I am not Ashamed to be a Woman

What Women Want

I feel that I have to apologize to all of my followers. I want to be writing about my love for The One. I want to talk about the passion of creativity and peace. I am going to continue to write about these subjects but I have to draw attention to what is happening to women in the world. Forty years ago, I thought it was pretty much a finished subject, and I was wrong. I have to begin to assist in our cause because it is the way I am made. I probably can’t march and picket like the old days. I intend to hopefully be one of the voices that inspire younger women to action.

I have been reading articles about the young woman, Jyoli Singh, who was raped and tortured for two and a half hours. I will not get graphic here but this was a beautiful and intelligent medical school grad. She and a male friend got on a bus to go home. For two and a half hours, the driver. his assistant and four passengers used a rod on her and her male friend. They were dumped out onto the side of the road.

She was in and out of consciousness, spoke to her father and the police. They had to remove her intestines. When her Father speaks of his grief it is almost unbearable.

Rape is not a crime of sexual lust or passion. It is an act of power and humiliation. They did everything possible to humiliate and demean her.Why? Because she was a woman. In the hospital, she spoke a little of the events using mostly gestures. Her friend has filled in the details. He was just a friend and was also beaten with a rod, but is alive.

Activists and caring Inkian citizen protest the rape and death of “India’s Daughter”

Women speak out against the rape of Ms. Singh

I have tears running down my cheeks and yet I must address this awful crime. In India, if the six men are found guilty, they will be hung. People in India are now calling Ms. Singh “India’s Daughter.” She has been marytred and she will inspire change in India. Yet in hospital she whispered to her father that she wanted to live. She was called home.

So, life goes on, and in the world women are raped and abused every day. Sexism encourages men to reduce the status of women to objects or possessions to own and use whenever the man wants to use them.

Indians express anger at rape and death of a young medical grad.

So, I feel that I have to write and let men and women know what is really going on and how women are being treated like they were lamps or chairs instead of human beings and children of the Universe. I pray for Ms. Singh and I know she is one woman who will never suffer again. Blessings to all of the women who are survivors of rape or abuse.

In memory

Ms. Singh whispered to her Father in hospital that she wanted to live.

Gandhi had the Right Idea

New thoughts For Some People In 2013

Gandhi was a very spiritual man and he taught the concept of passive resistance. Historically, he showed the Indian people how to be free from injustice and oppression. They received their freedom from the United Kingdom without a big, serious, bloody war.

We, the women in the world, have a war to fight. The War Against Women. We need to win this war without bloodshed and violence. But we need to win it. For ourselves and our future generations of men and women.

What is the War on Women? It is the oft-held notion that women are second class citizens here in America, in India, in China, in Russian and every country on this planet. Are we? No. Why do so many men and some women think we are? Because we live in Patriachries, where men rule by means of a hierarchy. Women have been at the bottom of that pyramid for so long, some don’t understand that this is where they are. Some believe what they have been told over and over in life: that they don’t deserve anything better. Their life is to consist of housework, sex on demand and having as many babies as possible.

Education is an enemy to the Patriarchy, because the more the women who become literate learn, the more they want  for themselves and their children; and the more danger they are to the patriarchy. Women are divided into two categories: the trophy women, the beautiful and young women that men like to have on their arm to show their success and power; and the others, there to perform menial labor and have children.

Popular thinking says women can’t take care of themselves and need a man.

The War on Women includes the fact that we do not receive equal pay for equal work.  It includes the idea that we, as women, need to be taken care of; that we can’t make our own decisions. It’s the idea that we, as women, really can’t run a company; that is the job of  men who are better suited to leading.

The War on Women includes rape. All rape is” legitimate rape.”  There is no instance of rape which is the will of the Divine. Women are victims and not enticing sirens that men can’t possibly control themselves around. Rape is not an act of passion but of power and control. Gang rape is the worst kind of rape. Male after male entering a woman’s body and using a woman and then finishing with her so another can  take a turn.

I am writing this today in memory of the young woman who was gang raped on a bus in India. I have no idea who she was, what her voice sounded like, what made her smile, what made her happy, how much her friends and family loved her. What I do know is that she is my sister and yours also. Whether you are male or female, she was part of you. She was a Divine child of the Universe made of stardust, the same as  you and I. Now, she is gone. Six men remain on this planet, six men who brutally raped and used her. Beat and kicked her until the breath of life was forced to leave her body.

This year I am focusing on the needs and rights of women. Yes, I am aware that there are feminist men everywhere. So, I am writing for you also. But I am writing to the misogynist, battering, abusive, and cruel men. You do not have to act the way you are doing. You weren’t created to behave like this. You were not created to destroy lives, tear away young innocence or to beat the heart and soul of a woman to the point she wishes she would just die..

So, this year 2013 is the year of the woman. The year we look at every way men injure or kill women. We will look at why we feel fists and slaps and kicks. Why we aren’t making the same money that men are earning. In America, we will work for legal equality for women. We are the only American citizens who are not legally equal.

I hope you will stay with me on this journey. I will continue to talk about peace and spirituality and creativity also. My priorities are women and our spiritual journey. .

We Can All be a Light to Others and Work for Freedom for Women From Oppression.

New Violence in Our World

I am so sad to hear that there has been another mass shooting in a mall in Oregon. I ask that if you want to, that you pray for all who are there and for their families. Violence is never an answer. I am so sorry that this has come into the lives of these shoppers. Blessings to all.

Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870

Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870 – Julia Ward Howe

“Arise, the women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears!
Say firmly
“We will not have questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking of carnage,
for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We women of one country
will be too tender of those of another country
to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes with
our own, it says ‘disarm! disarm!’
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.
Blood does not wipe out dishonor
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
whereby the great human family can live in peace,
each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Ceasar,
But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
that a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient
and at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
to promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
the amicable settlement of international questions,
the great and general interests of peace.”

Photo by Barbara Mattio

I Am A Child Of the Universe

This is an 800 year old tree in France. At some time it was struck by lightening and the amazing hollowed out area was the result. It has made an outstanding church.

I have been aware of a large increase in violence and mean-spirited debating lately. Everyone is right and everyone else is wrong. Because I consider myself a child of the Universe, I find this to be distressing. What does it mean to be a child of this universe we live in? To me it means that I acknowledge the right of someone to disagree with me and to express it. It means that I frequently to within to the inner landscape to experience the love of Divinity. I honor the Divinity within myself and others. I don’t “have the way” and I do not think your way is wrong.

My prayer for today is: “To raise us above the distinctions and differences which divide us”.

The Fundamental Truth
——Marge Piercy

“The Christian right, Islamic Jihad,
the Jewish Right Bank settlers bringing
the Messiah down, the Japanese sects
who worship by bombing subways,
they all hate each other.
but more they hate the mundane,
ordinary people who love living
more than dying in radiant glory,
who shuffle and sigh and bake bread.

They need a planet of their own,
perhaps even a barren moon
with artificial atmosphere,
where they will surely be nearer
to their gods and their fiercest
enemies, where they can kill
to their heart’s peace
kill to the last standing man
and leave the rest of us be.

Not mystics to whom the holy
comes in the core of struggle
in a shimmer of blinding quiet,
not scholars haggling out the inner
meaning of gnarly ancient sentences.
No, the holy comes to these zealots
as license to kill, for self-doubt
and humility have dried like mud
under their marching feet.

They have far more in common
with each other, these braggarts
of hatred, the iron hearted
in whose ear a voice spoke
once and left them deaf.
Their faith is founded on death
of others, and everyone is other
to them, whose Torah is splattered
in letters of blood.”

So I am constantly turning from hatred to love and hoping that as love shines from my heart, others will notice and feel peace.

“It is good to love many things,
for therein lies the true strength,
and whosoever loves much
and performs much,
and can accomplish much,
and what is done in love
is well done”!
—-Vincent Van Gogh