“For Strong Women” – How I Got Here
When I was coming of age as a feminist thinker, I was part of an enormous wave of women moving into higher consciousness. One of my greatest discoveries during this time — the nineteen seventies and eighties — was the poetry of Marge Piercy. I was recently reminded of this when I was searching for material to use in a workshop I was leading for women about spirituality. One of Marge Piercy’s most powerful and timeless poems is “For Strong Women.” It speaks volumes about how it is for us as women. It’s still deeply inspiring. You’ll find it in her book called The Moon is Always Female. A strong woman is a woman who is straining A strong woman is a woman standing on tiptoe and lifting a barbell while trying to sing “Boris Godunov.” A strong woman is a woman at work cleaning out the cesspool of the ages, and while she shovels, she talks about how she doesn’t mind crying, it opens the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up develops the stomach muscles, and she goes on shoveling with tears in her nose. A strong woman is a woman in whose head a voice is repeating, I told you so, ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch, ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back, why aren’t you feminine, why aren’t you soft, why aren’t you quiet, why aren’t you dead? A strong woman is a woman determined to do something others are determined not be done. She is pushing up on the bottom of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise a manhole cover with her head, she is trying to butt her way through a steel wall. Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole to be made say, hurry, you’re so strong. A strong woman is a woman bleeding inside. A strong woman is a woman making herself strong every morning while her teeth loosen and her back throbs. Every baby, a tooth, midwives used to say, and now every battle a scar. A strong woman is a mass of scar tissue that aches when it rains and wounds that bleed when you bump them and memories that get up in the night and pace in boots to and fro. A strong woman is a woman who craves love like oxygen or she turns blue choking. A strong woman is a woman who loves strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong in words, in action, in connection, in feeling; she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she enacts it as the wind fills a sail. What comforts her is others loving her equally for the strength and for the weakness from which it issues, lightning from a cloud. Lightning stuns. In rain, the clouds disperse. Only water of connection remains, flowing through us. Strong is what we make each other. Until we are all strong together, a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.– Marge Piercy Stay strong...
Read MoreThe Love That Binds
If We Die You shall know, my sons, shall know why we leave the song unsung, the book unread, the work undone to rest beneath the sod. Mourn no more, my sons, no more why the lies and smears were framed, the tears we shed, the hurt we bore to all shall be proclaimed. Earth shall smile, my sons, shall smile and green above our resting place, the killing end, the world rejoice in brotherhood and peace. Work and build, my sons, and build a monument to love and joy, to humor, worth, to faith we kept for you, my sons, for you. —Ethel Rosenberg Ossining, N.Y January 24, 1953 I was eight and a half years old when Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed by the U.S. government on June 19, 1953. I remember being at a hootenanny fundraiser sometime around that time. The visual memory is shrouded, but my emotional memory is clear, almost too clear. It was the moment my child consciousness took in that Michael and Robert, the two young Rosenberg sons had become orphans (adopted later by the Meeropol family), and that everyone in the room that day was living through a terrifying time. I felt shockingly sadder in my young self than I’d ever felt before or knew was possible. I got an email the other day from Jennifer Meeropol, granddaughter of Ethel Rosenberg, for the Rosenberg Fund for Children. She asked for support for her father and uncle who are petitioning President Obama to exonerate their mother. I froze, couldn’t move, and couldn’t sign the petition. The sadness and horror, now over sixty years old rose up to block me. I felt incapacitated and unsafe, and too scared to put my name on their appeal to Obama. I did sign a couple of days later, the delay no doubt caused by the nauseating undercurrent of threat that we’re living with now that triggered my traumatic reaction. More and more, the current times seem to parallel the anti-communist hysteria of the nineteen fifties, albeit with different personnel, formats and prejudices. The thugs and bullies coming into power seem a lot like the ones from prior days, as does the mean-spiritedness. It’s discouraging to say the least, but it’s also a wake up call. How am I going to be in these new times? What can I do that will help to turn the tide in the direction of peace? I don’t have money to give, so my actions, which include signing all kinds of petitions, have to be more creative. I want to make myself available more than ever to help build “a monument to love and joy,” as Ethel Rosenberg so exquisitely and poignantly put it. I will do everything I can to strengthen and fortify my heart so that I can withstand whatever is in store for us. I pledge now to spend the rest of my life in this service, and to do it with the love that binds me to this...
Read MoreKeep Women in the Center of Pregnancy, and Life
To build a society based on human need, with love of all beings as its guiding principle, the reproductive needs of women have to be included in the center of the foundation. The feminine aspects of life, heretofore treated as peripheral, marginal, or unimportant, must be given their rightful status as central to the human condition. —Life Choices KEEP WOMEN IN THE CENTER OF PREGNANCY, AND LIFE In a gorgeous commencement speech in 2010, Meryl Streep pointed Barnard College graduates towards their destiny and responsibility to carry the torch for gender equality and understand it as a human issue rather than only a women’s issue. It’s an important distinction. Understanding gender equality as a human issue rather than as a women’s issue opens the way to correcting misperceptions and confusions about the specific issues that form the content of women’s lives. Reproductive choice is one of these, of course, and abortion the most controversial. Imagine what it would be like if we didn’t think of reproduction as a “woman’s issue,” and instead took responsibility as a society for the health and wellbeing of all. The only way to do this of course is to give women a central role in determining ways to provide for the health and wellbeing of all. We’re on our way to getting there, but we have a long way to go. Women are only partially empowered and only in some parts of the world. The gains we have made are still precarious and in need of continuous vigilance and care. Male referencing is rampant in our culture. Meryl speaks about it from her experience as a female actor. She explains her sense that men are unable to empathize with female characters. She says that most straight men can’t experience themselves through a female character the way most women are able to experience themselves and empathize with a male character. She attributes this to the way we are raised in this culture where a hero is assumed to be of the male gender and men and all things male are made to be superior to women and all things female. A few weeks ago, I gave a talk to a local community group. I asked each of the listeners to do their best to keep the woman in the center of the pregnancy experience as I was talking about abortion. This became controversial almost instantly. Someone asserted that she could not do that because for her it’s always about two people, the man as well as the woman. Another person asked, “But what about the child?” First, about the man. Ideally, it’s good for both the woman and the man involved to be on the same page with regard to a pregnancy. However, this is often not the case or not possible for myriad reasons, and the woman is left alone with the pregnancy and the decision. I go into more depth about this in my book. If you wonder about “the child,” the best thing to do is to ask the woman. She is the best authority on the meaning and place of pregnancy in her life. Don’t allow yourself to separate her from her pregnancy in your mind just because she’s considering or has had an abortion. She is not the enemy of “the child.” Far from it. She is the one, the only one, who knows all the intricacies of her current situation as well as the subtleties of relationship, both...
Read MoreRoom to Breathe – Winter Solstice 2012 – Conscious Caring
There is a new consciousness birthing itself on the planet—an awareness that supports conscious living, which means conscious choice-making. — Life Choices home page I feel like I have more room to breathe now that President Obama has been re-elected. While not the perfect progressive by any means, Obama is a fascinating figure. It’s not an accident that he has appeared at this time of history. He supports women’s health and empowerment, workers’ rights, and the health of the earth as a whole. Those issues are key to the advancement of world peace and the well-being of all. Obama’s presence on the world stage is a bridge to better possibilities, even though his actions don’t reflect that a hundred percent of the time. Historical consciousness has a way of twisting and turning through mazes of paradox and contradiction before showing itself on a clear path. It’s an evolutionary thing, good overall but often tough in the short run. Conditions will likely get worse before they get better, but we as a world are moving in the direction of a growing awareness that supports conscious living. We don’t have much choice in the matter. The Earth is moving us towards investing in our own humanity. There is a lot going on. You can feel it on both a personal and planetary level. I’m aware of a deluge of developments in people’s lives in both my close circle of friends, family, and acquaintances, and in the larger world around the globe. Lots of serious stuff. People are having to step up. I’m grateful the election period is over. The immediacy of electoral power politics consumes my attention in a way that pushes deeper, more long term issues aside. It sucks the air out of the room. It taints my perspective, feeds on fear, and makes it hard to remember the higher purpose that motivates my work. I have now settled back into my primary focus, which is to nurture people to open to the unity of being, the truth of existence—the Oneness, and to address their personal issues in a universal context. The trick is to stay connected to universal truths while at the same time applying ourselves to improving the quality of daily life, finding the balance between staying true to existence and meeting the incessant spontaneity of events. ~~~~~~~ The Winter Solstice is almost upon us. There is excitement in some quarters about this year’s solstice. They say December 21, 2012 is significant in the Mayan calendar. I don’t know a lot about this, but I do find it interesting. The doomsday prophecies making the rounds make no sense at all to me, but the idea that the world is moving in a profoundly transformative direction does. In an online article last year, a Mayan elder named Carlos Barrios is quoted as follows: Anthropologists visit the temple sites and read the inscriptions and make up stories about the Maya, but they do not read the signs correctly. It’s just their imagination. Other people write about prophecy in the name of the Maya. They say that the world will end in December 2012. The Mayan elders are angry with this. The world will not end. It will be transformed. We are no longer in the World of the Fourth Sun, but we are not yet in the World of the Fifth Sun. This is the time in-between, the time of transition. As we pass through transition there is a colossal, global convergence of environmental destruction, social chaos, war, and ongoing Earth Changes. Humanity will continue, but in a different way. Material structures will change. From this we will have...
Read MoreNo Choice in the Election
While we have made great strides toward equality, we cannot rest until our mothers, sisters, and daughters assume their rightful place as full participants in a secure, prosperous, and just society. —President Barack Obama As of today, there can be no doubt that women’s well being and reproductive health are at the center of the upcoming presidential election. The Republican party platform is calling for the outlawing of abortion, absolutely and with no exceptions. Nowhere in the platform language is there anything about women, only “unborn children” and “the individual right to life.” What does this mean? As far as I’m concerned, it means that anyone who considers her or himself real life centered who does not vote for Barack Obama will be in collusion with those who want to turn back the clock and put women and their families in danger. There is no wiggle room here. There is no room for debate. There is, my friends, no choice. From the peculiar “legitimate rape” garbling of Todd Akin to the repetitive, sanctimonious “sanctity of life” pontificating, we are being shown over and over again what the stakes are in the upcoming election. You might not like some of the things Barack Obama has done or not done in his first term. You might be angry and disappointed that he is not more forthrightly and aggressively progressive with regard to the economy and other issues, but that is no reason to ignore the truth of current political realities for women in the United States. If you know anyone who needs reminding about how it was when abortion was illegal, you can refer them to The Worst of Times by Patricia G. Miller. A few years ago I didn’t believe it was necessary to focus this way, but the current rise of political ignorance and vicious attacks on the interests of ordinary people in the U.S. has changed my mind. People are terribly confused, and the slick moneyed class is intent on keeping it that way. We mustn’t be fooled and we mustn’t let others be either. There is only one candidate for U.S. president who is in favor of recognizing women as the arbiters of choice in pregnancy. Only one who recognizes the struggle of women for full equality. Only one who is comfortable expressing strong support for women. Let’s make sure we re-elect Barack...
Read MorePerspective About Abortion is Important
If Life Choices is about nothing else, it is about perspective, and perspective about abortion is important. Women are caught in the crossfire of the currently overheated abortion wars. An epidemic of distorted legislation is spreading across the country in the form of bills that would give “personhood” to the fertilized egg in pregnancy, and more proposals that violate women’s bodily integrity by requiring ultrasounds for anyone requesting an abortion. The patriarchy is alive and well and still living in America. Forced motherhood has been the way of of patriarchy and dogmatic patriarchal religion for the millennia. It is the main way women have been subordinated to men throughout history. Remember how it was not very long ago. Margaret Sanger and others who spent their lives ensuring the health and safety of women and children had to struggle hard. They were steadfast and courageous. Their work is not yet done. Feminism, too, is alive and well, and growing. If the women’s movement (around the world) stands for nothing else, it stands for the freedom of women to choose whether to have sex, whether to become pregnant, and whether to have a baby, or not. What I’m offering is a deep, earth-oriented perspective. Women have been the arbiters of human life on earth as long as there have been humans. Earth is where we live and what we are, and it is through our bodies, the body of Earth, that life renews itself. Renewal comes through life dying into and giving birth to itself, which includes women’s choices to turn back some pregnancies. Renewal and growth occur on all levels—physical, psychological, mental, and spiritual. Human consciousness is by its nature a consciousness of choice because it is a consciousness of awareness and responsibility. The intrinsic power of women to mediate between life and death is a defining aspect of Earth’s way of balancing life. Abortion helps us learn both individually and collectively how to care consciously for the Earth and All Life. Each of the above ideas is part of a holistic perspective about pregnancy choice making. I will share these concepts and more during the Life Choices west coast tour in March. I’ll be in San Francisco at Modern Times Bookstore, Ukiah for private meetings, Ashland at Bloomsbury Books, Portland at In Other Words, Seattle at Elliot Bay Book Company, and Bellingham at Village Books. Click here for more...
Read More