Quotes and Thoughts and Leadings, maybe

I love those moments when I open my mouth and wisdom comes out, when I say things I never knew that I...knew.  Then I hear my truth and recognize it.  So, do you want Mom in your life?  Because you just taught both of us that if we want her, we accept her the way she is, and we love her just the way she is.  We are never going to get a different kind of Mommy.  Just as I can't have a do-over with my kids, although I desperately wish I could. 

I was thinking about my youngest.  Her eldest sibling is pushing her, and I thought, what if she works in the winery for the rest of her life?  She likes it there, and they treat their employees very fairly - like family.  What if she has a baby, eventually settles down and has another and a family and she never goes to school.  It is good enough, and in fact it is good.  It would be a good life.

I do understand regret though, and living a big life, or failing to live a big life.  I have turned my back on opportunity, because I was afraid.  Not afraid, but afraid that I was unworthy.  I love to sing Make You Feel my Love, by Bob Dylan.  It is a lullaby for my younger grandson - who now yells if I try to sing it, because he is conditioned to fall asleep when I sing it.  There's a line:  The storms are raging on the rolling sea, and on the highway of regret...Those words grabbed me by the heart the first time I heard them, and continue to affect me everytime I hear them.

 I had an interesting day yesterday, also.  It was International Women's Day, which is celebrated almost everywhere but here.  It started here, though, as part of the fight for women's rights.  But we don't even know that the rest of the world is celebrating womanhood.  

I had a distressing conversation with a female medical professional from Italy.  I learned that 1,200 Italian women were murdered by the men in their lives last year.  We figured that was about four women every day.  Many more are raped and beaten and abused.  And I was still thinking about the rape victims in Islamic culture who must be disposed of to save a family's honor, and the children who are raped in Africa to cure men of AIDS and those who are attacked just because they are there, and the shame-rapes in Eastern Europe...where rape was a weapon of war.

Then I read this quote...

All women are one. There is only One Woman on the planet. Each time a woman has this realization she becomes powerful beyond her wildest dreams. The fears that have been the divisive illusions of the female experience fall away in the remembering of our Oneness. There is nothing to compete for. All women, young and old, are the embodiment of the Goddess. All are Love.     -Shannon Port

And I saw this:

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”  -Audre Lorde


And I remembered.  When I was a teen, I could recite this poem.  It always meant so much to me.

No Man Is An Island

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

 

-John Donne

 

And all I can think is that we have to stop this.  This hidden war on women and children, which is destroying our men.  It has to stop.  There has to be a peaceful revolution of courage and witness.

 

Yet I spend so much time being afraid.  When will my outrage be more powerful than my conditioned cowardice?  That is when I will know what to do.

Today is a beautiful day to go spend time with the horses.  I will have my grandbabies later this afternoon.  They always bring joy with them!

Love and joy and peace and hugs from Clare