Themes and Intentions for March 2007

• Theme

• Intention

• Common threads

• 1) Meditation/ visualization
• 2) GTW vision statement
• 3) A call to action
• 4) Make the connection to GTW

Theme

The theme for 2007 is:

CELEBRATING THE WAYS OF WOMEN
"Wherever you are is the entry point."  Kabir

The world needs to hear the voices of the women at this time, sharing their wisdom and their vision for a world that works for all.

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

The following is a meditation to connect the energy we are producing during March 2007. Feel free to modify this to suit your gathering.

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 2007