Pulse of the Feminine
- Cynthia Sciberras
- Sep 8
- 3 min read
“A force that restores, regenerates, and reshapes our world.”
“We are either going to have a future where women lead the way to make peace with the Earth — or we are not going to have a future at all.” — Vandana Shiva
We do love Eco-philosopher and activist Dr. Vandana Shiva. She draws us forward, toward a future that waits like a tide—strong, inevitable, yet flowing with quiet harmony.
She reminds us that the feminine is not just about gender. It is a principle—a way of being in the world—that honours life, care, and interconnection. In her words, the feminine is the intelligence of the seed, the creativity of ecosystems, the regenerative force that sustains both nature and community.
At YOKE, we hold close to this truth. The feminine is not a role, not a fixed identity—it is a principle. A pulse. A way of knowing and being that honours creativity, care, and interconnection. Vandana Shiva reminds us that the feminine is present in every seed that carries the intelligence of life, in every ecosystem that thrives through diversity, and in every gesture of compassion that restores balance. “It’s a creative, regenerative principle embedded in all beings—and when it’s suppressed, the result is domination, violence, and ecological destruction.”
When this regenerative force is silenced, the world tilts toward domination and destruction. We see it in the exhaustion of soils, in the commodification of women’s bodies, in the fractures of our communities. Yet everywhere, the feminine resurfaces—in movements for justice, in grassroots acts of care, in art and performance that reimagine what it means to live in right relationship.
An Experiment with Destiny
Our latest edition, An Experiment with Destiny, is built around this theme. It is a meditation and a provocation—a call to imagine our collective future as intimately tied to the creative power within each of us.
To experiment with destiny is to ask:
What if we chose regeneration over extraction?
What if we trusted creativity over control?
What if harmony—the softest, fiercest force of all—was our guiding principle?
What Shiva Means by “A World of Harmony Must Be That of the Feminine”
Harmony grounded in care: nurturing and interconnection over extraction and control.
Creative life force: a dynamic, generative force present in all life, not passive but alive.
Path to collective survival: without feminine leadership—rooted in care, connection, and nonviolence—our future is at risk.
Beyond gender binaries: the feminine is philosophical, ecological, a principle that enriches all beings when honoured.
Voices of the Experiment
Dr. Astrida Neimanis and Dr. Jennifer Mae Hamilton bring watery ecofeminist thinking, teaching us to attune to the tides of an unstable planet.
Betty Grumble, goddess, clown, and eco-feminist showgirl, turns performance into ritual—a composting of shame into joy, of patriarchy into play, of grief into glittering defiance.
Dee Mulrooney makes art a sanctuary, a spell, channeling the complexities of inhabiting a female body and the intergenerational currents of pain, resilience, and renewal.
Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr, senior Elder and teacher, shares the wisdom of Dadirri—deep listening—reminding us that harmony requires patience, attunement, and reverence.
Tiffany Shlain's Feminist History Tree maps the courage and achievements of women across generations, showing how the past shapes the possibilities of our future.
Co-Creating Our Future
Together, these voices embody the experiment with destiny: an insistence that destiny is not fixed, but co-created through our choices, our courage, our attentiveness.
Harmony is not the absence of conflict—it is the presence of balance, the braiding of our lives with rivers, forests, soil, and with one another.
The feminine calls us back to that truth. Not as nostalgia, but as futurity. Not as something soft, but as the fiercest creative force we have.
This is the experiment of our times. And it belongs to all of us.
“First by recognizing that the divine feminine is in everyone… Ecofeminism begins with a simple recognition, nature’s creative, women are creative. And we’ve been associated with passivity. And therefore domination and violence. We can be associated in creativity and non-violence…”— Vandana Shiva
