Spiritual Stink-Eye, the Handless Maiden and a High School Reunion

So much symbolism and encouragement

I recently experienced my first ever all-women retreat/festival.

It was like nothing I’ve seen before and I am forever changed.

For context, I’m 59 and went to a Catholic school until the 9th grade when I went to a public high school.

I witnessed so many amazing things, but one thing stuck with me.

When men are subtracted from a space and women can heal and grow in community, it’s absolutely magical; life altering.

The words that kept echoing for me were: Liberation. Freedom. Love. Belonging.

When there are no men, there’s no competition, there’s no objectification, there’s safety in nudity because there’s an understanding that you’re safe in your own body.

I had the time and space to realize I couldn’t remember the last time I felt safe in my body. A ‘survivor’ from a young age, I had to check out to not be consumed by what I lived and witnessed.

I’m learning to stay in my body - to embody.

There were so many enlightenment moments, I stopped keeping count but I’ll share one that transformed how I show up.

One of the women I attended the retreat with and I were walking the road along the river. There was a lovely sanctuary set up with an altar and items one could add to and create a prayer bundle there, and a bench to sit in meditation, prayer, reflection; whatever one wished. I asked my friend if we could stop and I quietly created my own bundle and sat on the bench to reflect. My friend sat on another bench beside me.

Then a group appeared beside us, near the river, and it looked like they were conducting a water ceremony of some sort. My friend and I stood and I held my hands out, turned upwards and closed my eyes out of respect. When I opened my eyes, one of the folks central to the ceremony gave me a dirty look; a strip-down look I recognized. Women have given me this look in the past.

I stood there though. I continued to hold space in reverence; in ceremony until it seemed to be complete.

In the past, I would have shrunk away, defeated with a lack of belonging and feeling of unworthiness, but I stayed.

My friend witnessed the look and how it hit me. She could see it in my body.

She is an elder and she told me how proud she was of me for remaining in my power unflinchingly.

I was proud of me too.

When we told the story to our other sister, back at camp, she playfully called it, “Spiritual Stink-Eye”. We all chuckled.

====

I am going through the process of rebranding. Taking what I have learned from creating a business and re-imagining how I show up, as layers of doubt and insecurity fall away.

The woman I am working with has known me a long time. Nothing is off limits as we bring in all symbolism, intuition, dreams, stories.

When my mom passed away, I took some faceless angel figurines from her home, as we cleared it out, that I’m fairly certain I bought for her for different occasions. I have put them out at Christmas time, but forgot to get them into the Christmas tote this year. I put them in the office in front of my laptop.

I had a dream a few years back, and I have spoken of it often, of being in a boat in the dark, holding a lantern and pulling people into the boat out of the cold, dark night.

I found an art piece that reflected this at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

I purchased two cards from the gallery by Canadian artist David Blackwood.

The quality of my copies is better, since the original integrity is protected.

I framed one, and keep the other, a postcard on my bulletin board where I work.

While discussing all of this with Katie Wilhelm, the incredible Indigenous brand weaver I work with, I started telling her about the angel figurine with the lantern.

I only noticed recently that one of the angel figurines, missed during the holiday fare re-packing, was holding a lantern.

And not until I was looking at her and holding her, did I realize she was missing an arm!

Katie’s words were, “It must have been so hard pulling people out of the water, and into that boat with one arm.”

That brought tears and I shook my head, yes. It was hard.

Then I remembered a story I’d heard someone tell recently about the Grimms Brothers’ fairytale, The Handless Maiden (or The Girl Without Hands).

In The Girl Without Hands, a young woman is betrayed by her father, who cuts off her hands after making a bargain with the devil. Symbolically, her hands represent agency, power, creativity, and the ability to shape her own life. Their loss reflects what can happen when a person is wounded by betrayal, trauma, or forces beyond their control: they become disconnected from their ability to act freely in the world and from the life they might have chosen for themselves.

The story’s deeper journey is not about victimhood but transformation. Forced to leave everything familiar behind, the girl learns to survive and grow through hardship. She develops inner strength, wisdom, and self-trust, discovering who she is beneath what has been taken from her.

When her hands eventually grow back, they symbolize the return of agency and wholeness. This is not a return to the person she was before; it’s the emergence of a new self. The tale suggests that healing is not about recovering what was lost exactly as it was, but about reclaiming one’s ability to create, choose, and participate in life from a deeper and more authentic place.

Boom. This was me, 100%. It was everything I had been feeling and more.

=====

The class I graduated with, 40 years ago, gathered on the weekend.

As all of this symbolism and reclaiming have come forefront in my purview, this reunion wasn’t just about seeing folks I haven’t seen in awhile, it was a remembering of who I was before I was wounded by life.

The folks that showed up felt safe, inclusive and I felt such an overwhelming love and sense of belonging I hadn’t felt in a long time.

The people in that room brought the love and light they had when they were teenagers and I felt it. So much love.

It brings tears to my eyes how naturally we picked up where we’d left off and just accepted each other. I’m not sure I’ve seen so many adults smiling all in one place in a long time.

It filled up my heart.

And I was able to reclaim the parts of myself I may have shut down or buried, that loving acceptance, the curiosity, the heartfelt longing to know what was happening in people’s lives, how they navigated it and how they are now.

I missed that part of myself so much, I’m teary thinking of it.

And my partner showed up for me in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time.

On the drive home, we saw a rainbow-coloured sky that felt meaningful and symbolic.

I woke up with pain in my left shoulder and I couldn’t help wondering, if my left arm was starting to grow back.

So much gratitude to be a witness and to be awake during this monumental time in history. And in my own journey.

And so it is.