confusion broken affirmations healing

peoples telling me watch out its heavy here come twenty twelve its end is nigh

i heard this back in the year ten eighteen a comet omen in the sky

i been around long time, but only just got born came down in yesterdays acid rain

did not save the planet did not help a whale use a lot of pesticides on  my brain

sometimes compost walk not drive many times buy good stuff wrapped cellophane

maybe some days did not could not care not seems real what difference me trash wreck

the planet all the people toxic mind, not got energy even green who really give a feck

recycled packaging on catwalk watch me walk the plank and drown in disgusting hell

polluted aitch two oh I don't really like being out in nature wild places am an empty shell

out of all my tidy tiny moments in the great big history of the universe big bang bad

to stamp around with great big carbon footprints live in factory dump fucking mad

now you telling me it's a consciousness not tuned in to reiki vibe chakra healing power

meditate now to save the world and human evolution 777 souls saved in darkest hour

so fucking tired, so brutally addicted, fearful, watch the radio listen to the tv make movie

about tsunami towers come crashing down god did angels did it apocalypse is groovy

yeah i don't give a shit I only do today tomorrow buy it from convenience store consume

that's how i was raised now you think i gonna earn karma points ya effin merchant of  doom

i wanna see the end i want stand in middle of total awfully chaos get obliterated life suck

anyhow I am sick and ill with all the cliches and the poison in my body and the earth fuck

it's not my home and always get told how to live what to buy now not to buy what's right

walk dont walk run get on bandwagon get real gia theory barefoot bloody stephen hawking

no they telling me it aint just the eco issue its tune into vibrational healing chanting not talking

confusion bloody apathy indifference is what i am i dont feel anything i want it blown apart

stockpile weapons dried foods learn survival skills stand in front of oh christ great tidal wave

crashing in on you when it comes then it's over not stupid tired bored and cynical not brave

who is better than that who's better than you who gets redemptions who's got a safety token

already i been around for all time but feel like i just got here don't know nothing already broken

(eva day)

WHAT TO WRITE ON PEOPLE'S WALLS

Community and our relationship with others in our immediate and global environments will be a key theme of this blog.  I have posted this take on the world of social networking, to focus on how it can be both a positive resource and also, of course, a disconnected one....


WRITING ON THE WALL

there's not a lot left to say about the meaning of walls these days, is there? not after pink floyd
and all the poets and authors who've used walls as symbols of sanctuary or as isolation to avoid
having to deal with the complications of people and all their messy bloody human: stuff.
oh they say concerned, rejected, maybe fussing: i can't get through.  when you've had enough:

so then I just think but  how the hell can i describe the strange architecture I design
how to feel less blocked, more whole, make a place that's a meeting point, and truly mine?
it's not real its virtual,  superficial:  do walls have faces? yes,  a polite and neat facade -
come  write on my wall paste and copy hearts and hollow hugs and some meaingless charade.
look at my profile, this is me, I always look good from the right angle,  if the light falls well
but today i don't have likes and comments dont want pokes feel fake like an empty shell.

now you will think me harsh, my space not fun, or fb and  twitter friendly: social screwball
are you alienated by the blankness of my page today,  pictures of barbed wire on my wall?
and though you never really talk to me, I'm in your collection: we went to the same school
and yesterday, last week, sometime on news feed i was not like this but friendly, cool
maybe you might not want to leave the cheerful goofy comments or update me with a tweet.
some people will facebook friend  you but then ignore you passing by in the street.

I wonder why I feel so pointless, really bored and irritated, don't want to paste and copy,
feel like writing weird graffiti on my wall and making bad response to anything that's soppy.
if twelve people made me smile this week then i'm really bloody lucky and honestly I'm glad -
but I don't want to get these pasted chain messages they make me feel lonely and more sad.
if I want to tell you something special I'll find images, words more personal to share
I don't want to use the same standardised, latest, mass-produced slogan posted everywhere:
then i think, i'm just a bastard, a social aberration if i don't send it forward,  it's unkind.
I do enjoy the networking, and the upbeat stuff, but sometimes a wall's to hide behind.

god damn it today I'm grim and surly and i don't get the point that fb's not for "ugly raw."
I wish that we could connect more: see, feel each other  as people, I want to make a door.
but even then, sometimes I would have to close and lock it. use a sign "not to be disturbed"
god damn it, as you read this, either you get it or by now you're switched off and feel perturbed?

the tough reality though is that I'm ill and stuck at home, and if you are too you'll understand:
more and differently than anyone healthy, active, the isolation in fukkin nowhere land
and how the anchor and the lifeline of the computer and the link with others
often is a vital point of contact, your community, yet how at other times it smothers,
making us feel trapped, frustrated, urgently yearning to be in the world and real
and wanting to be more than words and pictures on a screen: to think, exchange, feel..

and when you're sick and sore and in four walls and behind the walls of internet
you might be wanting living presence, touch, the many strokes and signals we don't get
and so our moods and our reactions get distorted, unhinged and confused
we send out invitations to friends to people we don't know or previously refused.
we forget to answer messages, or we write them in a panic, frantic without reflection
we wonder why someone does not respond on chat, we inflict or suffer on-line rejection
or if we get really messed, missing normal life, we have posting frenzies or suddenly disappear.
did you ever sit at home, fekked up, and staring at your screen in weird shut down and fear?

 we do odd things like removing half our contacts list, in a way that seems quite cold and clinical,
or write intense outpourings telling general acquaintances that we love them: do I sound cynical?
 I'm not you know, I feel, care, breathe, laugh, hurt, enjoy, as we all do and yet feel remote, strange
but my god however alienated it can seem at times, I would go mad without this this laptop inter- exchange

(eva day)

A CELEBRATION OF THREE GODDESSES: LILITH

Lilith is known variously, according to orgins of local myth and spiritual tradition, either as a Demoness (Hebrew and Judaic Myth and Folklore) or as The First Human (also Judaic and in other branches or judaic folklore) and in that incarnation, mortal rather than divine.  Also known as a Goddess, and mother of Eve and subsequently Adam.  And so: Wild Mother of Humanity. 

Variously, we might relate to Lilith in many forms of manifesting.   Probably most familiar in her dark and corrupt form (traditional patriarchal view, perhaps, but may also serve women and men in our understanding of our shadow side and potential for fearsome and primal passion.) She has become increasingly, in this sense and in the spirit of freedom she represents, a symbol of feminist liberation. She can also be understood as human, rather than divine, or in some stories, is the first being and so our primary origin and a metaphor for early matriarchal societies: in other stories she was made alongside and at the same time as Adam, and so can represent equality and duality.  Later stories told her as having been born from Adam, which seems a bit silly to me.....   excuse my moment of levity, but as some myths changed and were altered to reflect the increasing domination of patriarchy over time, it seems that the men could not quite bear to leave the women with anything that was sacred to them: not even childbirth.....   Oh well, guys, Lilith is also to be admired as being the kind of woman who has really kept up with the changing times: very current, and you can have a lot of fun and adventure with her, too....   but you gotta respect her... or it gets heavy!  xx eva

LILITH THE DARKNESS SHINES WITH BEAUTY

in the night of the beginning there was darkness, a stillness almost solid a deep presence unseen

and Lilith breathed creating space within her and around; from Nut The Black Sky, emerged a Queen

an impulse born from the egg of an owl and a serpent who had conjoined in astral joyous dance

ancestress  of all those dangerous women, who turn mens heart to stone with the she devil glance

so the legends of the night of fear of superstition deny your granddaughters their blood line of glory

but never silenced, Lady Lilith comes in dreams, to girls, with wild passion, to sing her lusty story

they say she visits men too, compels them to masturbate, spill fertile seed when they are sleeping,

the shameful fantasies that monks had in their chaste cells were the nocturnal curse of Lilith creeping

out from the forests and the wilderness beyond the tamed garden of the book of laws and fathers rule

she who dances naked in the deserts and the unchartered land she is seductress, rebel, danger, cruel

these are the stories that separated women's heaven from earth:where rests a fox? a bird? nature's child?

what rhythms move you to aband the well-guarded territories of the known to leap joyful, spirit free, wild? 

the daughter of eve has no place to rest her head, she must make a nest inside an ancient sycamore

Lilith is not bound by time, nor civil obligation, politeness, she is wonder, bliss, mistress of sacred lore

she  will dance freely, naked, in the moonlight, she declares she will not marry, nor will she conform

she is the shocking illumination of uncertainty and possibility, the lightning in the fearful storm

Mother of Adam, GrandMother of Eve, sacred, shaped from soil and water, infused with fire and wind

she is the prophetess of freedom, she is not the victim of those who blame her when they have sinned

Lilith is She who blesses beauty, liberation, passion, the birthright of your daring and your muse of power

the snake that devours itself, swallows your body, sacramental Witch, Demoness,  her tongue her flower

a Maiden who laughs in exhilaration, mother who births your transitions in her breast, crone who will deliver

all her children, in the thread of Fates, back to the earth to ashes and to dust, blessed life taker death giver

She is Alpha, Omega, her solitude is poetry her loneliness your union when she enters, bliss:

Come to me Lilith cries the hot blood exile from the safer Garden, heal me with your kiss.

 (eva day)

This for me is just one personal moment of an approach or relationship to Lilith and her archetype.....  she is many shades and moods and an experience rather than a static presence.  I first discovered Lilith when I was in my early twenties, and amongst other traditions, was exploring The Kabbala and attending a weakly study and meditation group in that tradition.  A  major focus for this, of course, was the Kabbalistic Tree of Life  (or Qabbalistic.)     Lilith  is associated with "Da-at! on the Tree.  Da-at is The Void: the dark or deep place, the abyss which must be entered or traversed, in order to journey further into spiritual growth.  It may be full of fear, or a sense of deep loss, or not-knowing; it's gift is power (of creativity, of spirit, of courage and compassion) and vision. 
Lilith to me as a young woman, with a young child at the time, was a story of Grandmother of us all and mother of Eve - and a sense of female tradition of boldness and ownership of self.  (Rather than women's lives and bodies being owned by a patriarchal culture.)

None of this is to imply war between the genders, or a stereo type of a kind of stroppy female resentment.  Lilith can be equally harsh or benevolent to either sex: what she does require of us as that we meet ourselves in oour rawest form: sensuality, lust, laughter, wildness, fear and courage, sexual energy and the urge to pro-create and create.... she doesn't take a lot of ..... bullshit. 

To meet Lilith - whether you be male or female - I think you have to get past a lot of social niceties,  civilised conditioning and assumptions about human behaviour and our relationship to nature, to the life force and the divine: and just open to the energy and ecstasy, to desire and urge and the physicality of our creative processes.
(eva day)

eva day

After much frustration, I chose the John Collier painting of Lilith, as so many other images were sexualised in a rather commercial / commodity style, making her look a bit like a pole dancer, which was not the point at all!! Like a lot of Victorian Romantic art, again this is a very idealised image and slightly too "nice."  But it works in other ways, as she is very self-contained, in her whole manner and posture.  She is not referring to or engaged with anyone else, neither man nor woman, except the snake (sacred female symbol of wisdom, mystery and propesy, as well as sensual and sexual power.)  She is in a moment of self-love and being with her own nature.

Here is an image for the Tree of Life

 

Lilith is featured as first on my list of "Women of Inspiration" in an earlier post (trilogy of articles on outstanding women through history.) There, I featured her very briefly - leaving reader to do their own discovering - in her human form as "first woman" - free and bold.

I like the folk tales in which she leaves the tamed garden and refuses to return, and rejcts marriage to Adam.  On closing this trilogy of Goddesses, I find myelf thinking: we need to keep telling our stories:

women, men, children, alll of us story-tellers: not just our own stories, but the stories of one another, of those we seek to understand and have compassion for and of all people. Each of our individual stories reflects something of our collective story.

all good wishes, eva day

Three Goddesses - a Triad of Celebration. Blessing of Saraswati.

The Blessing of Saraswati

(Hindu Goddess of wisdom, learning, arts, culture and intellect.)

so often, saraswati, images for the intellect  cut through our perception with a sharp blade;

here I meet not a fierce warrior woman but a calm and gentle friend in a peaceful glade.

I approach seeking pearls of wisdom, the sound of your sweet music, the language of soul,

called me and your promise is one of inspiration, heal the broken mind and  make me whole.

saraswati did I invoke you, or did you bring me into being, awake me from a dull and lonely trance

call me out from my  darker mood of frustrated mind, invite me to celebrate the graceful dance

of poetry, and the abstract, of ideas and fascination, of learhning and your gift of reflective insight

to play, to ask, to be curious, to seek to understand and to discover. read me scripture, read me prose

of rhythm and of divine and human truth; teach me reason, logic, sing me the truth that kindly flows

like a hopeful river of appreciation, harmony and refreshment, carry me to companionship and discourse

with others who, like me, love to walk in worlds of  knowledge, art and beauty, sail the river to its source

I was alone saraswati, my dreams were follow of sorrow and of feeling lost, my thoughts confused and bleak

bring me softly with your intelligence and perception to the rich new worlds, the friendships that I seek

and I will tell stories for you saraswati, bring others to your garden, give offerings of the verses and the song

 of the joy of meeting, for the artists, the musicians, the students, writers, teachers who know that they belong

in many worlds, in togetherness in the journey of the path of consciousness, through shadow or through light

Oh saraswati when we gather together or we sit quiet in a private space, to muse, to create, it is you whom we invite.

show us how to listen to our hearts and to take you deep inside our contemplation,  be our teacher,  guide and mentor

hold us in your arms, in your name may we be craftsman, philosopher, sculptor, dancer, actor, songmaker, inventor.

to you we dedicate the work we shape, the play we celebrate, the instruments and tools of our devotions and the care

we bring to practising our arts and skills, and may we respect this gift: not for ourselves alone, but to generously share.

(eva day)

Reflecting on what Saraswati means to me, I related to her as a friend,  at a time when I have felt a great flow of creative energy and readiness to learn, to write, dream, discover, and to connect with others to share inspiration - yet at the same time, a sense of isolation and frustration.  Saraswati may well know that some of this frustration is born of real isolation, during a period of prolonged illness, and of the frustration of feeling the creative spark, yet wrestling with a mind and concentration often fragmented by symptoms and medication.  Saraswati's music is a peaceful calming tonic to soothe these struggles, and clear the sould to create and share.... I ask her to bring me closer to others for sharing.

I would be interested to hear which Muses, Magical Spirits, Goddesses or other Mythological or Symbolic beings light your creative life.....

She holds the pearls which symbolise Knowledge and Leanring, and The Vedic Scriptures - Sacred texts.

Three Goddesses - a triad of celebrations. Brigit.

(some of my more creative writing goes on my other "Cloud Kooky Land" Blog - but this, I wanted to offer here, as for me it is from a place of hope and healing in weaving into our lives the metaphors and guiding spirits for the values we hold most dear).

Beating the Bounds with Brigit.

walking the boundaries of the familiar place, adventures in my bones, going home, i sing

of the  wise poet and the healer,  the skilled blacksmith whose benevolent gifts I bring.

welded words I forged from the boldness and the uncertainties of my journeys, and the calm

of returning home, into the embrace of family, friends, safety, the  gentle healing balm

for the tired spirit,  dispensed by kind Brigit of the Flame, who brings protection, rest

and is with me in my glad returning, in the rhythm of my daily life, in my traveller's quest.

home and hearth and the fire of family, community and belonging: a sense of safety, ease.

with the intricate craft of the blacksmith, from this fire, the Bright One made me sacred keys

which would unlock the closed and frozen places of inspiration stilted, in my spirit and mind.  

and when in this I was afraid and vulnerable, she gave her protection to me and all humankind,

for those who will invoke and honour her: and meet her with intelligence, drink from her wells:

keep the eternal and sacred flames of inspiration burning in the heart, learn her healing spells.

she will guide you in adventure and in retreat or sanctuary, surround you, lead you by the hand

ask Brigatta's blessing in your villages, parishes and farms, on fences, hedges, walls: but understand

they are the peripheries of wise caution, security; do not make human barriers of enmity and strife.

go to hills and high places, raise your arms, your vision,  invite Brigit's loving kindness into your life.

(eva day)

(Notes:  "Beating the Bounds" was an ancient practice in Britain and elsewhere, in which local people would walk the parameters of a parish, farm, or village, and beat with a stick the most important marking points of the boundaries, along with prayers and rituals for safety and well-being.

Brigit, or Brigatta, is a Celtic Goddess.  Sometimes associated with the Warrior Goddess arechetype, and with war and victory.  Here invoked in her most importan aspect, as Protector, Emlightened One, Bringer of Wisdom and Intelligence: poet, healer and blacksmith.  Brigit was known as The Bright or Eternal Flame, associated with the hearth fire, home, and also sacred wells and hills and high places. In some myths, she had a face beautiful on one side, ugly on the other.  Very sacred and loved and honoured by the ancient Celts.)

THERE ARE TWO MORE GODDESSES IN THIS TRIOLOGY, I OFFER.  SARASWATI, HINDU GODDESS OF LEARNING, CULTURE AND THE ARTS, AND LILITH (IN MUCH FOLK LORE, KNOWN AS A DEMONESS, BUT I HAVE CHOSEN TO PRESENT HER IN HER GODDESS FORM, AS BENEFACTRESS OF FREEDOM, AND NATURAL SPIRIT, POWER AND SENSUALITY. I WILL POST EACH SEPARATELY.)

When Brigit is present with her two sisters, she is worshipped as a Triple Goddess. 

She is also possibly the origin of the stories of the later Saint Brigit, or certainly closely associated with her. 

I see the mystery of the our wounding and our healing in the beauty and the ugliness of her face

she brings her suffering, shares in ours, reveals compassion, protects our ground with loving grace

I see the mystery of the our wounding and our healing in the beauty and the ugliness of her face

she brings her suffering, shares in ours, reveals compassion, protects our ground with loving grace.

I wanted to find a good picture of Brigatta with the two aspects of her face shown powerfully...... those I found should two attractive faces - the "uglier one" far too  "prettified" for what I was looking for.  I wonder if someone who is a painter or drawer could come up with an image that resonates my sense of the contrast of pain and suffering, and compassion and healing..... ?
eva day

Meditation video for self -healing and for Japan .....

Japan and the Pacific Basin - sending prayers and healing energy

healing our lives, ourselves and our world, and human community,  is the theme of this blog.  So I wanted to share this beautiful video I found - Four Seasons of Japan. 
Mostly, through illness, I have found it difficult - or impossible - to meditate in any traditional or familiar form.  When I want some of that healing energy, I have sometimes simply sat quietly, listening to calming music, breathing slowly, and looking at pictures or a video of positive images. 

If you wish to do the same, please imagine sending love and healing through your whole being.....   and towards the end, sending it out to Japan and all of the pacific basin.   The pictures in this video are so peaceful and stunning.  The music is soft, gentle.  Credit to the musician and the maker of this video are clearly shown at the beginning and end, with details of where you can order further CDs or videos: my thanks to them for sharing this one on youtube.

eva day, wishing good health to you and hope and renewal for those affected by the earthquake and tsunami.  xx eva

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5clWM2cuU8M


here, I give a couple of links for fundraising and donations, specifically with children in mind: the children of Japan and children affected by other global crisis. 

http://www.unicef.org.uk/UNICEFs-Work/Emergencies/

http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Zynga+Partners+with+Save+Children+Raise+Money+Japan+Earthquake/4427553/story.html

Contemporary Period: Women who Inspire (Part 3 of trilogy of posts)

  I decided to limit this list to 30 contemporary women.  otherwise it will go on and on forever (which it will in real time)....   so now have a challenge. How to choose only six women from between WW1 and WW2 until up to date?   One difficulty is to acknowledge a bit more, those women working directly and primarily for suffrage - both here in UK and worldwide, and for a political voice.  All kudos to New Zealand by the way - and all it's women at the time, for being first to "give" women the vote, as it is generally described. In Europe, Finland got there first.  Perhaps I am a bit touchy of skewed here, but it's always slightly annoyed me that popular summaries on England first steps to franchise for women usually say that they were given the vote in acknowledgement for efforts in WW!.  Ok, did they not do anything for hundreds and thousands of years before that, to deserve it.?  Oh, but I am being snippy!!  Emmeline Pankhurst perhaps made a smart move actually: during WW1 she and other WSPU leaders changed the name of their newspaper from The Suffragette to Britannia and focused away from votes for women and to a very patriotric war drive. Sadly she feel out with daughters Adele and Sylvia over this.  Adele was in Australia and campaigning against the war.  Sylvia wanted to keep the focus on women's franchise, regardless of events unfolding and perhaps she had a bloody good point: there can always be something else more important in the way of such issues, as the women of the French Revolution discovered.  Emmeline also tended to have more liberal-conservative views than her daughter Sylvia (who was more radically socialist and very passionately involved with causes  of working class women.)  Also I could chose Millicent Fawcett, or over the pond, Susan B. Anthony or Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  And many others. 

25) Emmeline Pankhurst.  I chose her in the end, because she was English, and so am I and there is my direct link to the ballot box. Also because she was matriarch of a family of strong, activist women - whether they fell out or not.  And because she shares the same birthday as me: like a sort of Patron Saint of Social Awareness.  I cannot imagine (except in thinking of Hep C treatment)  the reality of hunger striking, which she - not in her youth by this time - and others endured, especially the repeated cycles of it and the health problems and pain they suffered as a result. But they had passion and guts - at the risk of their guts, I suppose.  And the breaking and destruction of property to make a point was pretty radical for a nice middle class Edwardian lady.

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/suffrageengland/p/pankhurst.htm

26.) Anne Frank.   I wanted to chose a woman who did something outstanding during WW2 and again this was a hard choice. One of the many espionage or resistance workers? Tokyo Rose maybe or Edith Cavell?   (Her life and courage still brings tears to my eyes when I re-visit it:  read about her and the different interpretations of the choices and actions she took.... she may have been hugely misunderstood.  I may write a separate article on her, and the different interpretations of her story, at some point.)  Finally I chose Anne Frank, because of the powerful legacy of her diary and because she was not yet a woman but coming to the verge of womanhood and denied the chance to survive, thrive and flourish: yet her voice, innocent and yet mature and wise and thoughtful beyond her years still resonates and is a symbol of the terror and tyranny of war and racism and brutality yet at the same time of hope and loyalty and human bonds.  Everyone who first reads the book (or sees the film) is devastated at the moment when the diary ends abruptly and Anne and her family are ... disappeared: it is a real awakening to the danger of distorted power, and racial hatred gone mad... I think that many young girls who read the book, must wonder what sort of woman Anne would have become; and sense she would have been the person they themselves hope to be.

http://www.annefrank.org.uk/node/14

27)  Aung San Suu Kyii.  "It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it."  Beautiful spirit, strength of a nation, of south-east asia, of a world of inspiration to others fighting for freedom and democracy.  Through 15 years of house arrest and many other trials and battles, she never gave up and always spoke out.  The personal price she paid was huge - separated from her children who were in France, and her husband who died during her period of house arrest.... and when offered freedom if she would just quietly go away and leave the country, she refused. Burmese,  Nobel Peace Prize winner, politician and activist for civil and human rights and democracy.

tp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11749661

28) Virginia Satir.  Psychotherapist, author and Family Therapist.  Her work was recognised as being highly effective in supporting dysinctional or troubled families through conflict and towards well-being, and was the model for much of the later development of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Her book "Peoplemaking" is (I think) a guide of essential guide to being a human being, belonging to any kind of family and understanding what self-esteem is.

http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/satir2.html

29)   Elizabeth Kubler Ross .  Healer, counsellor, psychiatrist, author and teacher.  She helped thousands of people to understand the processes of palliative care, death, bereavement, grief, mourning and insights into the power of prayer and compassion, acceptance and visions of the life of the spirit beyond the death of the body. Her book "On Death and Dying" has been a companion to many facing death and loss.
http://www.healthy.net/scr/interview.aspx?Id=205

28) Waatari Maathi.  Has worked tirelessly in Africa and globally for environmental issues and awareness and many important green projects.  Started a major project of tree planting in communities in the 1970's in Kenya and has continued her efforts since then.  Maathi is a former assistant Minister for the Envrionment in Kenya.  She is  a tireless worker for democracy and civil rights. She attracted controversy some years back, when it was reported that she had allegedly  stated that  Aids and HIV were "deliberately created by Western scientists to decimate the African population." She denied having said this but later in an interview, said:  "I have no idea who created AIDS and whether it is a biological agent or not. But I do know things like that don't come from the moon. I have always thought that it is important to tell people the truth, but I guess there is some truth that must not be too exposed," and when asked what she meant, she continued, "I'm referring to AIDS. I am sure people know where it came from. And I'm quite sure it did not come from the monkeys."   Maathi is the first African woman and the first environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/wangarimaathai/p/wangari_maathai.htm 

  There are so many more women who could have been added to this list, of course - to all the three sections of it, through time, but particularly to this contemporary sections as we have more and fuller records of names and biographies, and as in some countries, women have greater choice and freedom now than through long centuries in the past, therefore we know a few more of them.  As I think about these women, through time, and mark International Women's Day, I am at a place in my own life where I am hoping to regain my strength and ability to be active in the world and have quality of life.  As I speak - I have a relativity democractic and safe country and environment to step out into. I can vote. I have hot water and electric lights and decent sanitation.  I am educated by world standards for women to an amazing degree, having furthermore the resources to continue to self-educate.  I have health care ( let's not discuss the Hep C mess, right here - I have treatment.) I wear what I want and talk to men, women and people of different backgrounds, creeds and political views without undue fear. I have access to contraception and nobody forced me to marry someone I did not want to marry.  Nor did they sell me into enforced prostitution and trade in rape or subject me to sexual mutilation.  I am not afraid that I am likely to be whipped, stoned or beaten with government permission. I know that if I had no food in the cupboard this time next month, I could seek some form of welfare support.  In the bigger global picture (world population)  - I am a priveliged  exception rather than a rule.  One of my intentions for the year ahead is to take some small action or gesture when possible - and to seek to do so - which is about making the small differences that make a difference in the lives of other women and - people generally. Things we can most of us do at least once or twice in a year might include; writing an article, or researching.  Going on a march or protest.  Donating to or helping with fund raising for a significant cause.  Going to the voting station and exercising our own franchise.  Prayer. Writing to Government Ministers /local newspapers/ etc.  Leaving a violent relationship.  Reporting violent abuse. Teaching our daughters and talking with and listening to them.  Starting or joining a community project.  Speaking to the woman - at the school gate / next door / in the waiting room......  and loving ourselves and our friends and family.

live well, love much, laugh often.  eva day. xxx

Women of Inspiration (part Two_

 Inspiring Women From History.   Part two of three.  From 1700s to WW1

13) Mary Woollestonecraft     Journalist, Author, Critic, Philosopher and Feminist. "Vindication of the Rights of Woman" was published in 1792 - a progressive social critique from a radical thinker who believed passionately in education, equality and freedom. When I read about her life and how she rejected the confines of a career as a governess and the many rigid social morales to which she was expected to adhere, I know she had fire in her belly and her heart.  It must have been  liberating when eventually she was offered a position as assistant editor and secretary for a radical magazine at the time - and even more extraordinary to go to France and become involved in events unfolding in the years of the French Revolution.

http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/wollstonecraft.html 

14) Harriet Tubman  This reamrkably courageous and compassionate woman escaped from slavery, took huge physical and life-threatening risks to help others escape and became a fierce and influential abolitionist, human and civil rights activist, public speaker and suffragette.  Read her life story - it will fire your imagination, she was truly brave.

http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/tubm-har.htm

15) Hazrat Babajan.  Born in Northern India (now Pakistan) she was a Muslim Saint and Guru - considered to be a holy person of highest order.  Born around 1806 and died 1931.  I include her on my list because I think it has been so hard - as to be impossible almost- for women to be recognised as major spiritual leaders and teachers in most faiths since matriarchal eras.  I might exclude taoism and buddhism from this though, not completely - but there are so few records, it seems, of the names and actual lives of their great women teachers . Also in the religions of the Children of the Book, as a whole, the actual doctrines themselves would have forbidden women to preach or teach.  So a sort of double bind on them, in that case - if they were truly women of faith, they would not dream of violating their religious code by speaking of spiritual matters.  As ever, there have always been exceptions to the rule - but they had to be truly remarkable.  In England, for example, through the years of Celtic Christianity and Medieval period, we had wonderful Christian Mystics such as Julian of Norwich (yes, female) and  Margery Kempe. But revered or respected though they were - no-one would ever have considered giving them an ecclesiastical title.  Abbess was the best you would hope for. By the way, again, like so many women who achieved remarkable things (including the nuns and abbesses just mentioned) she declined the prospect of marriage from a young age.  For more on the life of Hazrat Babajan:

http://www.shreeswami.org/hazrat-babajan.htm

16) George Eliot  I do love George Eliot, for me Middlemarch is the greatest English novel ever written and I re-read it probably every three years.  Nobody could portray small town life and everyday real characters and their choices, dreams and dilemmas as she did.  With a warm and honest voice. To me, this kind of literature matters enormously for women.  Because good literature may be fictional but always reflects real truths about our lives.  If you read MiddleMarch - you couldn't help but share and feel Dorothea's passion for social reform and her burning desire to have an intellectual life and real ethics and values, whatever the smaller concerns of the dramas unfolding around her.  The portrayal of social and political concerns of rural small town life was insightful and honest.  But George Eliot's  personal life was interesting, too.  Another woman who broke the rules ... born Mary Ann Evans. she chose a masculine name to make it easier to write and publish. She mixed with shockingly radical people in definitely not the best circles and lived with her common law husband outside of matrimony.  Was shunned for this by many friends and family - but I'll bet she felt she lived a full, rich and rewarding life.

http://kirjasto.sci.fi/gelliot.htm

17) Annie Besant.  She was a human and civil rights activist and socialist member of the Fabian Society (along with George Bernard Shaw and many other prominent figures at that time)  Annie Besant as I see her had a very broad view of the real world around her - she fought for causes outside of her own personal sphere of experience with great imagination and insight.  Prominent in fighting for Home Rule for India and for Ireland.  Also for suffrage for women and working classes. She also became President  of the Theosophy Society. In this way she was an important part of creating broader possibilities for religious tolerance and understanding and I find it interesting the way she combined her socialist views with a spiritual life. The link I have given here focuses on her having belonged to the Freemasons, as I find it quite amusing. But read around if you want a broader picture of her work, that's lots of good links on the web.

http://www.droit-humain.org/uk/html/besant.html 

18) George Sand.   Well, I debated hard with myself over this one....   as a novelist she was well-known but probably not one of the most outstanding, as a woman she was a strong person, but not noted for remarkable acts benefiting other women or human kind or womankind generally, and some of her philosophies and personal politics were a bit dodgy. (In my view anyway: though I have tried to make this list so as to be not based on my own political or spiritual views, but on recognising women who made a difference and followed a powerful path in life.)  If I am not sure about her, so why include her, then?  I think  because she made it  more possible for a woman  to be just - odd or eccentric or a maverick without necessarily being carted off to a lunatic asylum.  Though I am sure many women were, and had she not been from a very privileged background, she too might have been.    She was a French baroness (name Amantine but chose masculine name, as did many women writers) who wrote novels, well-received by many, slated by some. Also a journalist. She put aside the typical constraining and modest clothing of female aristocracy (and their manners, too!) in favour of men's attire, which allowed her to move about more freely and go where she pleased and do as she pleased, as she said. We can only imagine now how shocking and immodest a comment that was, or  horribly unfeminine thing to even think. Women weren't supposed to want to do as they pleased or to move freely.  Those who wished to insult her or couldn't deal with this feisty lady, and described her as "loud-mouthed and garrulous." Probably she interrupted men when they were talking and had opinions! She also chewed tobacco and had love affairs with both men and women.  I guess she was the equivalent of what would in later days be termed, in hostile and insulting mood, a dyke, or butch.. Well good for her, I hope she enjoyed herself hugely, and very glad I am that these days I can wear trousers and march about if I want to.

http://kirjasto.sci.fi/gsand.htm

19) Mary Seacole  If you ever want an example of the "just get on with it and do it, whatever the obstacles, I will plough through them" approach - here she is.  Born in Jamaica, and of mixed race, she was actually a British Citizen but at that time her racial heritage gave her only partial but not full civil rights.  She was a grass roots, hands on healer and nurse (of the sort taught by family and those in her West Indian community of course, not through formal training as there was none for women.) She knew hygiene, people, folk and herbal remedies and wanted to nurse and care for soldiers in the Crimean War - having heard of the desperate conditions there. Mary Seacole got herself to England, offered her services as a volunteer to the Home Office and was refused in a bigoted and foolish racist dismissal.  She gathered her life savings, raised some more funds, travelled to the Crimean peninsula and set up a boarding house / hospital.  We have her to thank for a huge legacy contributing to modern knowledge on health and hygiene. I often think that although Pasteur, Koch and others were recognised for advances in hygiene and germ theories, not long after this period - the real ground work had been done by women such as Mary Seacole and Florence Nightingale. Probably saving hundreds and thousands of lives, ultimately.

http://www.btinternet.com/~ardena/mary_seacole.htm

20)  Florence Nightingale.  I am going to include her as I think the advances she made in good hands on health care were extensive, and as she had the courage to step outside her conventional middle class English world and do something she believed in, with tireless dedication.  Also I will add: on the theme of women's contribution to hygiene in health:  this has a long history.  Traditionally, even since medieval times, it was often women who did the actual nursing, once a doctor had visited and made diagnosis (and applied leaches etc!)  Women - very often in nunneries - and monks in monasteries - would do the everyday care.  Hygienic practises were a real part of this - and a lot was known but unfortunately elsewhere in doctors surgeries and hospitals, it was dismissed.

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Nightingale.html

21) Marie Stopes.  Again, a huge contribution to modern health care and particularly for women's health - because of her determined and unflinching work in informing and educating on facts and  methods of family planning and birth control. For a lady to talk about these matters, and as frankly (including sexually and anatomically frankly) as she did was pretty disgraceful.  There was also ethical and religious attitude to contend with and the whole status quo. Doctors and Churchmen condemned her. But her books sold incredibly rapidly - people were crying out for this knowledge.,.... I mean DESPARATELY.  Particularly working class women - literally dying in poverty and squalor, of post-natal or post-abortion infections, exhaustion  and malnutrition from excessive childbirth and complications, and so many associated miseries. Marie Stopes founded the first national birth control clinics. She has been controversial because of some of her expressed views on eugenics. However, in context it should be remembered that this was very much a buzz concept and in vogue at the time and was not necessarily understood in the way we understand it now. George Bernard Shaw and many others were advocates. Marie Stopes did boldly assert that she believed women had the right to knowledge of and control of their own biology and to information and choice, for that I thank her.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wstopes.htm

22) Rebecca West.  Yes one of my favourite bold, bright women!!  Journalist, novelist, essayist,  literary, social and politic critic and feminist and suffragist.  Beautiful, crystal clear, thoughtful prose and observations and gentle - or sharp - humour.  Read her Novel "The Birds Fall Down" - it's superb.  She was made a Dame of the British Empire in recognition for her contributions to journalism and literature.  Another woman with an uncoventional personal life.  Very supportive of other women writers, friends with Anais Nin, and - rather funny - wrote a fairly harsh review of an HG Welles novel, refusing to compromise her literary analysis as a newspaper critic, just because he was her lover and common law husband for a decade.  (I can imagine the conversation over the dinner table - "darling, so sorry, but gave your latest a bit of a bashing, in The Times this week!....")

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rwest.htm

23) Marie Curie.  I won't say a lot, but every time I have had an x-ray I think of her.  She eventually died from leukeumia caused by radiation: she certainly deserves my silent prayer and gratitude. What courage this brilliant woman had, in carrying on her work after the death of her husband and colleague.  She was awarded two Nobel prizes, she taught at The Sorbonne, and raised a daughter who also became a Nobel Prize winning scientist.  Marie Curie  drove ambulances on the front line during WW1 and was head of the Red Cross Radiology department. She supervised and worked hands on with fitting ambulances with x-ray equipment. 

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1903/marie-curie-bio.html 

24) Virginia Woolf. Many many other reasons to add this interesting woman to my list, for novels, essays, journalism and more.  But just on the strength of the book "A Room With a View" she already earned her place.  wonderful. clever, unphased by accepted current world view of women's lives.

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rwest.htm 

THE THIRD AND FINAL POST OF THIS TRILOGY ON INSPIRING WOMEN WILL FOLLOW TOMORROW.  SIX WOMEN FROM WW1 TO PRESENT DATE. 

follow your dreams and passions my friends.  we don't have to be famous or brilliant, what really makes us more whole is that we make our own and someone else's lives a little more whole along the way because we dared to do and to believe....

xx eva day

International Women's Day 2011

To mark International Women's Day, I decided to just make a simple post of acknowledgement to some women from history - whose lives or work have been inspirational to me.  I would have liked to have written a more up to date article on contemporary social issues, globally, for women..... but I acknowledge that post treatment brain fog is still too cloudy for me to focus enough on that.. Many thanks to all the women out there who are working locally, nationally and internationally to improve the lives of women.

I have another blog - more devoted to creative, random and various eclectic themes. I decided to post this on this blog - focusing on healing and choices for creative living - to reflect the concept of healinbg women's lives. Which of course is also about healing men's lives ......

I have added a link, for more intro background on each women..... of course, there will be much more out there should you get more curious...

MY LIST OF WOMEN FROM HISTORY 

 (sorry, not too keen on the word herstory but substitute it mentally if you wish of course!)  Apologies for a fairly Euro-Centric emphasis here - but this list is my personal list and tends to be what I am more familiar with, having grown up here, however I have attempted to at least acknowledge this and extend into other continents to some extent.... 

1. Lilith   Was she really a dreadful demon - or just a bold, free-spirited and independent woman!?

http://www.lilitu.com/lilith/

2. Hypatia.  Lived in Alexandria in around 350BC.  Eminent and brilliant mathetmatician and scholar of philosophy, languages and astronomy.  Formulated several significant mathematical theories, taught students in theories of Plato and Aristolte, influended many other contemporary scholars including Socrates who respected her intellect highly.  My take - most have been a determined woman, to achieve so much in a very male intellectual environment.  Hypatia was respected by many of the lead figures in the growing early Christian communities at the time, though herself a pagan. However - due to a personality and ego clash among factions (actually more so than any religious differences) she was brutally attacked in the street - in her 60's - stripped and beaten and stoned to death.   If there was such a thing as a pagan saint and martyr then - do we nominate her as one?

http://cosmopolis.com/people/hypatia.html

3)  Sappho - yes, Ancient Greece once again, and I chose her for the clarity and elegance and flow of her poetry and the freedom of her love for others and powerful sensual relationship with her own body and the natural world.  (yeah, she was bi-sexual - so what?)

http://www.temple.edu/classics/sappho/index.html

4) Judith.  The Bible stories about her appear to have at least some historical basis.   A leader, Judge, Prophet and Military General - she lead troops into battle and was respected for her wisdom in civil matters.

http://community.history.com/topic/7091

5). Cleopatra.  At first take - this might seem a really obvious choice and easily by-passed.  However, I chose her because she was I think an excellent stateswoman, strategist and politician... As is so often the case, with powerful women,  the immediate impression we have of her, or often portrayed, is based on her feminine life - her lovers, sexuality and marriage, childbirth etc.  However she ruled - and very well - an extraordinally powerful and wealthy country, managed many factions and a great deal of treachery (including murderous members of her own family) and helped unite Old and New Egypt.....

http://www.royalty.nu/Africa/Egypt/Cleopatra.html

6) Boudicca. Queen of the Iceni, who lead her tribe in ancient Britain in resisting the Roman brtually here at that time.  Some of the speeches she gave, of which there is sparse records, seem to have been very stirring... She described herself not only as a Queen prtecting the wealth, territory and interests of her people, but as  (to paraphrase in contemporary English) " an ordinary woman who would fight for her freedom, family and rights - and if the men want to be slaves to the Romans, that's their choice, but I shall not!"

http://www.culture24.org.uk/history+%26+heritage/war+%26+conflict/pre-20th+century+conflict/tra22669

7) Hilda of Whitby.  An Abbess and Christian saint - but actually a stateswoman, diplomat and politician.  Consulted by kings, lords and the Great Important Leaders of the time for her common sense, learning and solution driven approach.  (She presided over several abbeys, including Whitby which was the venue for the very important Synod of Whitby in 7th Century - a sort of bridge building between Celtic and Roman church... )

http://www.women-philosophers.com/Hilda-of-Whitby.html

8) Christine de Pisan.  14th Century - Venezian but spent most of her life in France.   Kown as first woman definitely documented in Europe, to have made her living as a writer.  After the death of her husband - she supported herself and her children in this way.  Emminent and respected teacher and scholar, and respected at court and amongst nobility at time.

http://xenophongroup.com/montjoie/pizan.htm

9)  Artemesia Gentileschi,  Renaissance painter.  I like her for the power and skill of her paintings and for who she was.  Firstly - again, damned hard work, I would imagine, to gain recognition in the male art world at the time.  However she also boldly spoke out publicly against rape.  This really was extraordinary...   she had been raped at a young age (late teens) and instead of agreeing to be the culprit and silenced, and quietly married off to the man - went to court and spoke out, thus inviting huge stigma upon herself.  Some contemporary historians, in critiquing her work, have observed that there appears to be a frequent theme of anger or aggression towards men.  (With the implication this indicates a problem or weakness)   It seems to me entirely appropriate that such a gifted woman, with such a tragic event in early years approaching adulthood, should express this in her art.  I do hope these (yes, mostly male) historians are equally interested in some of the sadist images of women portrayed by males in the name  of art?  (The Rape of the Sabine Women or The Rape of Europa for example were favourite images for males artists for years through classical times - very exciting I am sure?)

http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/baroque/Artemisia-Gentileschi.html

10 ) Amina, Queen of Zazzau (now part of Nigeria) 5th - 6th century.  Muslim Queen and Military leader  (yeah, I do like these warrior queens) - a fierce and skilled fighter, and like our Lizzy 1, refused to marry, placing her rule and government first.  (In the Islam tradition by this time, her power would have been perhaps even more diminished than would Elizabeth's, had she married...   debately of course.)

http://www.blackpresence.co.uk/2010/01/queen-amina-queen-of-zaria/

11) Queen Elizabeth 1st.  I thought hard about whether to include her - in a way doesn't deserve to be NOT on my list!! But like Cleopatra - she is too often associated with the legends and romantic tales around the biology and sexuality of womanhood : yeah maybe she was a virgin or maybe not - I would imagine not - but again  so what!?  More to the point she was clever enough to not hand over her power into matrimony and to even make a wonderful legend of that, stating that she was married to England.  (By the way - if I was her, having a father like Henry - I wouldn't have been too keen on the idea of marriage for personal as well as political reasons,  either. ) So - aside from all of that: she was a highly intelligent and well-educated woman, gifted in languages, ruled directly and was very astute in doing so. (Implies no comment on the morality of any of her decisions.)

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/elizabeth_i_01.shtml

12)) Aphra Benn - English renaissance playwright, very successful in her time, witty and adventurous tales, with strong women and maverick men.  Charles 2 requested a private viewing of one of her plays and she earned good money.  (Sometimes recognised as first recorded Englishwoman to make a living from writing.) 

 http://www.luminarium.org/eightlit/behn/

next post I will keep moving forward through time and mention a few more heroines....   please comment if you want. anyone on this list who resonates for you?  or others?  but NOT yet beyond late 1600's - that's as far as we've got chronologically.  .....   or: who are the women in your personal life who have inspired you?

with love and wishing you good journeying.  eva day.  xx

HERE IS A LINK FOR INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY - 8TH MARCH.  http://www.internationalwomensday.com/   (celebrating it's centenary this year.)