Circle of Stones

If a woman is trapped in a collective framework, unable, because of family or economic pressure, to give time to herself, her need for rescue may fall to the unconscious, and its response may come in the form of a depression.
Sometimes, into the lives of women who seem to be successfully fulfilling the standards of the surrounding society, depression may come as a settling embrace. It may come to a woman who is terrified that there will be nothing there, inside, if she allows herself time to rest, to separate from her extraverted hyperactivity in the outer world. Or it may come to a woman who already vaguely senses a different way, a more elemental mode than she is living out. Perhaps she has dimly glimpsed a way, more in touch with herself and life, that would reflect more truly her own feelings and life values. Yet she has chosen as she has chosen. Her choices may have seemed better, safer, all she was able to do at the time.
The old story: unable to leave behind that which one has been taught is sensible, practical, normal, rational, proper, decent convention. Better to regard the group over the individual, the publicly acclaimed over the privately treasured, the objective over the subjectively valued.
Into such a life, depression comes as a gift, bringing the chance to strike root in a deeper ground inside oneself. Depression comes as a gift forcing one to listen to the voice of the Self within.
Depression comes as a gift wrenching one from the comfort of the collective to the isolation of one’s own feeling values, from the safety of the wide gate and broad way to the doubts and fears of one’s own unmarked, rocky footpath … a gift: for hidden in the seeming safety of the broad way was stagnation and illness—death to the possibility of becoming oneself.
Depression comes as a gift that stops one from hurrying briskly, confidently into the market. Stops one from rushing to the shopping center to buy one more bargain blouse for an already overcrowded closet. Stops one from emptily mouthing what one no longer believes in anyway.

This chapter depicts a number of ways in which woman grounds herself: with food and furnishings, in the simplicity of daily tasks, in claiming her own time and place. How do you ground yourself? Where do you go or what do you do to feel centered

Over the last ten years, in hundreds of women’s circles around the country, women have gathered to study Judith Duerk’s books. In a typical evening, one woman may read a single chapter aloud while the others sit listening, with their eyes closed. And then at the end, they may share their personal experiences or images—or perhaps memories from old dreams—that are evoked during the reading.