Gathering of Trees

Co-Created by: Lili Boyanova Hugh, Faith Addicott, Tiffany David, Maheen Shafiabady, Sandi Peck, Renée Smith, and Ariana Augustine

For Women’s History Month, we created an intentional space for women in the Human Workplace community to come together for an hour of community, raw conversation, and shared support.

This space was lovingly named, The Gathering of Trees. The theme was Welcoming - Welcoming oneself, welcoming each other, welcoming the small circle, welcoming the opportunity.

Together, the small circle spoke about Being a Woman in the workplace with all its beauty and struggle. “It was a tender and gentle space to explore our personal and collective journeys to date, and our hope for the future” - Lili Boyanova Hugh shares.

Our vision and appeal for women in the workplace globally is to hold each other in a loving community, inspire each other, and give voice to the unspoken truths, the courageous acts, the inner experiences on the quest for equal opportunities, recognition, love and freedom.

Below are the artifacts (and authors or artists) that emerged from this generative session. Share them with women in your circle…

Original Poetry

I spent too long cramped inside a box of expectation.

A space so small where I muted my own voice.

I thought it kept me safe and sound?

But really, to a smaller version of myself I was bound.

I made myself a quieter breeze.?

Less noise, less fuss, hoping to please and please.?

I thought it made me more agreeable?

The truth? I just felt invisible.

Years passed in this box, until I woke up one day,

Looked in the mirror and saw a stranger on display.

This stranger looked just like me, but shriveled by silent criticism,

Yearning for sun, laughter, light, and the fullness of optimism.

So, a decision was made.?

Today, I shed the cocoon of silence, ridicule, and shame.

No longer will I shrink to fit another's design,

Today and every day, I am wholly and unabashedly mine.

No longer do I cower, afraid to shine,

Or speak my truth and shout with glee, so divine.

My strength, my boldness, my unyielding might,

No longer willing to make myself small and tight.

Women are capable of boundless flourishing.

We are not fragile. We are not dainty beings.?

We are strong, fierce, and courageous?

Powerful, tender, and outrageous.?

So here, my sister, are words I hope you heed

Please, please, take up the space you need.?

Step out of the box

Then crush it and toss.

Your wild ideas and creative soul are needed.

Your song sung loudly with love is welcomed.

I honor and celebrate your strength

And vow to never again be silenced or diminished at any length.

Authored by Ariana Augustine

Art

Shared Poetry

I Am Not My Sadness, by Janne Robinson, shared to the Gathering of Trees by Tiffany David

I am not my sadness

I am not my joy

I am not my jealousy

I am not my head held high

I am not my insecurity

I am not guilt

nor am I my anger

these emotions are visitors

to the vessel that I am

and I love them

and feel them

and don’t attach stories to them

or identify with them

they simply come to sit on my stoop

and I drink tea with anger

and I hear her rage

I see her flex her biceps and her blood boil

I see her face popping and arms swinging

I invite sadness to sit beside me

she is blue

everything she touches turns blue

I see the weight of her heart as the words fall slowly out in tears

and then I kiss her goodnight

joy is next

and she is standing and talking quite loudly with her hands as she tells a grandiose story with gleaming eyes and laughter shaking the mountains around me

she is light and I feel relief at her presence

she is like sunshine and strawberries picked from the baseball field on a Sunday behind my grandmothers house

eaten with dirty hands

and then guilt shows up

dragging his feet as he comes to lean beside me on the white post

and the weight of his existence oozes and draws the energy from the earth

he is born with a heaviness he does not know how to shake and I do not try explain or heal or fix him

I just let him stand beside me as the sun goes down

drinking the glumness that he is prescribing

Jealousy shows up before I’ve had coffee

she is wearing leather pants and she hisses at the world while she sways her hips

holding a cigarette between her red lips she seethes and spits

in a short mini skirt

she is fire

Soon after is her sister in crime insecurity

insecurity walks tentatively up the steps

she’s not sure if she’s welcome

even after I’ve welcome her in

she doesn’t want to sit

For she is so afraid of taking up space

and so I let her shake beside me

I just love her like that

And then arrogance rolls up

In a Mercedes Benz

He revs his engine with the tenacity of a child longing to be seen

and instead of rolling my eyes and telling him he misses the love of his mother he never received

and that her love isn’t out here in this world

that he won’t get it like that

with his loud car

it’s inside

and he must sit still to find it

I see him

I smile

I welcome his loudness

his boisterous presence into my arms

I take his broad shoulders and stiff neck reaching for the stars into my heart

you see

You and I

are not our emotions

they are visitors

passing in the day and in the night

and all you must do

when they come knocking

is welcome them inside

with the knowingness that they truly never stay forever if you just honour and feel them

with presence and love them through

Breathe by Becky Hemsley, shared to the Gathering of Trees by Maheen Shafiabady

She sat at the back and they said she was shy. She led from the front and they hated her pride.

They asked her advice and then questioned her guidance.

They branded her loud, then were shocked by her silence.

When she shared no ambition they said it was sad. So she

told them her dreams and they said she was mad.

They told her they'd listen, then covered their ears, And gave her a hug while they laughed at her fears, And she listened to all of it thinking she should, Be the girl they told her to be best as she could.

But one day she asked what was best for herself, Instead

of trying to please everyone else,

So she walked to the forest and stood with the trees,

She heard the wind whisper and dance with the leaves. She spoke to the willow, the elm and the pine, And she told them what she'd been told time after time.

She was either too little or far far too much,

Too loud or too quiet, too fierce or too weak,

She told them she felt she was never enough, Too wise or too foolish, too bold or too meek, Then she found a small clearing surrounded by firs, And she stopped...and she heard what the trees said to her. And she sat there for hours not wanting to leave. For the forest said nothing, it just let her breathe.

I Am A "Too Much" Woman by Ev'Yan Whitney, shared to the Gathering of Trees by Faith Addicott

There she is. . . the "too much" woman. The one who loves too hard, feels too deeply, asks too often, desires too much.

There she is?taking up too much space, with her laughter, her curves, her honesty, her sexuality. Her presence is as tall as a tree, as wide as a mountain. Her energy occupies every crevice of the room. Too much space she takes.

There she is causing?a ruckus with her persistent wanting, too much wanting.

She desires a lot, wants everything—too much happiness, too much alone time, too much pleasure. She'll go through brimstone, murky river, and hellfire to get it. She'll risk all to quell the longings of her heart and body. This makes her dangerous.

She is dangerous.

And there she goes, that "too much" woman, making people think too much, feel too much, swoon too much. She with her authentic prose and a self-assuredness in the way she carries herself. She with her belly laughs and her insatiable appetite and her proneness to fiery passion. All eyes on her, thinking she's hot shit.

Oh, that "too much" woman. . . too loud, too vibrant, too honest, too emotional, too smart, too intense, too pretty, too difficult, too sensitive, too wild, too intimidating, too successful, too fat, too strong, too political,?too joyous, too needy—too much.

She should simmer down a bit, be taken down a couple notches. Someone should put her?back in a more respectable place.

Someone should tell her.

Here I am. . . a Too Much Woman, with my too-tender heart and my too-much emotions.

A hedonist, feminist, pleasure seeker, empath. I want a lot—justice, sincerity, spaciousness, ease, intimacy, actualization, respect, to be seen, to be understood, your undivided attention, and all of your promises to be kept.

I've been called high maintenance because I want what I want and intimidating because of the space I occupy.?I've been called selfish because I?am self-loving.?I've been called a witch because I know how to heal myself.

And still… I rise. Still, I want and feel and ask and risk and?take up space.

I must.

Us Too Much Women have been facing extermination for centuries—we are so?afraid of her, terrified of her big presence, of the way she commands respect and wields the truth of her feelings. We've been trying to stifle the Too Much Woman for eons—in our sisters, in our wives, in our daughters. And even now, even today, we shame the Too Much Woman for her bigness, for her wanting, for her passionate nature.

And still. . . she thrives.

In my own world and before my very eyes, I am witnessing the reclamation and rising up of the Too Much Woman. That Too Much Woman is also known to some as Wild Woman or the Divine Feminine. In any case, she is me, she is you, and she is loving that she's finally, finally getting some airtime.

If you've ever been called "too much," or "overly emotional," or "bitchy," or "stuck up," you are likely a Too Much Woman.

And if you are. . . I implore you to embrace all that you are—all of your depth, all of your vastness; to not hold yourself in, and to never abandon yourself, your bigness, your radiance.

Forget everything you've heard—your too much-ness is a gift; oh yes, one that can heal, incite, liberate, and cut straight to the heart of things.

Do not be afraid of this gift, and let no one shy you away from it. Your too much-ness is magic, is medicine. It can change the world.

So please, Too Much Woman: Ask. Seek. Desire. Expand. Move. Feel. Be.

Make your waves, fan your flames, give us chills.

Please, rise.

We need you.

Read more from A Human Workplace?here.