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Confronting rape as a weapon of war

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Confronting rape as a weapon of war

Posted by Elisabeth.Roesch on March 8th, 2011

Margot Wallström (center) meets with aid agency representatives in Washington, DC.

Photo: The IRC

Today, International Women’s Day, Elisabeth Roesch writes about Margot Wallström’s recent meeting with aid agencies including the International Rescue Commiitee.  Wallström is the UN’s first ever Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, tasked with leading the UN’s efforts to mobilize the international community to address sexual violence.

Margot Wallström’s open style, hands-on attitude and good sense of humor are refreshing for one of the most powerful women in the United Nations.  Not to mention, critically important tools for someone whose job is to confront one of the toughest and most important challenges of our time: rape in conflict.

Over the last decade, the world has woken up and been moved to action by the horrific violence that women and girls often face on an almost daily basis in countries torn apart by strife and war.  Wallström, a former Swedish politician, media executive and member of the European Commission, is the leader for this action.  Appointed by the U.N. Secretary General as his Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict a little over a year ago, she is tasked with mobilizing the international community to respond to sexual violence with the same seriousness and commitment used to respond to any other threat to our world’s peace and security.  

Wallström is outspoken about her belief that sexual violence is a criminal act – often a war crime – and that perpetrators should not be allowed to walk free.  Proof of her seriousness has been her relentless advocacy to bring some of the worst offenders to justice.  Callixte Mbarushimana, for example, is a leader of one of the main rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  Accused of raping women and girls, he was recently brought to justice for his crimes. He and other offenders can thank Wallström’s practice of “naming and shaming” for a portion of the international attention they have received.  Yet recently Wallström met with aid agencies including the IRC in Washington, D.C., and she was candid about the challenges she faces in working toward her primary goal of ending impunity.

Wallström’s office, though growing, remains small.  Having recently received generous support from the US government, she now has the ability to expand her team to 9 people.  But her list of priority countries is almost as long as the size of her staff – Colombia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR), Cote d’Ivoire, Sudan and Liberia.  With less than a year left in her term, she will need to engage where she can have the most impact.  While sexual violence in the DRC receives much attention, it will take fierce determination to shine a spotlight on its neighbor, CAR.   The situation in CAR has long suffered from neglect even though the violence committed against women and girls there is equally grave.  And in Ivory Coast, where a disputed election endangers a fragile peace, Wallström is one of the few voices speaking out to condemn the attacks on women and girls that have been reported in recent months.  There, a critical opportunity to prevent violence is being missed.  Can one person reverse the tide?

On my most optimistic days, I see Wallström as one leader in a growing movement of people that realize women’s security is important for international security or, to quote the famous words of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, recognize that “women’s rights are human rights”.  When a more cynical mood overtakes me, I wonder if world leaders have opened their eyes to the atrocities being committed against women in places like Sudan or Congo only to close them again as the same scenario plays out in other countries.  It is easier to recognize a problem when it is bounded by the borders of a far-off war-torn nation.  Far more difficult is waking up to the fact that violence against women and girls is global in scope, vast in scale and requires not a discrete intervention but a wholesale change in the way we respond to the needs of women and girls affected by conflict.  My hope is that Wallström can leverage her time with the UN to catapult the international community to the next stage in confronting this violence. This would mean not only bringing perpetrators to justice but also changing the widespread practice of allowing the basic human rights of women and girls to be violated in silence. 

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about three goals that I think are critical to this fight.

Confronting rape as a weapon of war (Part 2)

Posted by Elisabeth.Roesch on March 9th, 2011

Over the last decade, the world has woken up and been moved to action by the horrific violence that women and girls often face on an almost daily basis in countries torn apart by strife and war

Photo courtesy Kevin Sites

Yesterday I wrote about Margot Wallström’s recent meeting with aid agencies including the International Rescue Committee. Wallström is the UN’s first ever Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, tasked with leading the UN’s efforts to mobilize the international community to address sexual violence.

Today I’d like to share the three goals that I think are critical to the fight not only to end sexual violence but also to extend basic human rights to women and girls all over the world:  

• Ensure that no survivor of sexual violence goes without lifesaving care and assistance.  Standards for the prevention of and response to gender-based violence in humanitarian settings exist but are ignored.  Wallström could change this by working with UN agencies to strengthen their ability to assist women and girls in conflict zones.
• Give rise to women’s voices.  Women need to have a say in the way that wars are resolved and peace is built.   Women’s conception of justice for crimes of sexual violence often goes beyond the prosecution of individual cases.  Many women want to live without fearing for their safety and have their power and abilities recognized.  Meaningful justice requires embracing a larger vision and supporting women’s leadership across social, economic and political spheres.
• Stop the denial.    Believe it or not, not everyone is convinced that the UN, UN peacekeepers, other international organizations and government ministries have a role in addressing sexual violence.  UN member states routinely ask for “proof” that violence is occurring and drag their feet in responding.  The IRC has supported tens of thousands of survivors of sexual violence over the past decade (40,000 in the DRC alone).  In almost every conflict in which we intervene, women and girls are at risk. And yet the question arises again and again – is this violence really happening? Wallström must call out such comments for what they are: simple denial.  This must be a fundamental part of her campaign to end impunity.  Impunity is more than a perpetrator going free, it is also the inaction of leaders who have the capacity to respond but refuse to believe there is a problem.

International Women’s Day: Miles to Walk, in the US and Across the Seas « SpeakEasy

International Women’s Day: Miles to Walk, in the US and Across the Seas « SpeakEasy.

Posted by Ms. Foundation for Women at 11:15 am
March 8, 2011

International Women’s Day: Miles to Walk, in the US and Across the Seas

 

This post originally appeared on the Ms. Foundation for Women’s Igniting Change blog.

2011 marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day – a day for the celebration of women worldwide. In 25 nations (including China, Afghanistan, Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam and Zambia), the day has become a national holiday, a time not only to cheer for women’s advances, but also to reflect upon the many global inequalities women still face.

We honor this day in the United States, too, and stand in solidarity with our sisters who are struggling to surmount injustice around the globe. But here at the Ms. Foundation, we know we must do more than look outward at the failures and fault-lines of equality beyond our borders. Today, this entire Women’s History Month, and throughout the year, we must take a hard look at our own country’s shortcomings. While we pride ourselves on our global leadership and our national ideals, there is no doubt that the US falls hideously short.

Of course, we need not look far. Whether it’s Representative Chris Smith’s (R-NJ) attempt to redefine rape and set the women’s movement – and our entire country – back decades, or Congressional attempts to defund Planned Parenthood and other Title X providers, it is clear that women’s reproductive rights and health are under blatant attack. But even before the Right’s most recent assault on women’s lives, the status of women’s health in the US has lagged far behind. Did you know, for example, that over the last 20 years, deaths from pregnancy and childbirth in the United States have doubled? And need we remind you that this is taking place in a nation that spends more than any other country in the world on health care?

And then there’s Wisconsin. While the battle over collective bargaining rights and unions is not being framed by mainstream media as a “woman’s issue,” it more than surely [E1] is. Women make up a majority of public sector workers at the state and local level – they also make up 56 per cent of the “working poor” and are most likely, alongside people of color, to benefit from union membership. As such, our friends at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research point out, women and their families stand to lose the most if workers’ rights in Wisconsin and elsewhere are dismantled. In a time of ongoing economic crisis in which women continue to lose jobs, this is an especially frightening prospect.

The current US political and economic climate alone makes women’s fate seem especially grim. But this should not obscure the fact that women have long experienced the disproportionate impact of harmful policies and gender discrimination. No matter the decade, if you’re a woman here in the US you’re more likely than a man to be poor, to earn minimum or below minimum wage, to pay more for health insurance…and the list goes on. This while only a small percentage of us are at policymaking tables where decisions are made that directly impact our lives.

And how do we compare to the rest of the world? Global statistics tell a striking story of just how poorly the US performs when it comes to promoting women’s well-being. Among 42 countries with “high human development” levels, the US currently ranks 37th — in the bottom five of such countries — in terms of gender equality according to the United Nations’ 2010 Human Development Report [pdf]. The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index [pdf], which analyzes rates of economic opportunity and participation, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment to compile its ratings, puts the US in 19th place globally. That means women in America fare worse, by some measures, than our sisters in nations like Sri Lanka, South Africa and the Philippines, not to mention much of Western Europe and all of Scandinavia.

The bad news continues. The US currently ranks last among the 11 industrialized nations who are members of the Group of 10 in terms of both infant and maternal mortality rates. Our current gender wage gap of 19 cents places the US 64th [pdf] in the world. And we rank 73rd in terms of women’s political leadership, falling behind nations like Rwanda, Uganda and Pakistan, and tying with Bosnia.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter what list you turn to, or how you spin the data: check any of the published rankings of global inequality from a gendered perspective and nowhere will you see the US ranked in the top ten of nations closing the gender gap. Nowhere.

Shocking? Disappointing? Certainly — yet if you understand the realities of daily life for most women in this country, the reason we maintain our embarrassingly low rankings, year after year, is disturbingly self-evident. Just ask the nearly 150 social justice organizations we support – groups led by and for women who, either through personal experience or through the lives of their members, come face to face with this unjust reality every day. They, better than anyone else, understand how urgent the need for change is.

Across the country, our grantees are fighting to win progressive changes that women in every corner of the world should be able to call their own. In Colorado, West Virginia, and other statehouses nationwide, they are fighting for reproductive justice, and against regressive measures that devalue women’s lives. In Wisconsin, Indiana and elsewhere, they are standing on the front lines to defend the right to collective bargaining now under attack. In Arizona, in Kentucky, and in Washington, DC, they’re taking on unjust immigration policies that disproportionately impact women and families. And at every level, whether city, state or federal, they’re fighting to ensure that women’s perspectives, and women leaders, are included at policymaking tables where key decision about our nation’s future are being made.

So, today, as the world pauses to celebrate the achievements of women worldwide, we honor our remarkable grantees. They, some of our country’s most treasured social justice trailblazers, are exemplary models of the kind of change-makers we should all aspire to be. We believe in their voices. We believe in their vision. We believe in their power to promote women’s well-being and create the just and inclusive democracy our nation was meant to be.

On this 100th International Women’s Day, we stand with all women and girls — down the street and around the world — to cheer our wins and inspire us all to further action. We have come a long way… but we’ve got miles to walk, here in America and across the seas.

Anika Rahman
President & CEO
Ms. Foundation for Women

The Ms. Foundation for Women builds women's collective power to ignite change across the United States. Visit us at: ms.foundation.org

Demand Fair Reporting on Health and Supplements

Demand Unbiased Reporting on Health and Supplements » Dear Stephanie, When it comes to studies that affect our health, we need objective research and trustworthy results. But a recent Institute of Medicine report says few people are vitamin D deficient, despite concerns from dozens of studies from respected experts in the field. What should we believe? Tell Congress to appoint a new -- and unbiased -- scientific panel to review vitamin D » Doctors have advised taking vitamin D for everything from heart disease and cancer to autoimmune disease. Now we're hearing a different story from the Institute of Medicine's Food and Nutrition board, which included a panelist who works as an adviser in the pharmaceutical industry. We want an honest answer on whether or not we need more vitamin D. Tell Congress to appoint a new scientific panel to review vitamin D and investigate the IOM's report » Thanks for taking action, Natasha Care2 Campaign Team

Take action link: http://www.care2.com/go/z/e/AgBdG/zK_f/BSeg0

Brave Palestinian-American Woman v.s. Coward Israeli Soldiers

Changes

by William Herbert on Monday, January 31, 2011 at 10:44am

The troubles that result from change can never touch the true self at all. All the changes around you in your life are for that illusionary world of body and mind.

As changes and flaws in earth and water, fire and air, do not affect the element ether which pervades and transcends them all.

Similarly all the worldly affairs will have no bearing on you, when you divert your mind and place that in that power of true self.

– Sri Ramana Maharshi.

 

William Herbert The boat moves in the river, but water should never enter it.

Though one lives in the world, the world should not occupy one’s mind. ----Sri Ramana Maharshi.

 

Rather profound thoughts that sometimes seem all but impossible to embrace in the midst of storms raging around us . . but, nonetheless, bear serious consideration./sd

Women of Egypt

Women of Egypt.

For everyone who has been asking where the women of Egypt are! I´m trying to compile all the photos with Egyptian women in them.

A homage to all those women out there fighting, and whose voices and faces are hidden from the public eye!

p.s. few of these photos were compiled by me, the rest were sent by people from all over after I published the album! I´m so grateful for everyone who is sending me photos and links, tagging me..etc.

p.s. 2 I´m trying to confirm that all of these photos are from Egypt, if I publish any by mistake, forgive me! All revolutions are one in the end!

If you have photos of women during the Egyptian revolution, please send me a link, or a message! The album seems to be picking up quite fast! Let´s pay these women and the people of Egypt the tribute they deserve for inspiring all of us!

Women of Egypt by Leil-Zahra Mortada

Imagine A Woman In Love With Herself

“Imagine a woman who believes it is right and good she is woman.
A woman who honors her experience and tells her stories.
Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life.

Imagine a woman who has acknowledged the past’s influence on the present.
A woman who has walked through her past.
Who has healed into the present.

Imagine a woman in love with her own body.
A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is.
Who celebrates her body’s rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource.

Imagine a woman who embraces her sexuality as her own.
A woman who delights in pleasuring herself.
Who experiences her erotic sensations without shame or guilt.

Imagine a woman who honors the body of Goddess in her changing body.
A woman who celebrates the accumulation of her years and her wisdom.
Who refuses to use her precious life-energy disguising the changes in her body and life.

Imagine a woman who has access to the full range of human emotion.
A woman who expresses her feelings clearly and directly.
Who allows them to pass through her as gracefully as a breath.

Imagine a woman who tells the truth.
A woman who trusts her experience of the world and expresses it.
Who refuses to defer to the thoughts, perceptions, and responses of others.

Imagine a woman who follows her creative impulses.
A woman who produces original creations.
Who refuses to color inside someone else’s lines.

Imagine a woman who names her own gods.
A woman who imagines the divine in her image and likeness.
Who designs a personal spirituality to inform her daily life.

Imagine a woman who refuses to surrender to gods, gurus, and higher powers.
A woman who has descended into her own inner life.
Who asserts her will in harmony with its impulses and instincts.

Imagine a woman who is interested in her own life.
A woman who embraces her life as teacher, healer, and challenger.
Who is grateful for the ordinary moments of beauty and grace.

Imagine a woman who authors her own life.
A woman who trusts her inner sense of what is right for her.
Who refuses to twist her life out of shape to meet the expectations of others.

Imagine a woman who participates in her own life.
A woman who meets each challenge with creativity.
Who takes action on her own behalf with clarity and strength.

Imagine a woman who has crafted a fully formed solitude.
A woman who is available to herself.
Who chooses friends and lovers with the capacity to respect her solitude.

Imagine a woman who refuses to diminish her life so others will feel better.
A woman who brings the fullness of her years, experience, and wisdom into each relationship.
Who expects others to be challenged and blessed by her presence in their lives.

Imagine a woman who assumes equality in her relationships.
A woman who no longer believes she is inferior to men and in need of their salvation.
Who has taken her rightful place beside them in the human community.

Imagine a woman who refuses to use her precious life-energy managing crisis and conflict.
A woman whose relationships deepen in satisfaction and contentment without depleting her.
Who chooses friends and lovers with the necessary skills to navigate through the challenges of life.

Imagine a woman who values the women in her life.
A woman who sits in circles of women.
Who is reminded of the truth about herself when she forgets.

Imagine a woman who has relinquished the desire for intellectual safety and approval.
A woman who makes a powerful statement with every word she speaks, every action she takes.
Who asserts to herself the right to reorder the world.

Imagine a woman who has grown in knowledge and love of herself.
A woman who has vowed faithfulness to her own life and capacities.
Who remains loyal to herself. Regardless.

Imagine yourself as this woman.”

Patricia Lynn Reilly

Help Us Rally for Girls' Sports on Capitol Hill

Support Legislation to Help Girls Be More Physically Active! Urge your Members of Congress to co-sponsor and support these bills. Dear Stephanie, On February 2nd, we will be Rallying for Girls’ Sports on Capitol Hill as part of National Girls and Women in Sports Day! Even if you are not on the Hill with us, add your voice to the rally cry to ensure that girls and women have access to physical fitness opportunities and that parents and students can obtain important gender equity information about their schools’ sports programs. Ask your Members of Congress to support the High School Athletics Accountability Act and the High School Sports Information Collection Act. These two bills would require high schools to report information, broken down by gender, on sports participation and expenditures. Schools are already collecting this information but do not make it public. By making this data publicly available, schools, parents, and students will be able to evaluate their athletics programs to make sure that they are treating boys and girls equally. Sincerely, Neena Chaudhry Senior Counsel National Women's Law Center P.S. Concerned about Title IX issues in your school? Our guide, Check It Out, will walk you through a series of easy-to-answer questions that can help answer the larger question of whether the athletic program at your school treats both male and female students fairly.       Share This     Spread the Word   Please forward this email to your friends, family, and co-workers and encourage them to sign up to receive the NWLC Update in their own inboxes.   Check Your Subscription   Are you getting the emails from NWLC that most interest you? Please take a moment to update your subscription preferences.

Did someone forward you this email? Sign up to receive future NWLC e-mails >> View this email on the web >> Privacy Policy >> Unsubscribe >> ® Copyright 2010 National Women’s Law Center 11 Dupont Circle, NW, # 800 Washington, DC 20036 ( phone ) 202. 588. 5180

WOMEN FOR WOMEN INTERNATIONAL: ‘Join the Bridge’ campaign

 

 

 

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Or-41SlRRw

 

LINKS FOR YOU TO USE

www.womenforwomen.org/bridge

www.facebook.com/womenforwomenuk

www.youtube.com/user/womenforwomenuk

Women for Women International asks that you please take five minutes to complete the petition found at this link:   http://www.womenforwomen.org/bridge/sign-the-pledge.php.

 

We understand that not everyone who wants to come to this event will be able to attend. Therefore we are arranging a virtual bridge in which people will be able to upload the photos to show their support for the bridge campaign. This will be accessible via the website before March 8^th.

Warning - When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple By Jenny Joseph | The Red Hat Sociey

 

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple

with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired

and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

and run my stick along the public railings

and make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

and pick the flowers in other people's gardens

and learn to spit.

 

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

and eat three pounds of sausages at a go

or only bread and pickles for a week

and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.

 

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

and pay our rent and not swear in the street

and set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

 

source:   http://labyrinth_3.tripod.com/page59.html

 

The Red Hat Society

The Red Hat Society began as a result of a few women deciding to greet middle age with verve, humor, and elan. We believe silliness is the comedy relief of life, and, since we are all in it together, we might as well join red-gloved hands and go for the gusto together. Underneath the frivolity, we share a bond of affection, forged by common life experiences and a genuine enthusiasm for wherever life takes us next.

Women of a certain age wearing red hats and purple outfits! Could world domination be far behind?!

How it started

"The Red Hat Society began as a result of a few women deciding to greet middle age with verve, humor and elan. We believe silliness is the comedy relief of life, and since we are all in it together, we might as well join red-gloved hands and go for the gusto together. Underneath the frivolity, we share a bond of affection, forged by common life experiences and a genuine enthusiasm for wherever life takes us next."

- Sue Ellen Cooper, Queen Mother

Photo taken in November 2001
(Top row, left to right) Pat Judson, Jane Farrington, Jeanne McLeod

(Middle row) Mary Ellen Lamparter, Cheryl Hertel, Polly McLaughlin, Sandy Santillan, Sue Davis, Sherry Friend, Maureen Burton, Marcia Harline, Vicki Raudabaugh, Susan Powers, Marie Rowden

(Bottom row) Chris Carroll, Carol Sibley, "EQM" Sue Ellen Cooper

While visiting a friend in Tucson several years ago, Sue Ellen impulsively bought a bright red fedora at a thrift shop, for no other reason than that it was cheap and, she thought, quite dashing. A year or two later she read the poem "Warning" by Jenny Joseph, which depicts an older woman in purple clothing with a red hat. Sue Ellen felt an immediate kinship with Ms. Joseph. She decided that her birthday gift to her dear friend, Linda Murphy, would be a vintage red hat and a copy of the poem. She has always enjoyed whimsical decorating ideas, so she thought the hat would look nice hanging on a hook next to the framed poem. Linda got so much enjoyment out of the hat and the poem that Sue Ellen gave the same gift to another friend, then another, then another.

One day it occurred to these friends that they were becoming a sort of "Red Hat Society" and that perhaps they should go out to tea... in full regalia. They decided they would find purple dresses which didn't go with their red hats to complete the poem's image.

The tea was a smashing success.

Soon, each of them thought of another woman or two she wanted to include, and they bought more red hats. Their group swelled to 18, and they began to encourage other interested people to start their own chapters (18 women don't fit well around a tea table). One of their members passed along the idea to a friend of hers in Florida, and their first "sibling" group was born.

Sue Ellen's fondest hope is that these societies will proliferate far and wide. We have now held three successful Red Hat Society conventions entire hotels filled with women of a certain age wearing red hats and purple outfits! Could world domination be far behind?

source:  http://www.redhatsociety.com/aboutus/howitstarted.html

 

Soulshaping

Soulshaping.

APOLOGIES TO THE DIVINE FEMININE...

by  Jeff Brown

(from a Warrior in Transition)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XljZf0CVbgY

 

I apologize for my inability to distinguish the benevolent warrior from the heartless warrior, a reflection of my own confusion dealing with the battlefields of yore. When I opened my heart too wide, I was vulnerable to attack from warring factions. I was conditioned to believe that I had to stay rigid, focused, prepared for any eventuality, in the desire to protect myself and others from attack. But I went too far, and closed too tight, and eradicated the bridge between our hearts. I am seeing this now and I am sorry.

I apologize for my perpetual absence, a reflection of my own inner absence, my inability to connect from a heart jammed tight by unresolved emotions that I did not have the tools to work through. I still lack many of these tools, but I am open to their emergence.

I apologize for my inability to distinguish relationship from war. Like a warrior in enemy territory, I would sneak in and out of your life in the night, plundering and selfishly taking what I needed, then crawling back to the other side of the abyss with the spoils. I gave little back for fear that I would become vulnerable to attack. I had war on the brain and I could not see the river of love waiting on the other side of the battlefield. I now recognize that love is the antidote for the armoured warrior, but I could not drink the antidote in my driven state.

I apologize for not seeing you, my eyes blinded by congealed rage and unshed tears. If it is any consolation, and I imagine it is not, I could not see myself either. I saw only that which served my hyper-vigilance, my warrior focus. My mirror was a battlefield.

I apologize for my ungrounded materialism, my power driven tyrannies, my obsession with accumulation. Somehow I imagined that accumulation would protect me and those close to me, but I failed to recognize that it just perpetuated the madness. I also apologize for my egoic abuses, a reflection of my own misguided ego, pumped up to deal with an inherently competitive world. I couldn’t distinguish the healthy, confident ego from the cocky, unhealthy ego. I went much too far in the wrong direction.

I apologize for a sexuality that was objectifying and disconnected from the heart. I know you longed for real intimacy, a merging of our souls along the heart-genital highway. But there were too many defences around my heart, and no bridge could form between our souls. There were moments when your loving ways freed me from my body masks, but I had no template to stand in that heart-fire. I am sorry for this, for I know that the path you longed for was the path to God.

I apologize for my horrifying acts of violence, a reflection of my own congealed rage, my own inability to distinguish real enemies from friends. There are no words that can undo what I have done in those moments of madness. I know this, I do. I would hide my face in shame, but that won’t make things better. I need to own my misdeeds, and then find a way to believe in my capacity to move from a more loving place. I call out to other male warriors to be accountable for the actions of our gender, not in a way that is self-hating, but in a way that is courageously self-honest and genuinely compassionate. The heartfelt warrior acknowledges the error of his ways, and has the courage to do all he can to make amends over time.

I apologize for my inability to develop a conscious relationship. You were right there with your beautiful heart on your sleeve but I was too attached to my individualism and afraid of this unknown terrain. I know the forests, the marketplace and the ways of the outer world so well, but my inner geography is foreign to me. You called me to a place I was ill-prepared to go, although I sensed, below the surface of my bravado, that you called me home.

I am grateful for your willingness to believe that who I was in those rare moments of vulnerability was the real me. You were right- the real me lives inside of my heart- but a few moments now and then was the most I could handle. I saw you as dangerous, for in your presence I began to taste a surrendered way of being. Nonetheless, your faith in my goodness kept me going through many a battle, and restored my faith in life when I most needed it. You were the light at the end of a barbaric tunnel, and I am blessed.

I am grateful that you stuck with me through thick and thin, and I also understand those times you had to give up and let go. I now recognize that there is meaningful difference between a love-ship and a relationship. Love alone is not enough. Without a shared willingness to become conscious, there can only be frustration. I was so often impossible, clinging to my unconsciousness like a soldier clings to his weapons. I recognize the courage it took for you to keep your heart open in the presence of my resistance. You had every right to seek an authentic relationship, as your spirit was ignited in its presence. Your beautiful heart had every right to be met in its openness and willingness. I am grateful for the time you gave me, a moments respite from the hiding places I mistakenly called home.

I am grateful for Grandmother, for no one saw my tenderness more clearly. I am grateful for Mother, for choosing to bring me into being and for nourishing my body until I could find my feet. I am grateful for Mother Earth, for grounding my expansion and enlivening my spirit. I am grateful for the Divine Mother, the real Mother of us all. I now feel her divine presence, so close. Fiercely compassionate, she was always right here, breathing life into me, holding me safe. I sit in her lap as she breathes me.

I look forward to the day when the only thing that ignites relationship is two souls calling out to one another, two soul-hearts beating in the same direction, a whisper of longing that bridges one essence to another. I want to want you not because it gratifies my ego, not because you are outwardly beautiful, but because your very presence invites my Godself out of hiding. I want to touch you with my heart on my sleeve, to know chemistry between us that is not gender identified, but that is essence sourced, loves liquid lava flowing from the heart to the genitals to the great beyond. In this love-struck world, relationship will always be experienced as spiritual practice, a devotional expression of our God-self.

 

I had always believed that sensitivity is impossible to hold to in a harsh world. Yet in this moment, I feel sensitive, but without the fragility. I am still wearing armor but there is a shift in the direction of my intensity. I can linger in the heart-space a little longer than I once could, I am softening in places. After so many lifetimes with weapon in hand, a tenderling warrior is being birthed in the core of my being. He is confused, but he intuitively knows that this is the way home.

Please don’t give up on me or my fellow warriors. Forgive us our misdeeds, or, at the least, be open to the possibility that we will change as the trail expands to meet our shifting intentionality. The day will come when our warrior spirit loses its harsh edge, and comes into alignment with benevolent action. Some of us are already there, and many more of us will follow. The road to transformation is dependent on a bridge between genders, a benevolent bridge that celebrates our differences with respect and kindness. That work must begin with healing the rifts along the gender continuum, working hard to heal the collective heart until one day we can stand on a bridge across forever, hands held together, hearts open and alight, embracing the sacred masculine and divine feminine living at the heart of us all. I will meet you there.

May you feel the love of the Divine Mother crashing down on your heartfelt shores, graciously lifting you up above the madness of the world, nestling you in the grateful arms of those you have nurtured. Those of us who have received your blessings may not always acknowledge it, but your acts of love have landed within us, growing us stronger and infusing us with love’s light. Thank you.

© Jeff Brown, 2010 (www.soulshaping.com)