of fear or woundedness you might feel within yourself:

I’m sorry.

Please forgive me.

I love you.

Thank you.

Michael the Archangel Prayer:

An oldie moldy from my Catholic upbringing. Again, pray this prayer TO the fears and unhealed wounds within yourself. Feel free to change the language to fit your own personal beliefs:

Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.

Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.

May God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do Thou,

O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the Power of God,

cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits,

who prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Amen.

If you have other tools that you have found to be helpful, please share them in the comment section below! We are all here to take part of the healing of humanity so that one day we can all truly be free!