Interweaving...

 

Interweaving a New Future Together

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The weave of unity is infinite, ever flowing & creative. 

-Patricia Albere

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Words related to the ancient art of weaving are often used as metaphors, especially when expressing the deep, intricate nature of life and human awareness. My curiosity was peaked regarding that relationship of words when reading about the history of weaving — and learning that women were the first weavers. “The facts of women’s experience of life are primordial,” poet and author Barbara Mor wrote.

“The first God, Mother Earth, was the sign of a human response to an experienced fact,” Mor explained in The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth. “The first arts and religions, the first crafts and social patterns, were designed in recognition and celebration of her.” From earliest times — giving birth, sustaining life, and nurturing that life — women recognized themselves in Mother Earth. And women told their stories (were women also the first storytellers?) by communicating that innate, fertile connection to life through art — creating clay vessels, weaving fabric, making paint, and painting on rocks and structures around them — linking their experiences to the Divine. And they recognized themselves in Her reflection.  

Barbara Mor shares that “religious rites were combined with industry. Women’s religions were organic, a unity of body and spirit, of daily life tasks and cosmic meaning.” All of life was sacred, interconnected, shared. “The sacred is the emotional force which connects the part to the whole,” philosopher and poet William Irwin Thompson wrote.

 “Cosmic mind and human mind are not essentially different, or separate, nor are cosmic body and human body,” Mor emphasized. “Everything is interconnected in a vast webwork of cosmic being — a universal weaving — in which each individual thing, or life-form, is a kind of energy knot, or interlock, in the overall vibrating pattern.” The intimacy in Barbara Mor’s words here conjures the essence of nature’s magic. I stare into a spider’s web and lose myself in the interrelated universe she has woven, clearly guided by a Divine source. Following their own instinctual nature, did the women who invented spinning and weaving — twisting something raw into filament-like threads, then weaving them into something whole — do the same? Beyond the practical attributes of string and cloth for early humans, was there a desire to express something ‘sensed’ within themselves?

 (Click here to continue reading on Medium) 

In the Presence of Remarkable Women

In the autumn of 2000, as the world was adjusting to the evolving energies of a new millennium, I traveled to China with my Qi Gong teachers and fellow students to explore an ancient and mysterious part of the world, including deep in the heart of the Daoist mountains. I had the sense of taking the spirit of my mother and grandmothers with me—wrapping myself in their strength; their sense of humor and wonder; their love and appreciation of nature; and their ability to see beauty in everything great and small.  

So, it was no accident that I was greeted and embraced by remarkable women along the way. And as something shifted in me, like a calling to write down remembrances of our time together, mystical stories emerged of women's lives...and of mine.  

Two of my stories, "Mirrored Encounters" and "A Thousand Years Telling," are included in the Common Sentience series of books published by Sacred Stories this year: Goddess: Blessed Reunions with the Feminine Face of the Divine by Anodea Judith and Portals: Energetic Doorways to Mystical Experiences Between Worlds by Freddy Silva. And there are many intriguing stories by other journeyers in both books. Enjoy!

...whatever the question...

 

My Duty Is to Love

 Through the years of reading biographies and books focused on Princess Diana—in my studies of women’s history and royal archetypes—I always held royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith as a fair and trustworthy voice. So I was surprised and disappointed recently when she appeared to join misogynistic and patriarchal-leaning writers by referring to strong women as “domineering” and deeply feeling men as “weak.”

On a promotional tour for her new book, another about the British royal family, Bedell Smith compared King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Calling Harry “weak” like the Duke of Windsor—because, if I’m understanding her reasoning, both men fell in love with strong women—and saying that “in some respects Meghan and the Duchess of Windsor have similar qualities: very narcissistic, very controlling, very dominating”—because, again, if I’m understanding her premise, that they were/are strong women. (Et tu…even you, Sally?)

However, people who know Meghan Markle—and those more inclined to take the high road— would describe her qualities as “confident, assured, and being a leader.” And she was vilified for that—like other women who dared to step outside the narrow Windsor box. As I see it, Meghan, this accomplished, heart-guided woman, fell in love with a man of great heart—compassionate, caring, sensitive, courageous—a man who was a fellow activist motivated by creating a kinder world, all in the name of love. (And a man who inherited his mother’s “exquisite sensitivity of feeling,” in the words of Jungian analyst Jim Fitzgerald, and is committed to continuing her humanitarian vision.)

[Click here to read the entire article posted on MEDIUM]

...of feminine design.

 

International Women's Day...Month...Always

Our History is Our Strength 

International Women's Day 

In 1977, when the women who would establish the National Women’s History Alliance began planning a women’s history week, March 8th, International Women’s Day, was chosen as the focal date. 

The selection was based on wanting to ensure that the celebration of women’s history would include a multicultural perspective, an international connection between and among all women, and the recognition of women as significant in the paid workforce.

United States women’s history became the primary focus of the curriculum and resources developed. At that time, there were no school districts in the country teaching women’s history. The goal, although it most often seemed a dream, was to first impact the local schools, then the nation, and finally the world. It is a dream that is becoming a reality.

Women’s History Week, always the week that included March 8th, became National Women’s History Week in 1981 and in 1987 National Women’s History Week became National Women’s History Month. The expansion from local to national and from week to month was the result of a lobbying effort that included hundreds of individuals and dozens of women’s, educational, and historical organizations. It was an effort mobilized and spearheaded by the National Women’s History Alliance. 

National Women’s History Month is now recognized throughout the world. Women from Germany, China, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Japan, Russia, the Ukraine, and several African nations have visited the National Women’s History Alliance’s office or attended its events. One result from this contact has been the establishment of a women’s history program and museum in the Ukraine. 1989 The National Women’s History Alliance accepted an invitation from the government of Spain to address an international women’s conference on the importance of women’s history and the impact of National Women’s History Month. In 2001 a sistership with the Working Women’s Institute of Japan was established resulting in the National Women’s History’s posters and display sets being featured in the organization's first exhibit.

The National Women’s History Alliance’s website reaches the global community. The Alliance receives emails from individuals throughout the world. Each year hundreds of National Women’s History Month posters are distributed to military bases and Department of Defense schools throughout the world for special programs and events that celebrate and recognize women’s accomplishments. It is the hope of the National Women’s History Alliance that the celebrations at these different venues will ignite a sense of celebration and recognition that honors women of all nations.

[reprinted from the NWHA newsletter.]