Jimmy Carter Says God Never Called for the Subjugation of Women!

This is an excerpt from a recent article of Jimmy Carter in The Observer. "The carefully selected verses found in the Holy Scriptures to justify the superiority of men owe more to time and place - and the determination of male leaders to hold onto their influence - than eternal truths. Similar biblical excerpts could be found to support the approval of slavery and the timid acquiescence to oppressive rulers. I am also familiar with vivid descriptions in the same Scriptures in which women are revered as pre-eminent leaders. During the years of the early Christian church women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets. It wasn’t until the fourth century that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy. The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions - all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views."

Phenomenal Guests!

Truly blessed to have such talented soulful guests on my new radio show, beginning April 4th at 9am EDT on 92.1 WOMR and 91.3 WFMR! We stream live and our podcast, so you can download our shows.

My first guest is Onyay Pheori of the William Close Earth Harp Collective, of America's Got Talent fame. She is a violinist, vocalist and healer on an amazing journey which has taken her through the amazon to learn with indigenous healers and to places like Machu Pichu to play for the spirits of the land.



April 11th is Larisa Stow, of Larisa Stow and the Shakti Tribe, whom Onyay was with in another musical incarnation, The Gathering Guru...This was the first song I heard them sing back in 2005 or earlier.

Since then, Larisa Stow and the Shakti Tribe have been traveling the world doing music festivals and holding healing retreats in Bali and India. She is an amazing vibrant loving light.

She rocks out as it goes on. If Heart could chant... :)

April 18th we have Joe Kwon of The Avett Brothers, who rocked the Grammy's last year with his rockstar cello playing alongside Bob Dylan and Mumford and Sons.

http://vimeo.com/20567315

I love the fact that passionate, musically-talented, multi-dimensional and unique bands with folks from my generation are mainstream now. It almost amazes me that truly talented folks are being recognized with all of the manufactured bologna being marketing all the time. It gives me faith and hope to see organic people, natural artists, groups and performers who embody the balance of sacred male and female energy. We don't all have to be hollowed-out facsimiles of caricatures of stereotypes anymore. That's just so not us. If people with a global consciousness, who believe love is the face of God, who see the divine within each other, can help support those who have forgotten, to remember that love it at the root of the human experience, we can really transform our planet in miraculous ways. If we can help them remember that love isn't the desecration of the planet or a race to acquire status symbols and leave others in the lurch, that love isn't found in the humiliation or financial, physical or emotional enslavement of others, then the paradigm will continue to shift toward a global good. Living and loving together in absolute faith that we are all reflections of each other and deserve the same things is the only way our souls can find pleasure and meaning on this shared planet. Just as the earth is a living organism, so is humanity and when pain is felt by one, it is felt by all.

Should we depleting the earth of its oil? It's a non-renewable resource, and as part of the earth's cooling system may be integral to a livable climate. The internal earth temperature and the atmospheric temperature are connected. Science suggests that if you cloud seed in one part of the earth, you steal rain from another part of the earth. There is only so much moisture in the earth's atmosphere. You cannot destroy the rainforest and expect global rain fall not to diminish, because trees are part of the water cycle. It is our duty to remind one another of our interconnectedness, our wholeness and the exquisite sustenance that gratitude for our co-creations brings.

The feeling of separateness is not in children, until someone puts it there. Until we mothers, fathers, friends, neighbors, passing strangers and gym teachers collectively put it there in bits and pieces until separateness defines us from others in everything we do. As we choose our children's toys, help them make choices about playdates, and encourage their tastes, aspects of their personalities, and reinforce our concept of what their identity should be, we play huge roles in cultivating their behavior. It seems some parents are still under the impression that their children's expression of masculinity or femininity is 100% biological and not learned...as they excitedly, gleefully and pridefully reveal that their boy or girl narrowly fits into the concept of male or female...'She just ran right to the pink dolls and never wanted anything else.' What, she fell out of the birth canal into the pink aisle of Toys R Us, and scooted over to HappyLandPowerPuffsPrincesses?

Gender assignment is like clockwork, it's telegraphed in everything. And that's just one way in which many of us learn to feel separate. Today, in class I had the students sit boy girl boy girl...which schools don't make them do anymore...since all the liberal hippies and feminists retired...and, the creativity and joy that bloomed as a result blew me away!!! The kids were excited to sit boy girl boy girl, and the librarian helping me after I made this suggestion, she's a veteran...said, "What girl wants to sit next to Christopher?" All the girls jumped up and down hands raised. "Now, by a show of hands, what boys want to sit next to Allison?" All the boys jumped up and down raising their hands. It was like they were birds set free from a cage of societal conditioning. Kinda makes me wanna sit 'boy girl'. Now, I'm seeing things from a new perspective. We may experiment with patterns from now on, instead of a fast rule. Mix it up, like 'boy boy girl girl'.

Kinda makes me wonder how the bog people, the neanderthals, and further back how the Cromagnum behaved. Were they egalitarian? Did they have fixed gender roles? Did women hunt, with so little laundry and meal preparation going on. Were they aggression? Were they peaceful, albeit an occasional spear in a cranium? Did they meditate? Did they chant to the divine rhythms of the earth? Did they have hugging parties and snuggle fests like gorillas do?

WOMR Celebration!

Today is WOMR's 31st birthday party at the station, and at 7:30pm Dar Williams is doing a fundraiser to benefit WOMR at the Wellfleet Congregational Church! Cape Codders, if there are any tickets left, purchase them! It will be sure to beautiful show.

My new radio show on WOMR, Healing Wisdom, airs Thursday mornings at 9am EST, starting April 4th! More details to come.

May 4th Herb Day at the Cedar Spring Herb Farm!!

We have an amazing day planned to benefit United Plant Savers! Fun for the whole family! Come for my plant spirit medicine workshop to help you connect to plants through art, meditation and in dreams, stay for chocolate, cooking classes, learn how to make your house hold cleaning products, and learn what you should keep in your all natural medicine chest. $5 for adults. Children free! We have a dozen teachers including acupuncturists, naturopaths, Reiki practitioners, massage therapists, energy healers, aromatherapists and more!

Kids activities include:
* Mandala making
* Fairy Houses Building
* Plant Spirit Medicine for Children
* Plant Identification walks
* Storytelling

Oh my! What Spring fun! Come for the shenanigans, stay for the monkey business. Fun, high-spirited art making and classes for the whole family.

Pregnant Fairy Goddesses

And a new mom...

Sacred Shapes: The Geometry of Women

(This is my beautiful pregnant subject Ewa as Kupula, Polish Goddess of medicinal plants...photo by me.)

I am offering pregnancy, mother and baby and multi-generational family portraits for our May is Mother's Month show...all photo sessions will have one photo chosen to be on display for the show May 19th. Celebrate your pregnancy with a portrait of you and your baby or honor your grandparent/s with a family portrait!



Sacred Shapes: The Geometry of Women
@ Danton Studio: Center for Art Making and Well Being
May 2013
Friday May 3rd reception 7pm – Images of Women, Children and Families
May 10th, 11th, 17th, & 18th birth panel/circle, workshops and classes
Sunday May 19th 4-7pm reception of all artwork from classes & ‘award’ ceremony for mentors

*Celebrate Motherhood, Families, and Mentors with Art Classes all Through May*

"Sacred Shapes: The Geometry of Women”
A month celebrating mothers, families and mentors with classes and workshops. The show highlights the empowerment of a sacred birth and the initiation of motherhood. The show celebrates the men and women who have inspired us as mentors, teachers and adoptive parents. It chronicles with portraits for pregnant, new moms and families offered to the public. Sacred Shapes creates an environment to tell stories, from the Flowering Shapes of Motherhood tree, to the Shrine of Mentors. From pregnancy portraits to the Your Body is Your Temple hanging mobiles. Sacred Shapes seeks to show the perfection of organic femininity and how we fit into the cycles of life. The Geometry of Women shows women’s relationships to their families and their communities, as well as woman in relationship to self.

Friday May 3rd
Reception –Images of women, children and families – with signup sheets for upcoming classes

Friday May 10th
Women’s Night Out – It Takes a Village Women’s Circle - teas & tonics - Birth Panel – doula and midwife panel discussion on birth and women’s health, acupuncture for women's health, Rory Eames on pregnancy and women’s health, Katrina’s bellydancing for female health, Colleen Magnus and Paige Riley discuss facilitating the needs of modern teens, raising the children of the village, bullying, and issues facing teens, Pandora Peoples discusses female health from a mind-body perspective. Teachers discuss their upcoming classes.

Saturday May 11th
Your Body is your Temple - Belly/Torso Casting – 10am to 2pm
with deer Sullivan and Paige Riley –
Clay Temple Building with Alexis Katchmar – 10am to 2pm

Writing on Birth – 5 to 8pm
Class taught by Nicola Burnell

Friday May 17th
Baby Yoga with Caroline McClutcheon - 9 to 10am
It Takes a Village - Mentorship Shrine – Thank You to A Mentor Art

Saturday May 18th
Flowering Motherhood – Birth and Rebirth Stories in the form of giant flowers – 10am to 2pm
With Susan Danton and Pandora Peoples

Sunday May 19th
Reception for Student Work and Awards Ceremony 4-7pm
Music from Dinah Mellin


Neato Installations include:
1. Images of Mothers, Children and Families
- accepting submissions, selected works

2.Pregnancy, Mother & Child, & Multigenerational Photo Portraits
– portrait services offered by Pandora Peoples

3. Mentorship Shrine – Plaster of Paris Boat with Wood Collage Shields
– for teachers, mentors, aunts, grandmothers, non-mother mothers
- teacher Cindy Sauers?, plus stories of mentorship relationship. We will take a photo of the shield, to include with the writing, contained within the boat. There will be a nice photo op during the ceremony.

4. Flowering Shapes of Motherhood Tree - Bouquet of Flowers –
Birth and Rebirth Stories – stories of flowering motherhood - flower birth stories workshop taught by Susan Danton & Pandora Peoples
Flowering tree will be mounted in papier mache "vase"

5. Your Body is Your Temple
- Belly Casts with teacher deer Sullivan with Paige Riley
- Clay Temples with teacher Alexis Katchmar…self-hardening clay

6. Spring Nest – Bring the Kids, help create our installation.

Got My Mary Poppins On

What a terrific day at library art class. My pal and I co-teach library for our children's kindergarten class which consists of a meditation, reading a story, and an involved art project. We switch off reading & guided meditation. It's such a pleasure teaching children finally, because when I was eighteen I read books on teaching writing to beginning readers and wrote elaborate integrated curricula in my journals. My syllabus for each class designation, incorporated bits of history, language arts, science, math and art, which were broken up in units, and daily agendas with classroom and homework assignments. My inner Anne of Avonlea/Miss Honey from Matilda/English Governess is quite pleased. Miss Jenny and I have created quite a lovely curriculum, which is being used by other classes. I could go on and on, but I've got to work now.

Time Traveling Memoir Bouquet

The change of the seasons today has me all backwards and forwards and inside out. Part frisky bunny, singing daffodil, hopping robin, crying baby hawk in a nest, and purring mother lioness. I'm not quite sure what decade it is, but I am using solid colors, so this must be modern art and I am painting with paw prints and talons from the taxidermist laboratory of my inner sanctuary.

There are the familiar earmarks of eras that better suited my sensibilities: kaleidoscopes, unicycles, monocles, cigar boxes filled with wax, and brass stamps, rings with family crests. My porcelain cameo doesn't come in any color but pink. The Indian men in the woods want their stories to be told, and everywhere someone is digging up a fortune in sentimental value. It's so beautiful, and more than I can take in the confines of my whale bone bodice. Heavy gasping only brings me further to ecstasy. There's an apothecary study with human teeth, and Latin names I don't recognize, and there are 101 recipes for dyspepsia.

Tinctures and liniments in brown glass shine and jump into your hands on an as needed basis. Medicine is the life of the party, because this is the 1880s, and electricity is sparse. Everything is more alive in the dark. Smelling salts are just out of reach, but it's clear I have drama written all over the hat perched on my head. Lady doctors aren't supposed to wear veils, even slight veils. It's too cloying and high tea is impractical these days and served too late in the day.

I have vertigo because the galactic heart is just so vast these days and sometimes the ball of neuroses that gets passed from court to court feels like a medicine ball. I will not fall to my seaside death, again, because my angina will keep me from running with my eyes closed like a fool, and this time around I remember where I kept my key and which desk drawer it goes to in which house. This time name calling and labels won't fool me. I know all about the pharaohs and all about the hell hounds and that kaleidoscope is just to f-ing fly...not to meditate with it like I'm at a Buddhist train station on a cosmic highway, mesmerized by a giant hour glass, watching the sands of time.

I've traded quills for printing presses, which is quite a relief, because I bite my feathers and my mouth turns black with ink. Somewhere in this dream, the Lullaby of Birdland plays. I am here for containment, doctoring, documentation and like a guardian angel I aim to remind people who they are. Now, proceed. Carry on. Just do your thing. You're awesome.

Poetry carries me on wings of a dove and for a moment I want to be pregnant yesterday. I want our old friends with the long beards in the dusty studies to feel at home among the living, which is a gift I only need give myself amid my nineteenth century delirious daybeds, leather armchairs and bubbling beakers, as our friends quietly chuckle and loudly shuffle an invisible deck of cards. Who writes poetry anymore, anyway?

My Interviews Today for IWD

WOMR's International Women's Day

The programming starts at midnight and I'll be bringing us up to the midnight hour in approximately 24 hours. Join me from 10pm to midnight EST streaming live at http://womr.org 4 interviews: 5 gorgeous chicas inside and out.

10pm EST Moksha Sommer of HuDost

10:30pm EST Certified Professional Midwife Paige Eastman Dickinson and certified doula Ruby Corrigan Anastasia

11pm EST Live music with Hana Kahn

11:30pm EST Live discussion with director of Women's Avenue for Empowering Voices Paige Riley

Sisterhood is powerful. Goddess Bless!

Listen live streaming at http://womr.org, or if you are on Cape Cod turn the dial to 92.1 WOMR Provincetown or 91.3 WFMR Orleans

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, has long been my favorite film of all time. Jimmy Stewart is my favorite muse actually, right after Archangel Michael and the Mother Mary. And Mr. Smith must be other people's favorite icon of justice too, because somehow we thought long and hard enough about bringing some justice and defeating the nefarious Orwellian powers to collectively inspire an ophthalmologist (Rand Paul) to open a portal of light to help return sanity and truth to the planet (when he gave his speech on the Senate floor in an active filibuster yesterday). In what amounts to a "cease and desist letter" from Asia, the North Koreans have issued a declaration of war on the US. This sobering reaction to the out-of-control world policing that has escalated from financial and corporate bullying (of primarily second and third world countries) and worldwide gross environmental subterfuge to the all out medieval and draconian in-your-face domination and abuse of all human rights in mechanized and systematic industrial warfare (or war-fare like global industry) everywhere that can only be the work of disassociated callous masochists. Or perhaps greed is the motivator, and denial and compartmentalization is the modus operandi.

But who can explain empires? Who can explain the mass genocide (read: torture and slaughter of babies, women and men) upon the Native Americans. Why is it so taboo to mention the truth? Because one percent of them survived, and now some of us like to use sage to smudge our haunted Victorian houses? Because we want to focus on our pretty nail polish and Tivo-ing our favorite crime shows featuring dismembered bodies and rape victims. Oh? Okay, I'll just swallow it. Shove my "feminist commentary" (read: humanist) back where it came from and continue to be subjected to low levels of degradation, high levels of weather modification, passive-aggressive threats, and humiliation in my collective name, because the smell of new cars is worth the money it takes to keep me in a bubble, and my culture has taught me to worship death and violence instead of the earth and making peace and the intoxicating vibrations of love.

13 hours of bravery. 13. The number of menstrual cycles in a year. The number of astrological sun signs, when you include the forgotten constellation Asclepius...representing the keeper of the ancient Egyptian wisdom. Little is known about the wisdom of ancient Egypt, comprised of the left eye mysteries and the right eye mysteries. A lot was done to suppress both schools of thought, available to the chosen few. The caduceus, the staff with two entwined serpents, which is the symbol for AMA, draws from the iconography associated with Asclepius, his serpent rod, or asklepios. The forgotten school of thought came from the goddess culture was anti-hierarchical and pro-global peace. 13. The number of the sacred feminine. The number women's moon cycles in a year. The number of truth.

Midnight to Midnight

This Friday March 8th, 92.1 WOMR and 91.3 WFMR are presenting 24 hours of programs about women. We had our last committee meeting about it today. We have discussions, comedy, interviews and live music. Our guests include Maryam Durani, Afghan journalist and provincial council member of Kandahar broadcaster and manager of Mirman Radio of Kandahar, Helena Kennedy from the House of Lords, musicians from Brazil to Belarus, a Pulitzer-prize winning composer, Indian author Indira Ganesan, and so much more. I have four interviews from 10pm to midnight: Moksha Sommer from HuDost joins me from 10pm with some of her tunes; birth consultant and doula Ruby Corrigan Anastasio and certified professional midwife Paige Eastman Dickinson talk about childbirth; Hana Kahn joins us with her lovely live music, and Paige Reilly director of Women's Avenue for empowering Voices takes us to midnight with stories about visiting Morocco and working with Mama Africa Organization in Uganda.

Babies in the Air?

I may make a premeditated irrational decision based on my biological clock and my spiritual needs, not based on guilt I am supposed to have for having an only child. I have met plenty of happy adults who grew up without brothers or sisters. I have a lovely array of friends with joyous 'only children'. There is a huge debate between those who adamantly suggest that parents of single children are traumatizing their young ones beyond repair by depriving them the company of siblings. Within that set are those that champion "spacing" and those that insist that children cannot be born too close in age for a myriad of reasons too long to list here. On the other side of the coin, are the un/hipster sometimes 'unschooling' parents who think one child is a sufficient effort in procreation because afterall life is a bit messy globally and perhaps we should be as concerned with the lungs of the planet (read: rainforest), the environmental impact of Tar Sands (which has 82 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil), human trafficking, the NDAA, drone warfare, gun violence, and adopting the children already living who need homes.

On the other hand, it's always something, right? Every generation in every century on every continent has contended with some adversity personally, locally, globally...philosophically.

Babies are people who bring wisdom from the spiritual world, help us remember who were are, and who bring wisdom to help us grow, and help make our communities evolve. Many children who are being born at this time on the planet are very special. I think they have very special abilities to heal, guide, and nurture. I think many have little fear, lots of optimism, and great adaptability. It's part of our soul's evolution to grow together as families. Children teach us about ourselves, our parents and our grandparents. We learn by teaching, and at its best parenting turns you into a more conscientious person with a wider worldview, and more compassion towards others. It's a very special relationship.

My spirit children on the other side just keep showing up, telling me that they are ready to be born. I don't know how many years I can placate them with promises of a future with us. They have been extremely patient. But when someone needs to be born NOW, you only have a certain window to play with, especially if you have your eye on astrological influences.

Update:
The votes are in. The oracles and the wise crones have been consulted. The divination has been rendered. All things considered, the babymakers are cooling their jets for another two seasons, when the winds and migratory fowl will be conjured once more. I'm checking in with the Goddess, Zeus, Saturn, Archangel Michael, the Buddha, Jesus and any other helpful spiritual presence who may have any input Mid-October for a reconvene. And perhaps next year at this time will be the magical portal opening.

It's odd to live in a country where homebirth is a luxury. It's over five thousand dollars in addition to health insurance, because health insurance doesn't cover it. After being born at home myself which has the significant affect of making it feel like the place you belong birthing, and after giving birth at home, I can't imagine anything else. Besides the expense, I have two big events coming up in May and August, and I'm in school. My herb show is probably starting at the beginning of April and I am making inventory for local retail businesses. My website needs some additions. It's good to tie up loose ends before delving into the unknowable, and pregnancy is a time of many variables. My last pregnancy was a relatively even-keeled and joyous time with lots of exercise and no complications, but it's nice to have more flexibility in your schedule in undertaking such a huge life change, if possible.