Sovereignty is one of those elusive words that gets kicked around but seldom clearly defined. Most of us probably first heard the word in reference to a king or queen Since sovereign is another word for king or queen, we easily see the origin and can think it always refers to a crowned or undisputed leader. However, sovereignty is a defining aspect for every state, for every community and every person.

Sovereignty means we are the authority for our own life, that we are free to define and live our own values, and that our identity belongs to us individually. Like Russian nested dolls that fit into larger and larger replicas of themselves, we are unique and separate entities as we simultaneously are part of a larger whole. We are holograms at every level of existence. This understanding allows us to quit teeter- tottering from dependence to independence, quit allowing some to have power over others, and quit the win-lose game that taints every level of our lives.

Women in our culture especially face challenges to their sovereignty. We see individual women struggling to find that sense of being her own person as well as women who assert leadership being attacked as being “nasty” or “uppity” or ugly. Still! In 2020! Yesterday, I drove by a former psychiatric center that in the early 1900s lodged many women who were deemed “crazy” by their husbands and sent into virtual imprisonment because divorce was verboten. I need not go on about injustice. We all know how far we have come and also how far we still have to go.

The Ancient Ones were basically matriarchal communities and the medieval Celts in Ireland practiced Brehon law which basically gave equal rights to women. Sister Fidelma, featured in last week’s blog was a Brehon judge. Early monasteries were stand-alone entities that were embedded in communities and thus modeled local control. Some, like the one founded by St. Brigid, housed both men and women. The subjugation of woman was-—is--- not part of any natural order. It is a key invention of a patriarchy that developed later. Finally and slowly, it is being dismantled.

Part of our reset right now is to think and act with an understanding of how to be sovereign and interconnected simultaneously. As the Covid virus spreads from nation to nation, community to community we see how interconnected we are. We see food chains get disrupted, folks arguing over masks and struggles over how to reopen our schools and get back our economy. Until we get beyond polarity and either/or thinking, we cannot overcome these problems.

May we learn from the Ancients as we forge a future of equality, sustainability and peace. Sovereignty is the key. The time is Now.