OnLine With Zoe

New Favorite Book - The Means of Reproduction

I first read about The Means of Reproduction at RHRealityCHeck.org in an interview of Michelle Goldberg by Mandy Van Deven. I ordered it immediately and had to wait for it to arrive on April 4. This book is landing in our march toward reproductive intelligence, liberty and health at precisely the right moment. While social justice is unfolding; the backlash is mounting, gasping its last breaths, this book is rich with vision and understanding.

American women need to understand the reach of their influence, their dollars and their personal religion. There are places in the world where pregnancy and childbirth can be punishment, torture and deadly, US policies are contributing through policies and funding certain programs, unfunding others, gag orders and relinquishing responsibility to religious organizations.
Michelle explains all of this and more, making it clear how decisions in Washington DC or a neighborhood clinic end up practiced in Africa or India with no understanding of the cultural consequences.

The Means of Reproduction is brilliant, responsible and approachable. I highly recommend it. Finally a book that makes it clear that American women, with all our freedom, need to commit to provide women world-wide with comprehensive birth control information and methods.  
 
You can find Michelle on Facebook too.

Coming out on a very thin edge

One of my great friends, Everett, told me that everyday we come out in another way.  Of course you can choose to not come out, to stay cloaked and hidden, but you are the only one who suffers because you are the only one who will not see ~ as no one else is looking!  :-) seriously ~ that is one of the great secrets of the world ~ no one else is looking.  However overcoming that illusion is known as Self-Discovery.

In 1982 I left social activism and political embroilment for full-time, full-throttle spiritual practice.  I took it very seriously, as is my way.  Reading, practice, study consumed my life.  There was a time, too long of a time it seemed, that I thought public spiritual practice and teaching would be my path.  I wrote a book, Matri, Letters from the Mother ,in 1996, believing it was going to be my calling card to the world of teaching self-discovery through devotion to the Divine Mother.  I love that little book and I do believe it was divinely inspired.  I did not get any lasting traction with that book.  Three women, in Denver, Vermont and Connecticut have ordered it by the dozens, but other than that - it is just a little "sweet cake,"  known as prasad in India.  I think of it often and when asked the better questions, they are answered in Matri.

In March,2006 I asked the Mother for something, as is my way; Explicit service to the Divine Mother in working to advance American women.  I asked for just one little nod from the universe every day that this was a proper request and in balance with my destiny.  I suppose the expression, DUCK AND COVER, would be appropriate: an email, nine emails, a booking for a talk, book orders, eventually travel and finally an election.  It was an avalanche.  I guess it was the right request.

One habit that has continued through all of my phases is going to movies on Friday.  It is my two hour, weekly vacation.  Yesterday I saw The Darjeeling Limited.  I knew going in that it was about three brothers taking a train through India - and what's to say about Adrien Brody and Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman? - hey, need a weird old aunt?  I am available. 

The scene in India opens with a business man running to catch the train.  There he was, one of the most influential people in my life ~ Larry Darrell.  He was standing on the tracks, missing the train in fact.  I have no idea if anyone else thinks so - but I KNOW SO.  It was Larry Darrell from Lake Forest,Illinois. I was very young when I first read his story, The Razor's Edge, by Somerset Maugham.  I fell in love with Larry and wanted to be his beloved fiance, Isabel.  In Paris, he asked her to marry him, travel, read, dance, and live on his stipend of $3,000 a year, a king's ransom at the time.  She said no; not enough money, not enough prestige, not enough advancement, simply not enough for that girl from Lake Forest, Illinois.  I would have said yes. 

Then one day (on the redundant road to Damascus) it occurred to me that I did not want to be Isabel at all.  I wanted to be Larry.  I wanted to live in Paris on 3K a year, read, dance, eat cheese & bread, and go to India.  I had Larry's curiosity, his intensity, his longing.  I was nothing like Isabel.  You would be right to think it was another marker on the road to becoming an activist for gender equality. 

And so in some odd way, I became Larry Darrell, from Lake Forest, Illinois.  I got to spend all those years in practice and study.  He went to India and met his teacher, some think it was Ramana Maharshi.  I met Rama and spent 11 years as his student, chronicled in The Passionate Heart. 

After leaving, I spent years reading spiritual books, watching spiritual movies, meditating and then, like Larry after circumnabulating Arunachala, I left the hermitage of my little private life.  Larry went on to be a cab driver, as last reported, and I found my destiny in the American Women's Movement. 

Upon departure from India, Larry asked his Guru if it is easier to be a holy man on the top of a mountain.  Larry's teacher told him to be cautious that the path to Enlightenment is like a Razor's Edge.  Maybe I should drive a cab, as today the American Women's Movement makes a razor's edge look shiny and wide.

Great Book, Sista!

Deborah Siegel must be reading my blogs (in my dreams).  She has written THE book I have been looking for about the Second and Third Waves of American feminism; the ideas, the women, the politics inside and out, and, most insightfully, their relationship to one another.  This book is never fluffy, never stuffy, never sloppy, never arrogant, never a put-down, never a let-down.  Okay, I got carried away with the "nevers," but I am excited about this book.  This woman really did her homework and captured the WAVES.

Sisterhood, Interrupted ~ from Radical Women to GRRLS Gone Wild is divided into Mothers and Daughters with a Conclusion.  That would not have been my choice, as I prefer "sisters in the family of feminists" as the Mother and Daughter relationship is fraught with too many problems but it works for her and her book.  With one my very large feet in each Wave, I love both sections, in fact I never stopped grinning and cheering through the entire book.

SECOND WAVE ~ Bunnies, Steinem, stewardesses, classified ads, AH and for the brains of the operation - Millett.  Our Millett ~ messing with Mailer and Miller ~ that was fun.  The cover of Time and Sexual Politics predicted exponential success.  For those of you who were not in the movement then, the big failures had not ruined the parade (yet).  "Sisterhood was proving itself not merely contagious, but powerful." At this point the parade was just thrilling with something for everyone.  Sex - we were all talking (and doing) sex.  Lets teach it, lets make it safe, lets make it fun, lets do it naturally ~ Take off the heels, the bras, the crowns, the artifice and get to school, study, get a job, make money, get credit, buy a house and get me my orgasm.  Oh you girls ~ lets coalesce and knock 'em out.  We wrote, we got published, we opened bookstores, we met and talked and it was wicked good fun because it was working. 

And, if you were in the thick of things, you recall, instead of moving the circle out, we turned to the middle and got lost wanting to be right, to be understood, to be uniform (looks ridiculous now - doesn't it?).  You should do this or that, you should be this or that.  You should be pure - with the personal and the political; one in the same.  Chapter 3, The Battle of Betty.  She needs and deserves an entire chapter, tho the play on Peoria was too much for me.  If you want to understand Feminism of the Twentieth Century, you have to know the evolution of Betty and Siegel captures it entirely.  The Feminine Mystique has been so pivotal, it is renamed, reformed and refashioned, (see The Feminine Mistake).   And if you are old enough, you know what the term "Lavender Menace" can do to a room of feminists.  As Rita Mae Brown said, "Lesbian is the one word that can cause the Executive Committee [of NOW] a collective heart attack."  Oh those were the days!

On to the Third Wave and, oops, my older sisters seemed to have lost their sense of humor somewhere between Barbie and blame.  "To this brazen new wave of reclaimers, the feminist cult of victimology was the new evil."  These smart, educated, liberated younger sisters proclaimed that the personal was no longer political - personal is F'ING PERSONAL!  Marches, classes, politics won the right to wear lipstick and heels and NO MEANS NO.  Oh, oh, and they don't like the f-word.  Man, that's gotta hurt.

It seems to me that all of the conversation about how we don't need feminism anymore is that the Third Wave doesn't know how big the dreams were that the Second Wave had in mind.  The Second Wave rode a gigantic tsunami of the '60s.  The Third Wave, "grew up in the cynical 1970s, came of age in the conservative 1980s and came to activism under Clinton which may have felt less hopeful than their foremothers about their ability to effect lasting outside change." 

All in all, I love this book.  I love Siegel's work.  There were points I don't agree with (BTW - the ERA's deadline was 06/30/82) but this is exactly what I WANT - I want us to see that we are not the enemy and we can disagree and still get on with it.  I want it all.  I want the parade to include Steinem's legs, Dwokin's overall's, the academy and workers in the field, the moms and child-free, Bust & Bitch, glam and safe, walking, running, competing, marching, voting, teaching, laughing.  GREEN LIGHT is my motto.  Green Light them all.

Here is my favorite from the book ~ "... members of the younger generation who think they are rebelling are instead treading well-worn ground and that older women don't recognize their own progeny.  The Result is nothing short of tragic: Instead of making tidal waves together, we splash about in separate pools." (emphasis mine)

A Terrific Weekend

Last weekend was just so wonderful I have to write about it.  A group of women invited me to speak about being an activist and my book, The Hungry Heart.  As if that wasn't enough, they asked me to spend a couple of days leading them through a cafe-style process to harvest their values, ideas and possible futures as activists. 

Lately I have been making a tasty stew of The Servant as Leader by Robert Greenleaf, Leadership and the New Science by Margaret Wheatley, Affirmative Inquiry by David Cooperrider and The World Cafe by Juanita Brown.  It seemed the right time to take this process out for a spin.  What good are beliefs if they aren't put to the test? 

I sent questions ahead for the explicit purpose of answering them both in advance and alone.

1. List, in order of importance, 5 issues you feel feminism is facing today.
2. What 2 or 3 things would you like to see feminist organizations offer women today?
3. Do you have a vision about the advancement of women in the US?  How can you make it happen?
4. What unique understanding do you have that should be shared?

A room covered in Post-its, bottles of water, a few computers, vibrating text messages, coffee with cookies and a kitty practicing yoga ~ now that is my idea of a party.  I brought with me a box of blank matchbooks (bought on eBay) and Sharpie pens so they could write a vision statement that fits on the cover as Winston Churchill recommended.  I had considered asking them to bring a roll of quarters and every time they mentioned any moment in the past, they would have to put a quarter in a jar but I thought it might have been too hokey.  They adopted the intention and made every effort to only address the present and future ~ without the fines. 

The outcome was all that the process promised.  Agreements surfaced.  Visions came into focus.  Intentions became honed and polished.  These four books, measured and mixed, have completely revolutionized my thinking, my hopes, my expectations.  Change is organic and natural.  Thwarting it is lonely and lacks oxygen. 

Buy some Post-its and Sharpies.  Start with a blank sheet of paper.  Ask the real questions.  Talk about what matters.  Fix the problems that are in front of you.  Have a terrific weekend.    

Dreaming of Teaching

   For some unknown reason I have woken up for two consecutive mornings dreaming of teaching completely developed, intricate and enticing classes.  Deep in my soul I believe that I was born to teach religious studies and philosophy to young people, maybe I just keep incarnating during times like the Spanish Inquisition when teaching religion has not been a "healthy" or secure profession.   

     Friday I woke up pouring over the curriculum for Cross-Cultural Beliefs.  This class studies the evolution of beliefs which unfold in countries and on continents.  For example in India, it begins will Bon, leads to Vedanta, Hinduism and Islam with an examination of what happened during the British occupation and missions of Christianity.  The course examines how beliefs actually transform within a culture; what caused the change, why was the previously held system open to change, did the growing complexity and diversity make life better?  During the dream I was planning a week on the genesis of Australian beliefs, closing with a showing of Weir's The Last Wave about the white man's world clashing with the Aboriginals. 

     Today I woke up planning a course, The Examined Life and the Etiquette of Curiosity.  The stated commitment was that no conclusions would be made in class.  The point being that interrogation does not require action or that interrogation is the action.  The class was not to lead the students to a certain choice or belief (such a when does life being) but rather to make it clear that to not ask is the true lapse of conscience.  Like my first teaching job, this was a class of all boys.  We began each day reading the local paper together, landing on a particular story to really analyze.  I suppose head-butting would be on the burner for this week.

     In both of these classes, chairs were arranged in a circle.  That is something I did in 1971, having read the fascinating work of Edward T. Hall; The Hidden Dimension and The Silent Language.  Today such things are revolutionary with dialog circles and cafes.  But I think that ultimately we are all just trying to replace the extended family dinner table or the tribal counsel where conversations were the center of leadership, camaraderie, information and learning.

     I have no idea why I have such dreams.  They are my primary and life-long recurring ones.  No matter the interpretation, the fact is that I grieve every day that schools are not teaching such classes.  I sat in front of my TV last night wondering who are the people of Hamas and Hezbollah.  What is in their hearts?  Would I be one of them if I lived there?   How is it that their god requires killing and dying.  Will their culture become more deeply rooted in this vengeful idol or will death finally break so many hearts that their god will transform into an angel of comfort.  I don't know.  I just don't know. 

What then must we do?

Tonight I ate my current favorite dinner; pretzels dipped in peanut butter with a side of diet orange soda.  I am sure that you either think it sounds yummy or utterly ghastly.  I fell asleep on the couch with the cats to CNN and woke up to Anderson Cooper and his two hour special with Angelina Jolie. 

How can this be?  This litany of human suffering?  Fourteen million refugees wandering the earth.  Famine, malnutrition and water poisoned with human waste.  Boys and girls, one orphaned every 14 seconds from AIDS.  Girls and women raped for days on end and finally guns fired within them.  Why do we have such words as fistula or acronyms like FGM?  Peace prizes and UN Peace Keeping Forces and a Peace Department and Peace Day.  Even that cannot be agreed upon ~ the US will not join the UN and almost 100 countries in designating September 21 as International Peace Day. 

Today I went to the nursery and bought ponies of impatiens to plant around the yard.  I bought poster board to make signs.  I ordered rented furniture.  These are all for the Feminist Cafe that I am holding in my yard next Saturday.  I bought coffee and paper cups.  I bought sugar and equal ~ all for the Feminist Cafe.

Angelina must hear some tremendous calling.  For me, I never stop hearing, "What then must we do?"  Upon seeing the poor, Jesus is asked, "What then must we do?"  I believe that first we have to be honest about what we can do - what is with my reach, my gifts, my strengths?  What is my vision, my longing, my heart?  I am lucky that I am certain of my calling, I need only look at my life and where I live. 

No matter my shame over the government, my horror over the corporate agenda, my pacifist beliefs a tiny whisper in the violence, I am American.  I am called to ask American women to ascend to their power.  I am called to ask older women to empower younger ones.  I am called to ignite the confidence of young women.  Most days I keep my evangelizing to myself as I know it sounds preachy and then it just breaks through, because I am a preacher, a teacher, a speaker, a spiritual activist. 

If women became empowered in every country except the US, it would leave the richest, the most violent, most powerful country on earth, (currently ranking 69th in women in leadership) in the hands of oppressive, immoral, militaristic leadership defined almost entirely without female impact.  The opposite is actually more than I can hold in my imagination.  What would the world be like if the US was first in the world in women in leadership?  Would the relief funds for Darfur, which Congress voted for, be undelivered?  Would we be spending unparalleled human resources on corporate wars?  Would hundreds of thousands of the poor be dismissed in the Astrodome?  Would there even be such a place as Abu Gharib?

I feel my spirit is being called to talk with American women, to tell them to seize power, to take their hearts and good will to the world.  I am ready now.  I am daunted only by the obstacles, real and imagined, ~ no group, no audience, no fame, no fortune.  I have only a heart on fire about the oppression of women.  I simply find myself calling on powerful women to take up their proper mantle of leadership, to bring more women to power by building their own infrastructure with women, vote for women, vote for issues that guarantee women's autonomy, above all VOTE, (women here died so you can vote).

So I went to the store today to buy plants and coffee and signs.  I have invited women to my garden to talk about feminism.  That is what I know how to do.  And as the last page of my book The Passionate Heart states,

As I learned the ways of a Buddhist ~ from student to monk to teacher ~ bigger and brighter worlds opened up to me.  As the horror of life on earth, with all of its violence and anger, became more apparent, my Teacher was encouraging me to find the worlds of liberation.  Each moment spent in meditation illuminated the way.  Ten years ago I wrote a letter and insisted that he give me the Blueprints.  "He had something that was mine by necessity.  He had something I had earned by wanting it so badly."  Now that I have them how will I tell the others?       

  This is what I know.  This is who I am.

Dr Thurman blew my mind.

Did you ever go somewhere and leave so utterly surprised your mind is swimming?  How can I even get it down on paper and blog?  I know libraries are not usually the place for personal transformation but you got your fun and I got mine.

My close friend got tickets to hear Dr. Robert Thurman at the Newport Public Library.  His topic was "The Spirituality of True Capitalism (Generosity = Prosperity).  Just in case you don't know much about Robert Thurman ~ An international authority on world religions and spirituality, Asian history, philosophy and Tibetan Buddhism, Robert Thurman is an eloquent teacher of the relevance of Eastern knowledge and ideas to our daily lives. The first Westerner to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk, he is a leading voice of reason, peace and compassion for these turbulent times.  In fact, I have all of his books and had a hard time deciding which one to bring to be signed.

His talk was smart, academic, funny and oddly specific.  As you can guess he was talking to some of the wealthiest people on his lecture circuit.  He explained that wealth brings with it a karmic duty.  The wealthy are called to a life of generosity.  A rich birth and incarnation is an invitation to care for the poor and giving it away responsibly sets in motion a new birth of prosperity. 

He explained that Buddhism is a system of knowledge and science.  Of course, he talked about the brilliant mind of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  He told stories about the Buddha and his relationship with the merchant class.  He talked about Bill Gates, Melinda Gates and philanthropy.  And he was very forthcoming (in the middle of the OC!) about the country and the leadership being out of balance. 

Finally he accepted questions.  One man asked about his life as a monk in Tibet.  Thurman told us how his teacher knew he would not always be a monk. Eventually he left the monastery and re-entered the life of a layman.  He married, has 5 children and 5 grandchildren.  The next question was about his children.  Thurman shared stories about how they keep him humble and centered. 

And then a man in the front row asked him, "What do you think is the state of Enlightenment in the world?"  Dr. Thurman walked over to him and said it is not very good.  "You can see it in the fact that the ERA failed."  He continued, "The advancement of the country and the world depends on women."  He mentioned how interesting it is that the highest divorce rate in the US is among Christian Fundamentalists where "women are reaching up to break out of the patriarchy."  He went on to say that men will not lead the world forward; it will be women and the question is will women stand up and take it on.   

I must have been dreaming.