by Clare La Plante 

I know about communities of women — I grew up in one. I had five sisters and a mother in a house that had thin walls, one small bathroom, and one phone line. I learned how to love my own space.

I also learned how to share and to be part of a larger group, even when I longed for individuation. Today, with more freedom in my life, I turn to my sisters when I need a sanctuary from a world that can be harsh. After a recent illness, I spent the night at my sister’s. In her back bedroom, away from the world, I slept for 12 hours straight, into recuperation. It wasn’t just the room. I felt safe in her care.

We all need what I think of as eternal mothering: understanding, compassion, and nurturing. And this we women can give each other.

In the circle of women’s nurturing lies strength — it’s the untapped treasure of thousands of years of tending, listening, and paying attention. It’s the collective female bedside vigils, when the fever hits or the dreams terrify, or when life ends. It’s more powerful than war. When channeled, it can be more potent than hate and violence.

It’s what Clarissa Pinkola Estes describes in her book Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. She talks about the original idea of godmother and how the godmother’s role wasn’t connected so much with the child, although that was important, as with the child’s mother, who needed the wisdom of another woman to nurture and guide her as she set off on this path.

Remembering our birthright
Female researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles — who joked that when the women scientists were under stress, they came in, talked to each other, and cleaned the lab — found in a 2000 study that women responded differently to stress than men did. (These same researchers discovered that until that point, 90 percent of stress research had been done solely on men.)

What they found was that women under stress, instead of going into the "fight or flight" mode, release the hormone oxytocin, which is enhanced by estrogen. This hormone triggers a desire to gather with other women or tend to children, which releases more oxytocin and soothes the nervous system. (Researchers surmise that this mechanism probably helps women live longer than men.)

This is all good news, when we think about how our callings tend to get lost in a world that increasingly values competition and devalues community. We can draw on this, our birthright, when we’re feeling down, depressed, or out of sorts.

Without the bonds of friendship, comradeship, and community, we lose our gifts — the gifts of healing, leadership, and inclusion. We start to be caught in the same whirlpool that has trapped men through the years — isolation, competition, and blame — and we begin to suffer from the maladies that have affected our brothers.

Like a fairy-tale heroine, we must awaken from the dream, descend from the tower, and get back into life. Each of us must find the community that supports our soul. The stakes are higher today, too, when war, injustice, and poverty are spreading worldwide.

Working together
We can start in our prayer life. Include brave women from history and from your own family heritage in your daily ritual of giving thanks. Think of biblical women like Miriam, who acted quickly and courageously to save the life of her brother Moses. Think of Mary, who spent a lonely but faithful pregnancy trusting herself and her God.

Then tune into yourself. Create a daily ritual that reminds you of the sacred task before you. This could be a morning walk, a time of meditation, a daily prayer. Create a sanctuary in your home that recalls your community. Hang pictures of relatives, friends, or role models in this spot. Make it ancestor-friendly.

Then reach out to another person — a neighbor, colleague, or friend. Anoint yourself someone’s godmother in your heart. Tell yourself and tell her — in actions, not words — that you will be a part of her journey, a part of this tapestry of women that was started a long, long time ago.

Take a look around. The role models — and opportunities — are everywhere. Visit www.womenoftheelca.org/cafe/ to see community-building among young women in the ELCA (and to see how women in your own community are working for fair wages for workers all over the world).

Read about the Christian and Muslim women in Liberia who joined forces to create the Women in Peacebuilding Network and demanded an unconditional cease-fire in that war-torn country — rather than more "peacekeeping missions." (The network was co-founded by Comfort Freeman, president of the National Lutheran Church Women in Liberia. See the article in this issue.)

Or check out Codepink (www.codepinkalert.org), a women-oriented grassroots organization that seeks positive change through creative means (such as handing out pink slips — pink lingerie — to public officials, the media, and others in the public eye who aren’t up to speed on ensuring fair and respectful treatment of women).

Or create a group yourself. Look in your own neighborhood for opportunities to work at homeless shelters, soup kitchens, or after-school programs, where women, every day, work for a better community. Bring these seeds of hope into your heart. Join a book club, writing club, dream club, or coffee (or herbal tea) club. (See the sidebar for ideas.)

Without a committed community of like-minded souls, we can spend our lives as though we were sleepwalking. We may have the best pajamas — or the fanciest beds to climb back into — but sleepwalking, after all, is being only half-awake, missing out on a full life.

Fight the scourge of isolation. Reach out to another woman — sister, mother, friend, or stranger. Offer her your wisdom and love, and expect nothing in return. In this way our circle grows larger, and our power to make a positive difference increases in ways we can scarcely imagine.

Clare La Plante is a writer in Chicago.

Places to find communities of women
Although you can find many established groups — and they’re a great place to start — you may also decide to build your own community. Start with your passion.

Book club  
For those who love to read and dissect books, find a group of like-minded women. You may choose to have a theme, like travel books or books on spiritual growth, or you may prefer to read across a wide range — everything from Harry Potter to Henry James. Make it fun. Make your club's meetings potluck or bring-your-own-dessert events.

Dream club  
Meet with other women who are interested in exploring their dreams. You can keep journals, draw pictures, or just talk about your dreams. You might choose to read books on dreams and help each other interpret them.

Meditation or prayer group  
A perfect way to maintain a spiritual ritual is to do it in community. Start with a group prayer, have silent time together, and end with intentions. Or share your prayer concerns at the beginning, designate someone to open and close the prayer time, and allow people to pray individually as they wish, keeping in minds the concerns named.

Service group  
Ask two, three, or more friends to set aside one Sunday afternoon or evening each month to donate to a soup kitchen, a senior center, or other cause. You can be the advocates in your community who speak for the voiceless and show compassion to the forgotten.

Retreat group  
Once a month, once a year, or whenever you can, gather a small group of women to attend a retreat. You can share rides, meals, and experiences.

Writers’ group  
Meeting regularly with other writers is one of the best ways to beat writer’s block.

Create your own group  
And write and tell us about it!