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... the sound of the conch calling us to gather. ... the six members of the Board of Directors of Gather the Women Global Matrix opening the Congress by moving onto the stage with scarves wrapped and tied on their heads, recalling the many women we have been throughout time. ... our water from all over the world co-mingled in a common container ... Kathe Schaaf’s exploration of the word “complex”, derived from the Latin words “with” and “weave” ... laughing as Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson described her explanation to her son: “I was not your grandmother.” ... Susyn Reeve reminding us that God provides us with information “on a need to know basis” ....hearing just a sentence here and just a phrase there from the stories being told by one woman looking in to the eyes of another and feeling the energy of all those stories rising to weave together a strong and complex fabric. ... Jana Stanfield reminding all of us that we can be brave, and teaching us how to sign the word. ... the softness and strength of JZ Knight describing her Texas childhood ... the openness and intimacy of our invitation to place our cheek against the cheek of another when we hug ... the profoundly simple logic of Jane Roberts and 34 Million Friends ...a hundred different images of coming around a corner at the hotel to find yet another circle of women gathered in a passionate, fluid conversation of co-creation. ... the energy and optimism of young women articulated by Ashley Ferranti and her plan to “Gather the Girls” ... the constant attention of Donna Collins as she wove the pieces together and tended to us all ... Barbara Marx Hubbard on video encouraging us to heed this evolutionary call ... dancing and dancing and dancing again. ... the lively questions and the earthy wisdom of the Health Panel ... the possibility that Gather the Women’s most powerful purpose may be fear reduction on a global scale ... our international delegates gathered on the stage to share their perspectives on why it is important to Gather the Women. ...watching Ibtisam and Muna dance on the stage on Sunday, so graceful and beautiful... and then watching them on Monday standing still and strong in the center of a spontaneous circle of prayer that gathered in the lobby to send them on their journey. ... the elements of earth and water and air that will define the quality of life as we Gather the Family ... Jean Shinoda Bolen describing the powerful archetypal energy within each of us that is responding to this call ... our virtual sister Dot, who seeks to be inspired, to learn new skills and to connect with other women ... and how Marilyn Nyborg will direct her to GTW Partner Organizations to help her on her journey ... our silent communion as we received our water to carry home ....the profound vibrational frequency we achieved together on that final chorus of "We Rise" which felt like the frequency of all humanity.
Linear thinking, linear thought leads down narrow paths ~ the left brain ~ the outskirts not seen, the side roads and possibilities lost in the mist of “not-seeing.” I bring my right brain, holistic, feeling, gathering in, to the well, sheltering, for I do not see what others see, or seem to see; or I do see what others do not see, or seem not to see; ... but I suspect I am not alone. Are the women confused? Do we see differently than the mighty, the potentates, the “leaders” say they see? Weapons of mass destruction?! I see children starving, I see women, men, children dying of AIDS, people of all persuasions, colors, creeds, dying of AIDS, more than 20 million dead. People living/dying still in the ravages of ethnic cleansing ~ past tense, present, future not-perfect ~ 800,000 Rwanda, 250,000 Burundi, the numbers again for Bosnia? Still the ravages of ethnic cleansing. The Sudan, still, by being driven, by fleeing, by looking for one gasping place in the universe when they will not be killed, or starve, or die of disease. More than 300,000 certain to die before the end of the dying. Linear thinking? Left brain. Where is the linear thinking when we need it? ... bring in the food, bring in the safety ... or is linear thinking a tool of the powerful used only when it affects their getting food and safety? Where is linear thinking with a purpose that fits the needs of the whole? Is that too much to ask? Am I alone at the well? What is the means to a connection between linear thinking/analysis/ straight-ahead drive and focus, and seeing the whole picture? Is this why I am confused in the today’s world, because my ability to analyze and my ability to see the whole picture are better than those of the rulers, the leaders, the warlords, the people selling arms? I am a woman, it has not been my world for thousands of years. Why does the world not pay attention to me, to how I see?
Some say my fall began with the bringing in of the alphabet, blessed gift born out of and rooted in the analytical side of all of us, strengthened in men with left brains honed to getting directly from A to B, rising from the need to get the arrow into the heart of the woolly mammoth, ... and in women, too, the left brains strengthened, ... all power to literacy, to the literate, forming meaning/sense out of little lines on paper instead of the way the wind blows and the air smells and the sun changes! Words over image; particulars over total; thought over feeling. Take strength away from the goddess, from the fertility goddess,
from the goddess of nature and spring and renewal, and cycles, take
power away! ~ burn her, stifle her, destroy her images, rise up
Zeus, words over image, down with the wily dangerous irrational
ways of women!. Woman out of the rib of man, a useless part, a non -vital part? Who wrote this? Not my Lillith, not my Judith, not my Mary. Not even my Gloria, or Bela, Germaine, or Elizabeth Cady or Rosa. Not Sojourner. “Ain’t I a woman?” . . . ain’t I a person? Is it because of this forcible expulsion – happening then, still being now -- that I do not feel the touchstone of my being? I am at the well ~ blind or seeing? Condemned for my ‘irrational” ways, how will I see the whole of who I am? Or was it the Huns and Mongols coming over the mountains and across the plain and Steppes, killing, slaughtering – all power to muscle, all power to savageness! Or commercial trade routes and when trading went from barter to gold, from stuff to abstract? Is that when I became property? Is that when I was hidden – first out of the preciousness of my cargo and later out of the shamefulness of my cargo? Or was it because I did not adhere to violence and it was becoming a violent world? I make myself small, smaller, smallest, silent ... waiting for his wrath to pass ... no more woolly mammoth, smaller mammals now, I am his smaller mammal target. My children are his smaller mammals. I am at the well with the women, and we see each other. Are there men at the well also who suspect something terribly untrue has sway in the world? Are they out in the midst of my non-seeing? Does my fear make me blind to them? Do they see me? Do they see us ~ gathering, gathering in circles like the Madres of the Plaza de Maya keening for their disappeared children? Do the men wish they could come closer to the well? Who among the women will break the code of silence after Gloria,
Bela, Rosa, Sojourner:
How it is women know where everything is in our house – the socks, the can opener, the homework, the telephone tree for school; where everything is in our family, the hurts, the secrets, the angers, the rivalries, the falsehoods, the unexpected loves; where everything is in our community, the bribery, the power struggles, the thread of goodness and need for parks; for our region, less fear, more solar housing, schools with art programs, education for everyone, places to meet and hear each other; and for the world ... . the need for courage to care, to greet and hold rather than bomb and zap. How it is women know it is about the women and the children and the poor and the men and the needy and the beautiful, and the rich, and the ill and the blessed, and the deprived, and those with eyes of one shape and hair of one texture and bodies of yet another, dividing and divisible, kaleidoscope of colors and sounds and beings ~ yet all one light, all one being? How is it we know all languages are one language, all hearts are one ... . and where, and when, and why did we lose power in the world and lose faith in ourselves? He is in the plains, I am in the bushes. He prepared his arrow for the heart of the mammoth. He is stalking, he is aiming, he is killing. I hold my baby in my left arm, my caring arm, cradling her/him, humming a song, picking berries with my right, technically-skillful hand, I see movement at my side, in the periphery –over there! -- in the bushes, I see the movement of a jaguar, I see it early because I see it all. My brain has massive neural connections between its hemispheres. My brain is different from his brain ~ the parts of my brain talk to each other, I can see, analyze, and feel at the same time. And my eyes are different from his, I have more rods in my eyes. I see the periphery, I see light, movement, even the dimmest light, even the slightest movement. My eyes see the totality. His eyes see ahead, mine see all, I do all, I am built to do all. But he cannot be distracted, he must see only the heart of the woolly mammoth. I will tend the children and the bringing in of fruit, of herbs, of roots/ he will bring in the meat. We will survive together. And where is the today’s woolly mammoth? Heat-seeking laser missiles? Whose heat? Which person’s heat pulls this masterpiece of linear thought, of arrows, into their heart?
The person, the man, the woman with the bomb strapped to themselves? Those who prepared the car with bombs, who flew a plane into a building? They are not woolly mammoth; we cannot save ourselves by killing their hearts. Human are not wild mammals, maybe wild mammals are not even wild mammals. Maybe they are us, and we must learn each other’s skills, and loves, and needs, and desires, and beauties, and weak places, and strong places, and the beautiful transcending magnificent pattern of the fabric of being-ness together, maybe this is the way to their heart ~ so we can live, and they can live. I am at the well and I cradle my baby, pick berries, sing a song, and see the jaguar; I am at the well and I can hold our children, navigate an infinitely complex world, and have compassion for a stranger even when he/she frightens me. When he/she frightens me I find my safety in going towards, tending: “You are certainly interesting. Are you hungry? Can I feed you? Do you have children? I have children. Oh, we both have children.” The pattern of the fabric of being-ness becomes clearer. The wounds are mine, the jaguar is next to me and in me, I am the jaguar; and the women begin to sing. We rock as keening rises through our bodies for their wounds and ours:
More than the equivalent of 950 billion US dollars spent in the world by the military, 47% of it by the U.S. I am at the well with the women, and we do not believe you who barter in fear, using weapons – military and mental – who say you are making us safe. People are dying, around us, just over the hill, next door. We are one, and you are killing us, and you are letting us die ... and calling it victory, and calling it profit, and calling it freedom. I am at the well and my sisters are seeing more and more clearly. We gather in circles, finding each other awesome, listening with our hearts as our keening turns to song. Our protest and our joy is an anthem finding its way up through mother earth in a chorus of connection. Hearing and carrying and making it louder, we are the means through which the goddess rises again. Call her a goddess if you will, it doesn’t matter, but it is life, and it is the unstoppable determination of life to succeed, creating its song through us in its time of greatest need. (Are there men nearby? Just .. just over there somewhere? Are they watching?) We find ourselves ... and know that to see, to tend the children and pick the berries and see the jaguar as ourselves is what keeps us alive because it is true. And when we see the jaguar in the grass, we see she, too, has children and she, too, is us. And that we, too, can growl, and attack.
We are able to chew gum and tie our shoes at the same time. We know how to process the complexities of life in ways where we can live. Out of the power places, kept out of the power places. It is not the easiest thing for those of us who survived millennia by not fighting to learn what is needed to protect ourselves from those who fight as their first response to real or imagined threat ~ and we will be a threat. Does this mean if we threaten them, they will attack us before we know how to protect ourselves? And therefore, we better ... . ah-ha ... Yes, this is complex. It will take both sides of my brain to figure this one out. This requires such strength. I do not know if I can do it. Can women bring sight to those who don’t have it, men or women? Vision and dream to those who trade in “acceptable losses.” Yet I hear the cymbals and drums coming into the songs of the women. Am I prepared for these clashes, for these dissonances? I am at the well, but am I sure? I have not seen my strength in operation in the decisions of the world for millennia, I don’t know my size! What if I am so large that I am a monster of beauty, so huge I will not recognize myself? Is that okay? Will everyone still like me? Does my hair look okay? Multitasking, we rise in the post-woolly mammoth world as we look deep inside to see if we can find our size, our mission. Women know how to listen to dreams, so dreams come to them. My dream from two decades ago:
I am Everywoman, and where I stand now, where I take a stand, is not static. It is a moving place where 360-degrees I watch, move, speak, act on the path of life. Out of this second-by-second creation, I weave a life interwoven with others. Together we weave being alive. Sign seen leaving sari store in India: “Hand woven by definition means a glorious uncertainty as to uniformity.” Perfection is in the irregularities -- the marks, the hesitancies, the tears and tears. On our bodies and our minds, the wounds across us are symphonies
of scars, concerts of loses ~ the gouges of life make us expression,
make us art. We are originals, each, carriers of our scars – markers of fears and strengths, memories of pain, and knowledge of overcoming pains. We are glorious uncertainties. ... born of millennia of humiliation and repression and terror. Really, it should not have been too much to ask to be able to dance in the woods under the full moon without being burnt at the stake! Girls just want to have fun! Coming into power is not just about the well-being of the world, it is about our well being, your well being, about time well spent on planet earth. It is about becoming huge and finding that it is “coming home,” it is about being a monster of beauty, it is about the life in you gnawing from the inside out to be in a larger container of your action, commitment, passion, and expression. It is about letting your inner jaguar roar. I look at my tethers, the pins and ropes of my internal Lilliputians, self-inflictions that hold me down. Fears like gnats invading my eyes, my ears, my self. The burden is so huge, the need so colossal. It is too great, it is too great, I am unsure. How did I get myself in this position? Why did I assume so much? How will I do this? But I left the chair by the side of the road. So these fears are my traveling companions and sometimes we talk. They say they are the true weapons of mass destruction, and that their specialty is women because women feel deeply and inclusively and vulnerably.
I have named these little creatures, my enemies, like pets, who can puff themselves up to many times their real size and who keep telling me, “You should just go learn how to balance a chair on your toe”: Fear of embarrassment – people will find out how dumb I am. I don’t know where Cameroon is or when to say Muslim and when to say Islam; or how to spell Al Qaeda? Is the “a” before the “e” or the other way around? Fear of wrong decisions – if I start making changes in the world, someone may get hurt and I’ll be responsible. It will be my fault. Of course, people will get hurt! That is the dynamic of life: to bring change, change must happen and there will be breakage. The question is how much destruction, individual and massive, will happen if you wait to act until you are 100 % sure of what you are doing, or you have a guarantee that no one will ever be harmed? That is the equation. Fear of loss of control – If I change, my life will change, my marriage will change, my partner will leave, I will give all my money away in a lunatic moment of total compassion, and then how will I live? I need my life in order! Not too hot, not too cold, not too large, not too small, not too hard, not too soft. In the meantime you’re asleep and the bears are coming home. Control, in any case, in each case, is not controlled by Goldilock’s desire for comfort. Everything is always moving, it’s all motion. . . chaos, quantum leaps, the infinite potentials and possibilities that are inclined towards but in the swimming pool of life are not guaranteed. Is that true? What about the direction of the spin of sub-atomic particles pre-determined by the pre-conceptions of the viewer as to what direction they will go? Pre-conceived by the viewer. Belief, intent, prayer pre-conceive and re-arrange. I have no absolute answers to the relative riddles because absolute answers are beyond the ability of my relative comprehension; but I know the best way to control life is to welcome the next step whatever it may be while keeping your eye on the goal, until the goal needs to be re-pre-conceived to a stronger cleaner more beneficial goal. Fear of administration – who am I to tell others what to do? It’s so presumptuous, and bossy, and unattractive, and unfeminine, and nobody is going to like me. Secret: power, baby, is sexy. It feels good, and you’ll like it, welcome home. Fear of self-authority – I love this little
fear, he’s a gate keeper and he works so hard at blocking
you from finding out how beautiful you are. Because you are a monster
of beauty, the depth of your heart is so large that it could vanquish
him in an instant. He really quivers. He has a lot invested in your
not discovering who you fully are.
You are the well, and the well is love. A single drop starts a wave, a single taste brings healing, you
have been here before, you will return again. We are impelled to love because our true nature is love, ... the rest is just bad accessories. We are commanded in the nature of our deeper consciousness to love. The mystery cannot be explained in words, we cannot explain love through our analytical mind. We are commanded in the nature of our deeper consciousness to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Equally, yes, that’s the easy meaning, the apparent meaning; but the deeper meaning, the deeper meaning: love your neighbor AS you love yourself. You cannot love your neighbor without feeling love so you cannot love others without loving yourself equally. Love goes through you and comes out of you ~ it is visceral, you feel it, you taste it, you are it. You are the living well. Love is beyond reason, guidelines, or constraints. It is not a curriculum, a plan or a “how to” ... It is an “is.” It is being – it is the joy at the end of the tunnel, the lifting of the dark from the light that has always been there even when obscured by the grit and follies of local consciousness and the pains of our individual lives, births and death. Love is not groundless rapture, it is not a spiritual high rise, it is muscle, force, energy, it is the jaguar at your service. And it’s ready to move. Love makes demands. It’s not going to let go of you. It will torment you if you do not listen to its urgings. You don’t actually have a choice.
The facts are: Linear left brain We are here now. There is massive destruction surrounding us, and we see more in the bushes – so to speak. This massive wound is either created by humans or allowed to continue by humans. Fear is the primary weapon of massive destruction. Women are more capable physiologically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically of healing the world because we see, comprehend, and process holistically. Women were repressed through millennia, and we are only now regaining our individual and collective strength. We no longer have the leeway, the luxury of evolving slowly into a re-consciousness of what we are capable of doing. We must lead the way. The truth of the matter is: right brain Harmony and chaos have long been in a battle. The power of Love is ultimately stronger than fear. Women are rising now, compelled by love seeing the need. We are coming into our power through connections and communication. We are remembering who we are, ... and it feels like freedom, and it feels good. We can cradle humanity with our feeling side, organize the world with our analytical side, see everything and everyone around us. Women are the sex whose time has come. We are a thing of ferocious beauty!
Check our 2004 Congress Photo Album. |
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