Final Girl

I have a deep nick on my typing finger, my restorative yoga class was cancelled, and it is snowing again. Again! It does not feel like I have anything to say on this platform tonight. Yet, I hear often that my subscribers come and I do not want to disappoint. I like how Martin Shaw begins his Sunday morning blog, “Hello, Parish”.

So, on a cold and snowy February night, I will borrow his salutation, “Hello, Parish”. Hello to those of you in warmer climes than mine. I have been getting pictures and reels from friends enjoying the sun and the surf, exotic travel, grand adventures, and it does little to quell my cabin fever. I am genuinely happy for these snowbirds, and I am left wondering what staying put asks of me. These are challenging times and many of us would do well to unplug and embark upon an escape vacation. If only we could ensure that the world would be set right when we return. And what is ‘set right’. I try so hard to look at things through a symbolic rather than a political lens and it is getting increasingly difficult. Maybe I need a sunny escape? I have a chronic case of cabin fever and the walls are closing in.

I have a colleague doing analytical work on the Horror genre. You can track where my mood is going. Bear with me. She has mapped the patterns and is reaching some profound conclusions as to why so many are fascinated with the genre and what we can learn about ourselves in the deep analysis. I will leave the conclusions to her and her work, and just note this: There is a trope in Slasher films called the Last Girl or the Final Girl. Maybe, as others have noted, we are all called to be the Last Girl as a world ends? To be the one who overcomes innocence, the complacent or naive persona, and when the time calls, when there is no other choice, acts with a fierceness and a will and a strength that no one expects, especially not the villain. The Final Girl is not a damsel in distress waiting for a parent, or a prince, or a police force, or a government program to rescue her. She is a force of nature willing to put it all on the line to survive. She rises up and claims her destiny even if she suffers and dies in the trying. I remember reading that Kristine French, one of the teenage victims of notorious serial killers Paul Bernardo and Karla Holmolka, had some of this Final Girl fire. The infamous tapes of the torture and murder documented her Final Girl fight. (https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/paul-bernardo-and-karla-homolka-case) May her memory be a blessing. May all the victims of such heinous crimes rest in peace. May the pattern in the human race that leads to and is complicit with such evil be understood, faced, and defeated. Perhaps this is a good moment to pause, burn some sage, light a candle, and pray to St. Michael.

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

The best definition I have ever heard of feminine authority was given by Dr. Josephine Evetts- Secker at a seminar during my training to become a Jungian analyst. Her thesis was that there is a marked difference between masculine and feminine authority. Note, I am not talking about power complexes, I am talking about generative authority. The generative authority in the masculine is the capacity to give order to chaos. To classify, categorize, name, create structure. This was Adam’s task in the Garden. How far we have fallen. Feminine authority is “the timely transgression of the rules in the service of life continuing”. Dr. Evetts-Secker was very clear that every part of the definition was essential. Timeliness demands attunement. It is a function of empathy. And as St. Edith Stein writes in her wonderful book, The Problem With Empathy, this must be a conscious process. Unconscious empathy is chaos at its best, toxic and suicidal at its worst. This attunement is so much deeper than virtue signalling from the crowd or taking a knee. It asks so much more than rallying beneath a flag or a ball-cap. If we are attuned, like the Final Girl, we know when to act. It is so deeply personal and profoundly transpersonal. So individuating. When the soul defining moment calls out of the chaos and mayhem, speaks our true name, there is no other choice. But, if we are not timely in our actions, if we act too soon, we are annihilated. Or, if we act too late, the parade has passed us by and we are left impotent. Feminine authority rests in conscious empathy. Watching, waiting, learning, understanding, and when the moment is right, there are no other rules but the rules and mandates of morality. The rules and mandates of your individual soul called to action in the service of life continuing. In the service of LIFE continuing.

I am surely prideful at times, and I pray. I am humble enough to know that my empathy is not always conscious, and I pray. My attunement is oftentimes blunted. I have too often unconsciously blended or merged with others, the group, the organization, the cause. It felt safer. Safety in numbers? But, are we really and truly meant to stay safe? Our governments love to laud that our safety is their highest priority. Yet, in the layer and layer of regulations and corrupted bureaucratic mechanisms employed to keep us safe, we lose clarity, discernment, energy, and yes, conscious empathy. We become dulled. We lose Jerusalem and dwell in Babylon. Is that the sinister plan? Cue the horror movie soundtrack.

Life is nothing if not a call to adventure. So much of the anxiety we experience is when this call is thwarted. So much of the depression we experience is when this call is not heard amidst the drone of modernity. Few of us will be called to a life and death moment. But, we might be. Few of us will be called to run a Marathon of Hope or compete in the Invictus Games, but we might be. Few of us will be called to found a nation or walk on Mars, but we might be. Few of us will be called to discover medicine that saves lives for thousands, but we might be. Few of us will be called to run into a burning building, but we might be. Few of us will be asked to survive holocausts, genocides, state torture, but we might be. So much of the energy and time needed to develop conscious empathy gets taken up by the outrage of the moment. Rage farming on both sides of the divide. It burns us out. Or, it gets squirrelled away in mindless distractions. Because we are burned out. If only we could practice what Dr. Josephine Evetts-Secker preached. Whether snowed in with cabin fever or enjoying an escape to a sun drenched beach, we must watch. Especially now. We must wait, learn, and seek to understand all of it.

Attunement must become my mantra. And when the moment calls, the true moment, the destiny moment, I must act as if my life depends on it. Because it will. Because it does.

“Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.”

― William Ernest Henley, Invictus