Knowing Issue – Editor’s Note
Dear Reader,
As women, we know that some of the knowledge we possess is almost exclusively unique to our gender. I believe that within every woman shines a light of knowing. Some people call it a sixth sense; others call it intuition. Instead of using the word “intuition,” some researchers suggest women are more skilled than men at reading body language and facial expressions. I don’t recall ever taking a class in reading body language, and I seriously doubt any of our readers took one either. I think the trait likely falls under the category of knowledge that is encoded in our genes.
Current genetic research has established that many human traits or types of knowledge are, in fact, part of our DNA. To my mind, that likely includes the knowledge many women hold in their hands. Even in the dark, a woman knows by touch how to gentle an infant or how to work the tangles from a daughter’s hair. Our hands express our love for friends and family in myriad ways. I imagine many of you can recall a moment when your hands reached out reflexively to support another: to comfort or console. Throughout the centuries, knowing has been passed from one generation of women to the next. Sometimes knowledge is passed through words, but often it comes to each of us through example. As children, we watch other women in our world, and we learn. As I’ve aged, I’ve discovered that there are some forms of knowing that will evolve into wisdom if time allows.
The women on my mother’s side of our family have a history of knowing things others might not. Hours before the arrival of any clouds, my Irish grandmother could smell the weather on the wind. Her daughter, my mother, used to mystify me by knowing events before they happened. When I became a mother, the mystery of it began to fade as I started experiencing my own fey knowledge, such as knowing that the phone was going to ring before it did. Regardless of a woman’s culture or ethnicity, that form of knowing is a knowledge held deep in the heart. It’s the connection a woman has with her children, her friends, her mate—her space. It’s the seat of the innate knowledge she holds of the world in which she breathes and the parts of that world that make breathing worth the effort.
We dedicate this issue to all the knowing women who have made and continue to make this world a place where breathing is worth the effort.
Thank you, my sisters, for contributing your words, your art, your comments and your time. And a special Thank You to my friend, Anora McGaha, our publisher, for continuing to invest her time and energy into making When Women Waken a supportive and engaging gathering place for our growing community of readers and contributors.
Please visit often and don’t forget to support us by purchasing our issues when they become available on Amazon.
Blessings,
Kerry Holjes
Managing Editor
When Women Waken
Category: When Women Waken Literary Journal
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