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Breaking Our Shackles

by | May 5, 2026 | Women's Business, Women's Circle

I just finished reading Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici 1. If you have read it you can possibly relate to some of the things I’m feeling right now. 

One of the feelings I am having is to talk to my sixteen year old self and say,

You were right!

She was right about things being fucked. She was right to fight. She was right to want to be physical with her female friends like a pile of puppies. She was right to question the disgust we hold towards our bodies. She was right to be sensual and embodied. She was right and she has been right all along. 

My other main feeling is to grasp tightly to our connections with women. 

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We have been in domestic prisons for hundreds of years. It is not our nature to be domicile. That was violently put upon us in a terror campaign.

 I wonder if you can relate? Certainly, there have been  many times when I have felt like a caged animal in my house enclosure, pacing the 2 rooms I seem to inhabit, the kitchen and the living room, tending to the needs of others. With menopause shaking things up, that is not my main dedication so much anymore 2. Living in a home where I am the only female, menopause has brought a return to women’s work. I thought I had done my women’s work for this lifetime. In my late teens and early twenties my life was dedicated to feminism, yoga for pregnancy and mothering, natural birth, freebirth and community living. A yearning for my sisterhood was growing in my mid forties. Raucous laughter by the fire, carving spoons and laying in the sun in a meadow. Singing in groups. And women’s circles. 

Coming together in women’s circle is not always easy. We have been violently conditioned to stay separate. A terror campaign has left us fearful and separate. We have been trained. To report on each other’s witchiness. To stay quiet. To be polite. To be some imaginary version of a woman. 

we are learning to be together as women again and that requires getting it “wrong”, discomfort and compassion towards ourselves and others

When it comes to circle, there are times when we are going to get it “wrong”. It is going to feel uncomfortable. That is why we have the protocols 3. There are so many reasons why we have the protocols. But let’s give ourselves some grace.

We are at the frontline of the protest with our plackets in hour hands, screaming as we sit in circle, quietly and sometimes uncomfortably (bodily and emotionally). It is a long time to sit and pay attention to others. To give of ourselves to others with our presence. Our active listening and eye contact. That is all we do in circle and yet that can be very difficult.

We will make mistakes. We will interrupt, or give advice, or refer to what a woman shared without asking. We are babies on this road to healing the sisterhood. I forgive you and I love you. Thank you for breaking our shackles with me. 

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Endnotes

  1. I listened to the book as an audio book. It seems to me like it’s her thesis. The academic tone was slightly easier for me as an audiobook. I also listened to the Book on Fire podcast episodes dedicated to the book. This is how I would recommend interacting with the content.
  2. Menopause has brought a great many things as well as this return to the sisterhood and women’s work. I would say one of my most treasured insights from menopause is what I call “primary intimacy with myself” whereby my “tending to the needs” has become directed toward myself. The inquiry is no longer “what do you need” and has become a moment-by-moment longing to know “what do I need right now” and moving towards fulfilling those needs as I can, given my responsibilities as a mother, partner, lover, employee, and more.
  3. The protocols are the agreements we have in circle. Kind of like the rules, but they are a fluid set of agreements that help create a safe space in circle. I have written about them in two blogs on my website; one called What is Women’s Circle and another called The Protocols. You can find them on natashaberta.com