I wrote this yesterday for International Women’s Day (March 8th, 2022) to honour the beauty and strength of the women in my life and all women everywhere.
Like many of you, this year's Int'l Women's Day feels especially heavy to me when I think of all the women the globe over who are living in appalling circumstances under oppressive regimes. I am sick and tired of the ways that patriarchy, capitalism and the war machine wreak havoc causing untold burdens and sorrows in the lives of women and children and good men too.
I can’t escape the images of Syrian mother’s holding malnourished children in their arms as they near death. Or the anguished look of a Ukrainian mother torn between her aged parent and her own kids needs as they struggle to escape the violence in Ukraine. And women on the continents no one talks about in western media--African women, Asian women, Indian Women, South American women-- as they try to eke out their own existences in the midst of climate crises and pandemic.
I bow to them all in their struggle.
I celebrate their victories and their joys.
I honour them in their sorrows.
I acknowledge the common humanity we share.
Women have endured and suffered so much and have tried to and continue to try to make beauty and peace and love manifest in their own little worlds. I honour the goodness of women’s nurturing spirits. I honour the many bodies, faces and lives that women wear as they try to make sense of the world under the controlling oppressors of capitalism/communism/patriarchy and the offspring of these—climate change and war and destruction.
Breathing in, I acknowledge the difficulties women of the world endure.
Breathing out I hold space for improved conditions for the lives of all beings of this blessed Earth.
May the abiding power of the sacred feminine be awakened in the hearts of all so as to soften that which has hardened in the hearts of some very powerful men which makes hatred and great harm possible.
May this softening be the pathway to peace and love for all beings.
Wishing you eyes of wonder and hearts of courage and healing.
Thank you to my 16 yr old daughter Clara MacCormack for sharing her gorgeous drawing with me and you.
Thanks for reading,
Jill