My Latest Favorite Chic Flick
A couple of weeks ago I knew it was once again time for me to beat a quick, definitive path to the nearest movie theater alone, to catch the latest chic flick that caught my eye. I ended up watching a movie I thoroughly enjoyed, The Jane Austin Book Club.
Yes, I’ve seen every last Jane Austin movie that has come out for – over a decade, is it? But no, I am not a die hard fan of her books – never could get into them, to be perfectly honest. Dostoevsky, yes, I can’t put him down – all that late-nineteenth century Russian angst and DEEP analysis into one’s very soul . . . Jane Austin – well, works for me in the movies, is about it.
Women’s Challenges for Healing and Development
That being said, this terrific film artfully pulls a handful of women and one "token" man together in southern California who are each undergoing major life crises with all their accompanying challenges toward major transformation, and all the healing, integration and development it brings. Women of all ages who are very avid Jane Austin fans (the man becomes an equally avid convert) at the first somewhat-tense meeting determine who will be responsible during the monthly meetings to review a particular book, until all of Jane’s books are discussed.
Of course, the film makes sure that the particular woman who reviews one book is currently facing the exact same thematic challenges in her life that her chosen book to review presents. Each "reviewer" comes to experiences herself as a heroine in her own life, and so she "rises" to the occasion" of becoming one.
Can We Unconditionally Accept and Love Each Other?
At that time, natural, organic transformation occurs, all successfully enhanced in the arena of the increasingly cohesive, unconditionally loving and accepting group support. Individual challenges for members of the group include a sudden marital break-up after over twenty-five years of working partnership, exploring and solidifying lesbian relationships, deciding to "try again" for a soul mate connection after many failed partnerships, and finally "crossing the line" to, for the middle-aged "ultimate heroine" of the group, at last be able to commit to a "happy-ever-after " marriage.
Of course the film offers women the ancient reminder that when we come together in a like-minded, caring group that affirms our inherent capacity to empower ourselves, we integratively heal, develop, and create great miracles for ourselves and each other. That brings me to what really "floated my boat" with this movie. I realized as I watched the women change profoundly, one by one, that I have delighted in this view of self-healing through women’s spirituality groups on an ongoing basis in facilitating, for over twenty years now, Centering women’s self-healing and spirituality groups.
Our Tremendous Power to Restore Awareness, Choice and Staunch Support
We have such tremendous power to restore awareness, freedom to choose, and staunch support to each other and, coming full circle, to ourselves. When we can let go of millenia of cultural conditioning that stripped us of our power and twisted us into perpetual "good little girls", which fueled all kinds of passive-aggressive, subservient behaviors, we become a formidable force for good to transform ourselves and the world we live in.
And Goddess knows, we and the world we live in so desperately, so piteously cries out for just that! Interesting to note that I write this on Halloween , which, in the days when we worshiped a Goddess and not a God, was called Samhain, actually the start of the New Year. May this be a new year for us to stand tall as the divine feminine beings we are, and come together to support our own desired healing, transforming ourselves and our associated world for love, for light, for acceptance.