It's Time To Break Down Barriers To Graduate Education
Following my withdrawal from graduate school, I received an email from a professor that said:
“[I hope that you can] ‘be like water’ and find ways around the barriers to graduate education.”
It’s taken me a bit to understand why these words feel frustrating. Because his intention, I think, was encouragement and optimism.
So why do I feel conflicted?
It’s this implication that I can, and should regularly, move over/under/between/around barriers that serve no purpose but to keep me out (and maybe, to prioritize profit).
It’s so often accepted, that I nearly accepted it myself.
But the thing is…
I DO flow like water;
I am water.
I embody the Sacred Feminine element of Flow: ruled by the Moon, made visible by Water, Ocean, Stream.
Likewise, I am earth.
I embody the Sacred Masculine element of Structure: ruled by the Sun, made visible by Riverbeds and Ocean floors, Landmass and Earthy grass.
One does not exist without the other: Feminine and Masculine, Flow and Structure. “Flow needs a container, otherwise she’s a flood,” says Danielle LaPorte.
And I agree. But here lies the problem…
The Masculine boundaries, the container (the ones we're repeatedly asked to flow about and around)... that’s what impedes + prevents natural, creative Feminine flow.
The “rules” around the timeline for graduate school (and nine-to-five work and even general schooling for our kids) runs counter to anything that looks like FLOW:
If research says graduate students are six times more likely to experience anxiety and depression… why not change the structure of graduate school?
If research says that people are more productive with 30-hour workweeks than 40-hour workweeks… why not change the structure of the workplace?
If research says teenagers are happier and more focused after sleeping late… why not change the structure of schools?
Why not build Sacred Masculine Structures to allow for Sacred Feminine Flow?
Which is to say, who benefits from structures that prevent flow?
It’s not you and me, I can tell ya that.
Which is why I have ZERO desire to flow “around” barriers:
The barriers are the problem, not me!
Rules that prohibit womxn and families from prioritizing themselves; that’s the problem.
Rules that prohibit “non-traditional” students from admission to university, and then from the possibility for part-time status; that’s the problem.
Rules that you have to “work around” over and over again; that’s the problem!
I understand that, if the rules remain unchangeable now, we might be forced to find tricky ways to manipulate the rules, to get what we want and need in different ways.
But that’s just it:
The rules will remain unchangeable so long as we move “around” them (so long as we expect people to move around them)… when will we change the rules instead?
When will we, collectively, create Sacred Masculine structures of support that truly allow for Creative Feminine flow?
I’m not sure it’s possible within my lifetime: to change the way our governments work, to change the way our society interacts.
But what is possible (in part due to my privilege as a white woman from a middle-class community in the United States) is changing the way I do business, the way I show up to my family, and whether or not I “accept” the boundaries put in place to keep me small… or fight against them.
In my case, by creating a completely different Sacred Structure for myself, my family, and the people I work with.
Thoughts on this? Tell me all about it in the comments below.
until next time, alycia buenger
