Themes and Intentions for the week
of March 8
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Theme
While in the past, GTW has designated a single theme for the
March gatherings, this year the themes have emerged spontaneously
and appropriately from the individual groups that are coming
together.
Here is a sampling of the themes that have evolved:
Wisdom Arising
Compassionate Power
Visionary Women
In Her Shape
Awesome Women's Night Out!
What would I do today if I were brave?
We invite you to choose a theme that reflects the passions
and possibilities of your community of women.
Intention
We DO all share an intention: To inspire, connect, collaborate
and partner as a global community of compassionate women.
To help ground the gatherings in that shared intention, we
offer the following Common Threads.
COMMON THREADS
We would like to suggest the use of the following as common
threads to be shared in gatherings around the world…
A meditation to connect us
A reading of the GTW vision statement
A call to activate commitment.
An invitation to stay connected within Gather the Women
1. MEDITATION/ VISUALIZATION
I would like to invite you now to join me as we connect with
the women around the world, who have come together this week
to Gather the Women.
Let us begin closing our eyes. Take a few deep breaths and
just settle into the room. Breathe in deeply and exhale deeply,
letting go of any tensions and pressures you may have brought
with you today. For this moment, you have nothing else to
do except breathe deeply, relax and be here in this safe circle
of women.
With your eyes closed, let yourself feel the energy of the
woman in this circle, the woman on your left and your right,
and all of those around the room. They too have heard this
call to gather here today.
With another breath, expand your awareness to include the
women beyond this room, beginning with those who have gone
before us -- our mothers and their mothers and their grandmothers.
Let us honor these ancestors as we join together today to
declare our intentions.
Expand your awareness to all the other women around the world
who have ever gathered for International Women's Day over
this past century; imagine them standing with us today, as
we stand together in a new way.
Now, I invite you to visualize our Earth in all its beauty
and glory right here in the middle of the room. Take a moment
to register this beautiful round planet, with its deep blues
and greens, its majesty and wonder. Register its wholeness:
there are no borders or boundaries here. Breathe deeply, letting
your breath infuse the planet with life sustaining love.
Take a moment to image in your own way, a web of light settling
around and covering the entire Earth. At each intersecting
point of the web is a bright light….each light representing
other women who are standing with us today all around the
world. Sweep your mind’s eye across the seas to Egypt
and Cameroon West Africa on the African continent, to England
and Vienna in Europe, to Israel and Nepal, Canada, Germany,
Australia and all across the United States.
The women in Middle East have come together to teach one
another about their religions. Others are meeting around issues
of peace and non-violence. In Africa, women are supporting
one another as they face the realities of the HIV virus. Women
in Tibet are teaching others how to deal with threats of physical
abuse. The challenges of extreme poverty in the villages of
Mexico bond the women of that area together.
Around the world, women are sitting in circles as we are
today and sharing their stories, with music and dance. Wonderful
things happen whenever women gather. Women from all walks
of life, the privileged and those without privilege, we are
all connected by a golden thread in the feminine heart. Some
of us have given birth to human life; all of us have given
birth to ideas, projects, dreams. All of us feel compassion
and love for the fragile life on this planet. We come together
today in our differences and in our alikeness and stand in
our power and our wisdom, bringing all we are as a resource
for the highest good. We are women helping women change the
world.
With a final exhalation, I invite you to travel all the way
back to the circle of women gathered in this room. Now I welcome
you back from this journey of connection and spirit.
Let us begin our work together….
2. GATHER THE
WOMEN VISION STATEMENT
We invite you to read the Gather
the Women Vision statement aloud at your gathering or
to provide it as a written handout:
We invite women to demonstrate
their courage to risk leaving old conformities
by joining with millions of others throughout the world
to celebrate women's true worth,
to express shared concern for our human family,
and to create and support actions
that will enable humanity to live together
in a balanced, harmonious and peaceful world.
Gather the Women is evoking at a profound level
an experience of our own woman's worth to the world.
As women we bring life forward.
We are in touch with the cycles of life
and we function in a context that is deeply relational.
We have the capacity to generate
creative solutions that benefit
all life on the planet.
Gather the Women is creating
a rich exchange of cultural values
to dissolve the ties that bind us to the illusion
that one segment of our human family can win
while another loses.
Together we women are contributing
to a new collective wisdom
and we are lending our strength
to that which we wish to embrace.
From this emerging balance is being born
a new dimension of our humanity.
3. A CALL TO ACTION
We invite each of you to leave your gatherings with a commitment
to some kind of on-going action. The mission is yours to define...
…Can you commit to a new behavior or action that will
deepen your understanding of others whose lives are very different
from your own?
…Can you join an existing organization or group to
contribute your skills and resources?
…Can you take an action which will bring you closer
to one of your personal dreams?
…Can you speak out on an issue that you feel passionately
about?
…Can you create your own circle of women to meet regularly
or join an existing circle?
…Can you identify an area of prejudice or judgment
in your own life and commit to examine those beliefs?
…Can you begin to speak more openly with the men in
your family and in your life about the incredible value women
have added to our communities and our cultures?
…Can you share your financial or personal resources
in a new way?
…Can you make a change in your interactive patterns
with your immediate family that will create more mutuality
and respect?
…Can you believe in yourself and your gifts a little
more than you did yesterday?
4) MAKE THE CONNECTION
TO GATHER THE WOMEN
We invite you to refer women to our website so that they
can explore the more than 150 pages of information and inspiration
gathered from women around the world.
www.GatherTheWomen.org
Be sure to log into our directory so that you receive a
monthly update on all of our opportunities, projects and activities.
We invite all of you into action with us as we:
- encourage and connect women’s circle,
- bring together existing organizations to collaborate in
creative new ways,
- build a grassroots matrix of women and women’s
organizations
- co-conceive and co-create 6 Congresses on 6 Continents
in 2006
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