A thinking woman sleeps with monsters.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that an aware and thoughtful woman confronts difficult truths and challenges.
Adrienne Rich's quote illustrates the idea that a woman who actively engages with her thoughts and emotions may encounter difficult, uncomfortable realities or truths β 'monsters' β that challenge her understanding of the world. This reflects the strength required to confront such challenges and the acknowledgment that awareness and critical thinking can bring about both fear and empowerment.
In practice
In a women's empowerment seminar, someone could use this quote to emphasize the importance of facing challenges head-on.
My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness. Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance.
The word revolution itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the revolution of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the revolving door of a politics which has liberated women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.
A president cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonored.'β
There is no 'the truth','a truth' - truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. the pattern of the carpet is a surface. When we look closely, or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of the carpet
It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness
It's as if, in the mother's eyes, her smile, her stroking touch, the child first reads the message:'You are there!'
Let us beware of common folk, of common sense, of sentiment, of inspiration, and of the obvious.
You must find your dream...but no dream lasts forever, each dream is followed by another, and one should not cling to any particular dream.
... where Solomon says that 'Wisdom has built herself a house' (Prov. 9:1), he refers darkly in these words to the preparation of the flesh of the Lord: for the true Wisdom did not dwell in another's building, but built for Itself that dwelling-place from the body of the Virgin.
Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness. I can tell you, as I'm sitting here dying, when you most need it, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you're looking for, no matter how much of them you have."
You hold in your hand an invitation: to remember the transforming power of forgiveness and loving kindness. To remember that no matter where you are and what you face, within your heart peace is possible.
I am tired of the position of the dried-up critic and doubter. The believer is the true full man. (from a biography of James by Robert D. Richardson)
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.