circle of women

and by "women" i mean people

we are each other’s harvest

we are each other’s business

we are each other’s magnitude

and bond

-gwendolyn brooks

photo taken by me on baranoff island

Imagine you are part of a circle of women. It doesn’t matter if you identify as a woman for purposes of imagining. Just imagine you’re part of the circle.

You’re out in the woods, say, or beside the sea. The women are standing, standing in a circle, facing each other.

Or, no, let’s say you’re not part of the circle. Not yet. You are on the borderlands, on the edge of a forest clearing, say, and inside the grassy clearing there is a circle of women. They are standing in a circle, singing to each other. They’re swaying, they’re calling to each other. It’s a sacred ceremony of some kind. They weave their arms around each other, and dance.

They dance around and around.

You watch.

They weave and float. They’re holding each other up.

There are 22 women in the circle.

There isn’t music, but it almost seems as if there could be. A raven cries. Breeze rustles the leaves of the whole forest. There is joy, and the feeling of possibility.

Then, as you watch, one of the women drops. She falls. You are confused. You don’t understand what is happening. And neither do the other women. Some of them try to tend to her. Some of them look around trying to understand if something struck her, or what happened.

It becomes clear that she has died.

Some of the women begin tending to her body. Some of the women hug each other. Some of them dance still, now in a kind of reverence—their dancing is an impromptu ceremony for her.

But even as the other 21 women are honoring her, another woman now drops. She falls. The other women are startled, and a panic starts to rise. Two women, suddenly dead? What is happening?

The other 20 women huddle now, peering into the forest. A few cradle the body of the second fallen women, and of course there are still the ones who are tending to the body of the first.

No one is dancing now.

No one is dancing, and panic is spreading from one woman to another. They are talking to each other, they are holding on to each other.

And then a third drops.

And then a fourth.

You are watching from the margins. You’re panicked yourself now. You want to go to them, but for some reason you can’t. What is happening? One of the women who has died is quite young. You wonder why they don’t leave the clearing. Surely the clearing is cursed? Surely there is a predator. Surely they should leave? But, although you don’t quite understand why, you begin to understand that they cannot leave.

Another woman drops. Now the other women are weeping and screaming and holding onto each other. There are only 17 women left. Who will be next? One woman is frantically running around the clearing, trying to find escape, and you are watching her, watching her try to leap into the cover of trees, but she can’t for some reason. Her body is young and lithe but she cannot get out of the clearing. You are watching her and watching her, wanting to reach out and pull her to safety, but you cannot get to her and she cannot get to you. You’re watching the terror in her face, her beautiful face that is all youthful cheekbones and dark eyes.

She is the next one who dies. She drops as if she’s been shot. Her body spasms and shudders before her eyes roll back and she lies rigid, her spirit ripped through the threshold to the next world.

You turn and vomit.

Someone is killing them. That is clear now. Men are killing them—men are the ones giving orders—although sometimes the actual humans enacting the evil are other women.

You cannot watch now. But you also cannot leave. So you hear the new shrieks and screams when the next woman is taken, and the next.

There are 14 women left.

Some are sitting on the ground now. Some are holding others. Some are staring off blankly into the trees.

Time passes. The wind picks up. No one moves. You do not move. No one else dies.

They still cannot leave, but no one else dies. They begin to tend to the bodies of those who have gone. They stroke the women’s faces. They rearrange their bodies so that they are not crumpled as they were when they fell.

~ ~ ~

And now~only now~the invisible forcefield separating you from them is dissolved. And you can walk into the clearing.

So you do. You walk toward them. At first, they are startled. But they see in your eyes that you are good. They see peace in the way you walk. And they reach out to you.

You reach out for the women who are still alive. And they reach out for you.

Their eyes are terrified, even hollowed. Their eyes are still alive, and they are looking into your eyes for some steadiness beyond this horror.

~ ~ ~

My beloved friend and sister~I’ll call her Tea~she is Palestinian, from Gaza, and she has led a group of 22 women who were all part of a “table banking” collective. Table banking is a well-known system of informal banking, largely used by women worldwide who do not have access to formal loans or banks. The women pool their money each month, and loan the pooled money to one woman at a time so that she can invest it in her own small business. Over time, each woman benefits from a loan—and each woman has the chance to support her sisters.

These 22 women that formed the collective Tea led, they were women throughout the West Bank and Gaza. And now, eight of these women—8—have died or gone missing in Gaza.

But the other 14 women are still depending on the money that these women would have given each month. They have made business decisions based on the expectation that this money will come month after month. So, as the leader, Tea is responsible to get these women this money.

When she told me this story, we were sitting beside each other on a couch, our arms touching. Her eyes were bloodshot from the fear and grief. She was telling me that all her life she has helped others, she has never been in the position of asking for help. But now, as we sat together, so close, she had the immense courage and dignity to ask for my help.

So I am asking for your help.

I am imagining us walking in together—all of us, everyone reading this—from the edges of the clearing, and joining the remaining women. Giving what we can. I am imagining it can be our way of honoring these women who were killed.

A kind of impromptu ritual, rite.

To cover the 8 women, we need $1,100 each month between now and April. That’s 20 of us giving $55 each month. It’s 30 of us giving $36 each month. Just between now and April.

If you can’t give money, you can send me messages. Prayers. Songs. Voice memos.

If you can pledge some amount each month, text or call me at 646.753.2342 or email me at tamieparkersong@gmail.com and let me know how much you want to pledge and I’ll add you to the circle.

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