Open Letter to the Women of my World

From Kathlyn Schaaf, Gather the Women

Dear sisters:

I am writing to the women of my world, because so many women in my world are traveling through a powerful time of challenge and growth. So many relationships in my world have entered new territory. So many organizations are in the midst of huge transformation -- shifts in the very core of leadership and definition and structure. So many nations are struggling to find balance.

The women of my world can see this and feel this and know this deeply.

So many women in my world have been feeling the complexity of what is unfolding right now among our human family. The presidential election here in the United States is just weeks away, and many are feeling the weight of this moment of decision.

To the women of my world, I want to say that you are incredible. You are compassionate, intuitive, wise, creative, hard working and strong.

Now more than ever, the world needs these gifts from you. Now more than ever, you need to rely upon those qualities to guide you each day in every interaction. Now more than ever, you need to believe in your own power.

Do not be frozen in the face of these challenging times.

Now more than ever, you need to tap into the energy of hope. You need to use that energy to fuel your action. You need to ground yourself in the deepest faith that we are together in our love for this Earth and her family.

You need to follow your own passion more boldly that ever before.

Whatever that passion might be.

Today.

Now.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

First, if you live in the United States, you must vote. You must enthusiastically coach every one of your friends and neighbors and and and sisters and cousins and co-workers and and colleagues to vote. You must be passionate about exercising this precious right at this critical time. You will know in your heart who is the right candidate for you.

If you live outside the United States, please hold us gently in your thoughts. Trust that we love your children as we love our own.

Gather other women around you. Wonderful things have always happened when women come together. They sit in a circle and they talk.... and they are heard... and connect their brilliance into new constellations of hope.

We need new constellations of hope.

If you could use some more hope in your life, another thing you might want to do is register for the Gather the Women International Congress.

5 Reasons Why You Should Register for the GTW Congress

1) Gather the Women International Congress vibrates with hope. We attract women from around the world who are intelligent, curious, open, authentically alive, spiritually mature and globally connected .... and these women are changing the world every day. When you walk in the door of the Omni Mandalay, you will feel the powerful energy of hope generated by bringing such women together. The world needs that hope; we need that hope at this exact moment in human history.

2) Gather the Women International Congress is not a traditional conference; it has been created with the intention to serve as a living matrix of women and women's organizations, encouraging new models for collaboration and partnership. The result is an experience that is alive, fluid, expansive and transformational.

3) We do not seek to change minds but to connect hearts. GTW does not endorse any particular stance on any particular issues; we do not seek to tell women what they should think and feel. Rather, we seek to create a space where women can explore and expand the powerful pieces of common ground we all share.

4) This Congress will be rich with ceremony and ritual, with eloquent speakers and stimulating workshop, with musical performance and artistic expression, with prayer and silence, with singing and dancing, with women speaking into the circle as they have since the beginning of times. It will reflect the wholeness of the feminine experience.

5) Women's leadership, your leadership, has never been as important as it is right now. This Congress will provide you with the resources and support you need to empower others when you get back home. Amazing things will grow from the seeds we plant together, from the nutrients we offer, from the intentions we hold.

October 15 -17, 2004
Dallas, Texas

http://gatherthewomen.org/poster.cfm

I believe deeply in the potential of Gather the Women.... and I have every faith that we can each find our way to our truest Self and to one another.

Gather the Women,
Kathlyn Schaaf