I’m with Her… and Her and Her

Women's March on Denver
Women’s March on Denver

Lots of women are online today lecturing the women who marched in one of the Women’s Marches across the country. Apparently, lots of women feel the need to dictate to other women exactly how they should protest… even telling them not to feel happy about a peaceful march, insisting that the peace and joy the marchers experienced was all bogus because the crowd was “too white.”  Lots of women are also lecturing other women about the best way to support minority women. Lots of women are judging and guilting and dismissing other women today…  Is this really helpful?!

Sorry ladies, but you don’t get to define me. You don’t get to dictate what my protests look like. You don’t get to guilt me simply because I’m a middle class white woman. You don’t get to tell me what kind of sign to carry or hat to wear when I protest. You don’t get to dismiss me because I marched with a smile and didn’t scream in rage and burn shit. You don’t get to poo poo my commitment because I don’t protest the way you do.

I will choose when and how I take political action. I will choose when and how I speak out and act. It is MY choice, NOT YOURS!

When one group lectures another about how to behave and how to feel, it sounds suspiciously like old patriarchal Bullshit to me – even when women do it to other women.

EVERY woman needs the space to take political action and express herself in the way that’s most appropriate to her WITHOUT being judged and lectured by other women – and that includes white women from the suburbs!

We won’t fix this mess by telling one group of women to shut up and stuff their feelings, their needs, their wisdom in order to serve another group of women who now take precedence.

We want change, right? Real change? That requires creating a space where ALL women can dialogue with each other and be heard with respect and love. That’s true inclusivity.

“The language by which we have been taught
to dismiss ourselves and our feelings as suspect
is the same language we use to dismiss and suspect each other.”

~Audre Lorde

Now is the Time — the Fierce Feminine

THIS.   This is the antidote to all the bigotry, hatred and fear in America right now.  Thank you Chameli. ❤️

The moment you take a stand for what really matters to you,
you step into Sankalpa Shakti, a current of infinite creativity and energy.
By committing to what matters to you and stepping two feet in,
you access the very power needed to live out your Sankalpa.  

So what keeps us sitting on the fence?  

I have witnessed in myself and in my practice sisters
how we minimize the value of our path and our wisdom
when we cannot find confirmation from the outside;
how we are still waiting for approval,
comparing the fresh kiss of spirit that we are offered
in the intimacy of our own practice with the outdated models of spirit
embodied by men only. We are still moving in circles, repeating the past.

We tend to avoid that one scary step outside the circle of the known,
into the rush of self-arising wisdom expressed through us.
Are we secretly hoping that someone else will do it for us?

~ Chameli Devi Ardagh

☾☽

Chameli’s recent TED Talk, The Fierce Face of the Feminine:

Sometime Love Means Shouting NO!

Trump sneer

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.

~Dalai Lama

I have been sitting still, watching and listening, for decades.  Writers are natural observers and I am no exception. I love watching people and events from the sidelines.  But in the past few weeks, it has become more and more difficult for me to simply sit still and observe.

I have been watching and listening for months as Donald Trump encourages his followers to act from a place of hatred and rage. In the beginning, Mr. Trump seemed like a bad joke – a blowhard reality TV star runs for president, really?! But now he has managed to become the Republican nominee for President of the United States, and this ridiculous political side show just got very very scary.

I want to run screaming into the street and stop cars. I want to ask everyone I meet if they have listened carefully to what Mr. Trump says in speech after speech.  I want to insist that they follow me home to my living room where I can show them clip after clip of Trump gleefully inciting hatred and racism and divisions between people. And I want to remind them of what McCarthy and other peddlers of hate have done to our country in the past.  I want to beg people to not let that happen again.

But I won’t do that. I won’t run into the street and stop strangers. I would be labeled crazy. I won’t make people sit still, watch and LISTEN to what Donald Trump has been saying for months.  I wish I could but I cannot.

What I can do is express my deep fear about what Donald Trump may do if he becomes our President. I can voice my concerns to family and friends, and to you, my readers. I can tell you how disturbed I am by all the vitriol and fear that Mr. Trump is selling.

I believe that love is always the answer. And sometimes love requires that we stand up and shout NO, this is NOT OK!  Sometime love requires that we step out of our comfort zone and enter the fray.  

Mr. Trump’s vision of America is NOT my vision. He does NOT speak for me or the Americans I know and love.

Polite silence is not the answer. Sitting still is not the answer. So I am standing up and shouting NO! every chance I get. I am telling family and friends exactly what I have observed in this man who wants to be my president. And I am doing it in the name of love and unity and compassion.

I hope you will stand up and join me.

“Trump came one breath short of advocating a police state tonight
(it is not an accident that David Duke tweeted such great applause)…
I pray the better angels of America will rise up and
dissolve all the hatred that was spewed
into our body politic tonight.” 

~Marianne Williamson,  July 21, 2016

Web of Love for West Africa

Ebola Virus
Ebola Virus

The Ebola virus is wreaking havoc on the people of West Africa. The number of people infected is doubling every few weeks. But despite the endless media coverage, this epidemic seemed quite distant to me – until I heard that two nurses in Texas had become infected.  Suddenly Ebola seemed to be right at my doorstep.

I began my career as a nurse; one of my first nursing jobs was in ICU, caring for critically ill patients. That’s probably why every new report about the 2 nurses infected with Ebola upset me so much. I remember all too well how hard a hospital nurse’s job is under ordinary circumstances – and there is nothing ordinary about an Ebola infection. At first, I was so angry about these two young nurses infected with Ebola; I wanted to find someone to blame for their pain and suffering. But it doesn’t accomplish anything to play the blame game, does it? More and more people continue to catch Ebola and suffer while we sit around and debate about who should get fired. Anger is a waste of time.

For the last few days, I’ve been asking myself, what can I do besides sit around and wring my hands about Ebola? What can I do to help? I actually considered joining Doctors Without Borders and heading over to Africa myself; nurses are always in short supply. But 9 months abroad is not very practical when I have a daughter to raise. Sacrificing my own family’s well being isn’t the answer.  But I want to do more than just donate some money – I want to personally DO something! Once a nurse always a nurse, I guess.

This epidemic teaches me how interconnected our world is today. Our fates are interwoven with the fates of those suffering in West Africa, whether we acknowledge it or not. So, why not USE our interconnections to help those suffering?

I am a spiritual healer, I have spent the last 20 years learning how to send the healing energy of love out to people in need. Remote healing techniques make it easy to send powerful healing love and prayers to people suffering with Ebola on the other side of the world. And as a nurse, I know that NOTHING is more healing than the energy of love and compassion.

I need your help with this. Can you join me in creating a healing web of love and prayers for West Africa? You don’t need to be a healer or know anything about energy or spiritual healing. You don’t even need to leave your home!

Simply join me by phone, and I will guide you through a simple process for offering love and healing light energy to those suffering with Ebola on the other side of the world.

We are all connected. Why not use our connections to help those suffering with Ebola? Let’s shine the healing light of love on this epidemic. 

Web of Love for West Africa

Sunday October 19, 2014
2:oo PM Mountain

Love and Ebola: Web of Love #2

Saturday October 25, 2014
1:oo PM Mountain

You can be part of this healing web of love via phone or internet connection. Please send an email to me at: nancy@nancylankston.com if you’d like to participate. I will send you simple instructions for joining this event.

The power of this Web of Love increases exponentially
with every person who participates.

I hope you can join me.