An Enlightened Woman

Blue Tree

When your eyes meet with my solitude
Silence becomes fruit
And sleep turns into storm.
Forbidden doors are opened
And water learns how to suffer.
When my solitude meets with your eyes
Desire rises and spreads
Sometimes like an insolent tide
A wave running without end,
Or like a sap falling drop to drop
A sap more burning than a torment
Beginning that is never completed.
When your eyes and my solitude meet
I surrender naked as the rain
Generous as a dreamt breast
Tender like the vineyard that matures the sun
Multiple I surrender
Until the tree of your love is born
So high and rebellious
So rebellious and so mine
Arrow that returns to the arch
Blue palm nailed in my clouds
Growing sky that nothing would stop.

Joumana Haddad

Zenpuss is always on the lookout for enlightened women who are saying something about female sexuality and feminism in general. Too frequently in the past the former has been ignored and the latter has been usurped by people who cannot see the importance of the one to complete the other.

Does that make sense?
Essentially, Zenpuss gets somewhat frustrated with this notion that has lingered all too long that in order to hold dear to feminist principles and empowerment, one should renege on one’s sexuality.
Of course, it is probably the case that most feminists are not saying this at all. In fact, I can think of a couple of people I know who would have me over the coals for airing such a suggestion. They are fiercely proud of their sexuality and do not see it as an either/or.
However, there are some feminists who have done the sisterhood no good whatsoever by suggesting that overt female sexuality is merely a metamorphosis of male domination, with tits out being a subordination rather than a celebration of womanhood.

It appears that in this concern, Zenpuss has an ally in Joumana Haddad, the Lebanese poet who featured in the Guardian this weekend.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/aug/21/joumana-haddad-interview
Before I go any further, I would obviously offer a disclaimer. Just because Ms. Haddad and I agree about one thing does not necessarily mean that we agree about everything, and she may well object profusely to some of Zenpuss’s more outlandish views on sexuality (though clearly I do not think they are that outlandish at all).

Joumana Haddad is an intelligent, beautiful and appealing woman. The interviewer says that she met her in a restaurant where heads seemed to turn as this woman walked in.
I’m not surprised. As I said, she is stunning.
According to the interviewer, it appears that Joumana has this kind of thing happen quite often and unlike some western feminists, she is not offended by it.

"I would never want to look like a man or act like a man. I don't need to. I mean, I love men, and I love being with them, and I love communicating with them, but I don't want to be them. I don't want to feel like I have to be like them in order to be heard!"

Oh well said, young woman.
I totally and utterly agree. If the only way to be noticed in this world is to have an array of male traits then I don’t want to be noticed. If I want to hear an intelligent response to something in life, I’d quite like to listen to it from someone who is remotely attractive and let us face facts, women tend to be more aesthetically pleasing than men, though this is not always the case.
I want women to be women in all their perfect glory. I want women to stick out in the right places and I want them to be proud of their considerable attributes.
And if heads turn in a restaurant as a beautiful woman walks in then why do we not celebrate this rather than rebuke? Isn’t it the most instinctive thing to do and isn’t instinct so frequently ignored or undermined in our lives?

But this woman is not just a pretty face. She has something to say. The poem at the top of this blog is from a book called “I did not sin enough” – a title that somehow explains why she has been confronted, condemned and reviled in her home country and other Arabic countries.

"We have done, and keep on doing, almost everything we can to encourage intolerance towards us."

, she says and I am in no position to either condone or agree with this statement but it takes a brave person, not woman, person, to say such a thing. For a woman to do it makes it all the more poignant.

But I am interested in what this woman has to say about sex and sexuality more than anything else, and I am desperately searching online to do just that.
In the article the Guardian the following quote is attributed to her.

"We constantly and obsessively think about sex, but dare not talk about it. We rid ourselves of one so-called abomination with one hand, then practice intellectual debauchery, which is much worse, with the other."

This is quite a statement! As a society we are obsessed with sex. It is everywhere. And yet we still cannot be honest enough to say that we like it. We still cannot be honest enough to admit that we like fucking with or without the additional pleasure of emotional attachment. Well, that is certainly the case with some people. We complain about sexualisation without doing anything to stop its unnecessary advancement into places it has no purpose in being and simultaneously we ignore the instinctual, honest love of sex.
It is indeed a fucked up world and as Joumana says, not only do we not talk about sex but then we exacerbate this problem by pretending that we have an intellectual response to it, without even beginning to consider the utter contradiction of what we are doing.
Madness!

But Joumana has another delightful part of her life that makes her a special person. Like other enlightened, empowered and liberated women, she has managed to get a healthy balance between singlehood and togetherness, between liberty and “belonging”, between time with her children and time with her spouse. Like another artist, Helena Bonham Carter, Joumana Haddad does not live with her husband but has a separate house some fifteen minutes away.

"It's good to keep a certain distance, you know? Keep your own space. I think if it were economically possible many people would love to do that. You would choose whether you want to spend the night with your husband or partner or not. But not just wake up and fight over the hot water and who's going to make coffee, because at the end of the day these things are really what ruin a relationship."

Oh dear, dear Joumana. Music to my ears, which is a pretty bold statement considering how much I want to be with my lover right now, how I long to have arms wrapped around me and other things within me.
Of course people would do this if it was economically viable to do so. Choice is the most liberating of things in this world of ours. Choice is all the more pleasurable if it is mutually and individually reached, if that makes sense. Sometimes, you do have to have the discussions about the hot water and you have to learn to disagree or be annoyed with one another. To run away continuously from challenge is not going to strengthen any relationship. Shit happens and discussing it sensibly rather than treading on egg shells needs to happen. However, this is less likely to happen if people are allowed to make choices for themselves, being mindful of the needs of others.
This is the Zen way, hopefully the Zenpuss way too.

She is the kind of woman that I would like to meet. She is the type of woman who I would love to have a deep conversation with. I feel that we would have an abundance of things to talk about, least of all her poetry and what inspires her to write.
I really do want to fill my world with such women if at all possible.

Here are some more quotes from the woman that reiterate my desire to meet her

“Eroticism is the pulse of life and is what most gives me the feeling of being alive.”

Yep, that is pretty much what I was talking about in my previous blog. I suspect that this woman knows a thing or two about sexual satori.

“I had always written about the body and eroticism, causing myself plenty of problems. So why not push the boundaries even further and publish a cultural magazine about the body? I founded my own small publishing house in order to remain independent, developed the concept and looked for freelance staff for the first issue.”

I know she would not thank me for saying so but whether she likes it or not, it is a brave thing for an Arabic woman to do this.





Another poem.......

BANQUET
When I sit before you, stranger,
I know how much time you'll need
to bury the distance between us.
You are at the peak of your intelligence
and I am at the peak of my banquet.
You are deliberating how to begin flirting with me,
and I,
under the curtain of my seriousness,
am already done devouring you.