Towers of Humans

Written from Central Texas after the Fourth of July floods, 2025.

Castilles in spain

There are villages in Spain that have competed for hundreds of years in the building of Castilles -- human towers. This photo was taken at a nationwide competition. It's nuts. There are humans willing to climb to the heights of 11 people high (the record, for now).

The most impressive part of this whole craziness is a dance between physics and spirituality. Look at the bottom of the tower. The majority of the community is facing in, pushing in, bracing each other so that there is enough strength shared and focused to get those kids on the top, to the top.

There is a stunning amount of power being generated. You can even see it.

I offer up this idea to all of us right now. Everyone has hands bracing their shoulders and the strength of hundreds under their feet.

It must be noted that the amazing humans climbing to the top are young girls, courageous and strong as only young girls can be. If anyone falls, the strength of the base catches them. The same strength can also help them climb to the stars.

Peace be with y'all.

Why It Matters: Generosity of Women

This is a followup to the earlier article called the “Practical Generosity of Women”. This is about why it matters to us now, especially for professional women, but certainly not exclusively.

I bet if you go look in your purse or backpack right now, you’ll find at least a couple of things in it that can be used by other people if needed. Advil? Hand sanitizer? Tampons? Snacks? Yeah, it's all stuff we need ourselves, but why do we carry a little extra?

I think most women express generosity in ways that most men do not. Yes, we give money and time and effort like men do, but our unique thing is practicality. 

Women have always carried things. Carried water, crops, baskets, kids. We see it in art and photographs from all the way back and everywhere. Women still do these things in some places, and in others carry backpacks and purses and load up the minivans and car consoles. Coolers and baby strollers.

Women plan ahead and think through the eventualities. The kiddos and people around us are provided for, even in large groups. I happen to think that the bible miracle of the loaves and fishes wasn’t about making food appear out of thin air; the miracle was that Jesus knew the women there had all planned and packed a little extra and he counted on it. The women were the miracle of abundance and plenty. Fight me on it.

So why don’t women readily do more of that for each other in our work environments? Why isn’t it our universal M.O. to extend our practical generosity more easily to other women? At least in corporate situations where I came up, we’re coached to be competitive with each other, to be stingy or withhold praise and support, to look out for ourselves as individuals, to wait for permission to act. Those are very clearly Masculine models of group behavior. 

If we use the decidedly Feminine loaves and fishes story as our own group behavior model, not only do we get to share with each other, we get to take all we need from the baskets as often as needed. Share the spotlight, share the credit, share the work, share the responsibilities. If the abundance we create is specifically extended to each other, think what we can accomplish in environments that are inherently Masculine…

I think it should also be noted that, in the old story, no one announced or thanked the women for providing the abundance. In our predominantly Masculine work environments, we don’t necessarily need to announce what we’re doing or how much we’ve brought to the table. Our obligation, perhaps, is to bring the goods specifically for each other:

• If you’re a leader, shine light on the women you lead and fight to pay them equitably

• If someone tells you they’ve been discriminated against, believe and support them the very first time they tell you

• Actively help promote and advance women who want to lead

• Take on mentoring and coaching roles for your female coworkers

• Help fill in gaps for women when work-life balance becomes WORK-life imbalance and take advantage of the help of others when you need it

• Actively network with women in the company and talk about all of this – make agreements and plans to add the Feminine model into the company culture

Our practical generosity has existed for millennia and will for centuries to come. The world runs on it. I challenge us, as professional women, to use for ourselves what we carry for others. If we agree to contribute for each other and then dig deep and take all we need, we all move forward.

The Practical Generosity of Women by Alicia Denney

Women’s march, January 2017, austin Texas

Near 90F degrees in January?! Seriously? Alrighty then…let’s do this. Women’s March, 2017. Crowd size approximately 10,000. Hats on, signs up, ready to move but there has not been much moving yet. One of our group commented that it was like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube to get that many thousands of people through the small gates of the Texas Capitol and onto Congress Avenue. 

It is so crowded, getting ridiculously hotter by the minute, and very, very friendly. Strangers making conversation with each other. People reading the best signs out loud and laughing. Sharing the shade of a sign held high. We start to live out the remarkable, common miracle of a gathering of women -- the hotter it gets, the more the wind is dying down and people are starting to waver in these conditions – oranges and cool water appear out of nowhere, sunscreen, lip balm, more water is shared. 

The Practical Generosity of Women in its full glory as the sun beats down and a few folks around us start to get overheated and have to stop. Suddenly, and without many words, signs turn into fans, more water and snacks appear. More than is needed, actually. Blood sugar gets raised, cool bandanas get draped over necks and wrists. It is the practical, thoughtful Generosity of Women that can create actual miracles. The Sacred in Action.

…tonight the reports are coming in from all over the world. Millions and millions of people on the move today declaring peaceful resistance, and I got to be part of it. We got to be part of it. Something good and very, very big happened in the world today, fueled by the practical generosity and strength of women and the men who love us. 

Excerpt from The Women’s March on ATX by Alicia Denney (January 21, 2017 – Austin, TX)

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Fast forward to June, 2025. My story from 2017 still holds up because it’s been true for millennia. Wherever women gather, there is an unspoken agreement that we will do all we can to make the group succeed. I really don’t think we’re even aware it happens, much less speak of it. But I propose that the entire world depends on the constant presence of our planning and providing.

I want to re-frame the old Bible story of the miracle of the loaves and fishes to explain how big a deal this is, but not as a Christian-specific story. It’s Universal to all women, from all time:

A large crowd of about 5000 men (they didn’t count the women and kids because, well, patriarchy), so probably more like 10,000 people out on a mountainside to hear the great teacher do his thing. Getting all those people a spot to sit and get arranged took a long time. And then the teacher got going and had a lot of world-changing stuff to say. The staff started getting nervous that folks were getting hungry and might leave or get angry.

So, the masculine versions of this story say that a little boy shared his lunch of five barley loaves and two fish, the teacher took and blessed it, gave it to the staff to distribute to the crowd, and then the food miraculously multiplied so that there were baskets and baskets of leftovers after all 10,000 had their fill. These stories give full credit to the teacher’s divine power and ability to provide for everyone’s needs; the miracle was his doing. Ah, but the teacher was up to something and it wasn’t what it appeared.

I’m not arguing with the idea that the teacher facilitated a miracle on that mountain, but I think it was a different miracle than the one captured in the books.

After considering what I know to be true about the practical generosity of women in my own life, I think something else happened on that mountain that is no less a miracle than the teacher making food appear out of thin air. I think the teacher knew and understood about women and our ability to make plenty out of nothing – and he counted on it. He knew women would be there and Jesus was known for hanging out with them and having lots of female friends. He knew they had all thought ahead and planned for eventualities, like…lunch (as we do). Just exactly like the water and bandanas and oranges in the crowd at the Texas Capitol grounds thousands of years later! 

I think the teacher counted on the women to have packed enough for their own families plus a little extra, and that little extra is what filled the baskets when they passed by. The staff and the men were astonished, but the women were just doing what women do. The miracle that day was within the crowd even before they got there. Too bad the writers of the stories didn’t value women the way the teacher did. Too bad, indeed.

Women have always carried things. Carried water, crops, baskets, kids. We see it in art and photographs from all the way back and everywhere. Women still do these things in some places, and in others carry backpacks and purses and load up the minivans and car consoles. Someone always has Advil, a tissue, a snack, something to use as a band-aid, hand sanitizer, an extra water bottle. Go look in your purse and prove me wrong. Odds are you carry at least a few things others can use, especially as you get older. 

I want you to realize and remember something – we are miracle-makers. Straight-up gifts to humanity just by being us and carrying our bags, kids, siblings, grandchildren. Our plans and the emotional labor of society. It doesn’t matter whether or not we have kids, what race we are, culture, country, politics, location; we’ve got this incredible ability within us. 

A great teacher understood this, but I must say we were providing this miracle long before he showed up and long after he departed. It lives on and on and on. 

When women come together and do our thing, we change the outcomes and are the stuff of legend. I hope that every single time you look in your bags you remember that you are a miracle-maker. Sacred Being. 

May we all be well. 

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Alicia Denney is a woman with enough hats to wear that she needs a hat-rack. She gets bored easily so she pursues her interests in attempts to keep herself out of trouble — somatic psychotherapy, writing, networking, music, high-tech, cats, finding friends all over the world. Challenging times prompt her to dive in and give pep-talks that build confidence and resilience.