Nancy Lankston
One tree can start a forest,
One bird can herald spring,
One smile can begin a friendship,
One hand can lift a soul,
One star can guide a ship at sea,
One word can frame the goal,
One sunbeam can light a room,
One candle can wipe out darkness,
One laugh can conquer gloom,
One hope can raise our spirits,
One touch can show you care,
One voice can wake up everybody,
One life can make the difference.
Be that one.
-Author Unknown
Image: Old Ponderosa by Nancy L
This. This is how we transform the world…
“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.
Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.
What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take “everyone on Earth” to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.
One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire.
To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both, are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it.
If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do…”
~Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Your Wild Child Wants to Play.
Let Her Out.
❤
Written by Eve Ensler
Performed by Rosario Dawson
My revolution begins in the body
It isn’t waiting anymore
My revolution does not need approval or permission
It happens because it has to happen in each neighborhood, village, city or town
at gatherings of tribes, fellow students, women at the market, on the bus
It may be gradual and soft
It may be spontaneous and loud
It may be happening already
It may be found in your closet, your drawers, your gut, your legs, your multiplying cells
in the naked mouth of taut nipples and overflowing breasts
My revolution is swelling from the insatiable drumming between my legs
My revolution is willing to die for this
My revolution is ready to live big
My revolution is overthrowing the state
Of mind called patriarchy
My revolution will not be choreographed although it begins with a few familiar steps.
My revolution is not violent but it does not shy away from the dangerous edges where fierce displays of resistance tumble into something new
My revolution is in this body
In these hips atrophied by misogyny
In this jaw wired mute by hunger and atrocity
My revolution is
Connection not consumption
Passion not profit
Orgasm not ownership
My revolution is of the earth and will come from her
For her, because of her
It understands that every time we frack or drill
Or burn or violate the layers of her sacredness
we violate the soul of our future
My revolution is not ashamed to press my body down
On her mud floor in front
Banyan, Cypress, Pine, Kalyaan, Oak, Chestnut, Mulberry
Redwood, Sycamore trees
To bow shamelessly to shocking yellow birds and rose blue setting skies, heart exploding purple bouganvillea and aqua sea
My revolution gladly kisses the feet of mothers and nurses and servers and cleaners and nannies
And healers and all who are life and give life
My revolution is on its knees
On my knees to every holy thing
And to those who carry empire-made burdens in and on their heads and backs and
hearts
My revolution demands abandon
Expects the original
Relies on trouble makers, anarchists, poets, shamans, seers, sexual explorers
Tricksters, mystic travelers, tightrope walkers and those who go too far and feel
too much,
My revolution shows up unexpectedly
Its not naïve but believes in miracles
Cannot be categorized targeted branded
Or even located
Offers prophecy not prescription
Is determined by mystery and ecstatic joy
Requires listening
Is not centralized though we all know where we’re going
It happens in stages and all at once
It happens where you live and everywhere
It understands that divisions are diversions
It requires sitting still and staring deep into my eyes
Go ahead
Love.
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