I've been reading and thinking a lot about 'women's work.'

Care-taking is rooted genetically and historically in women because of our wombs. I have a lot of complicated feelings around this because I for one, have a very large (albeit, metaphorical) dick - and two because I've never really wanted children.

Women adopted work like cooking, clothes-making and cleaning because those tasks allowed them to be relatively stationary. Nursing a baby becomes tricky while tracking a gazelle for miles with a spear in your hand and it's hard to imagine running a sawmill with a toddler strapped to ones back. And yet something about imagining those ridiculous scenarios smells of the Sharon Sandberg approach to feminism or the working woman of the 80's running herself ragged in order to have it all. I know these women, we probably all do. And I want to help create a different scenario for them.

I caught up with a friend recently and explained that Eric was living in the city and that I was running Worlds End with only women in 2019. He paused trying of course to see how someone like himself might fit into that equation; I back-petaled in order to smooth it over a little (!) lest I sound like an angry (!!) man-hating second wave feminist.

He told me that sounded empowering. He was missing the point, and I was having a hard time explaining myself -- it's not at all about feeling empowered - I have a lot of power. This is about wanting to work with women to make something different for ourselves because it doesn't exist yet. What is it like to work on an experiment that values health and happiness over money and power?

Masculine energy deploys an army to build a wall. It problem solves swiftly with force, it assesses and decides and it aims for completion. Feminine energy considers the whole, listens, sees interconnections and complexity as wealth. The feminine sees that things never really finish. Of course, we need both. And we all have some equation of each.

Patriarchy has always depended on an imbalance of the masculine/feminine energies. It exploits people and resources - and through wealth and power accumulation, it has accomplished some very impressive feats. Modern medicine and men on the moon. But it also gave us the great pyramids (built by slaves) in a region often ruled by a woman! Which is to say that the patriarchy is our fathers house - but it's also our mothers house. Unpacking the complexity around it could require a lifetime. I'm not interested in that, just the same as I'm not interested in being angry at an entire gender. I just want to get to work making something different. I want to experiment with different expressions of power and leadership.

My father was just here. I love him like crazy he is a stubborn Finn, bound to fits of manly declarations and broad statements. Grunting about, he helped me lift things around here which I can't lift alone. We cleaned out the garage, made piles of tools. I brought the big tractor right up the house (what if I didn't stop and just plowed right through it?) and loaded the bucket up with things to burn; old wood, broken furniture and files from the old Saipua castle. Doused it in the rain with motor oil and threw a match.

A while later from the sheep barn up on the hill I could see the burn pile, now completely lit. An alarmingly bright spot in the gloom of late February.