I've Got a Heatwave Burning in My Heart

Martha Reeves of Martha and the Vandellas will be on Healing Wisdom on Cape Cod's Outermost Radio!

Reeves is the lead singer of the Motown girl group Martha and the Vandellas whose hits include "Heatwave", "Nowhere to Run", "Jimmy Mack", and "Dancing In The Street". Reeves also served as an elected council woman for the city of Detroit, Michigan from 2005 to 2009. Thrilled to bits!

The Easter Bunny Was Extra Hip This Year

Did everyone get their scavenger hunt clues written inside egg-shaped booklets with important or artistic historical figures on both sides?

Side A: Louis Armstrong, Janis Joplin, Josephine Baker, Martin Luther King Jr., Timothy Leary, Paul McCartney, Amelia Earhart, John Lennon.

Side B: Marlene Dietrich, Katharine Hepburn, Gandhi, Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix, Ringo Starr

Author Marge Piercy on Healing Wisdom

Marge Piercy, author of seventeen novels including The New York Times Bestseller Gone To Soldiers; the National Bestsellers Braided Lives and The Longings of Women, and the classic Woman on the Edge of Time; will be on WOMR's Healing Wisdom Thursday April 9th at 9am. She will be discussing her lastest work: Made in Detroit. Piercy has been a key player in the women's movement and has been a active participant in resisting and shedding light on wars in the Middle East as well as in Vietnam. We'll talk poetry and where women are now.

The show will air Thursday, April 23rd at 9am ET.

Healing Wisdom in April

Singer/songwriter, Rising Star healer and teacher Alicia Mathewson is on Healing Wisdom this Thursday at 9am EST streaming on womr.org

April 16th, Marth Reeves of Motown's Martha and the Vandellas, best known for her hits "Heatwave", "Jimmy Mack", "Nowhere to Run", and "Dancin' in the Street".

April 23rd poet, novelist, and feminist Marge Piercy will be speaking with me about her lastest book, Made in Detroit and discussing where women are now.

April 30th, author Stacey Couch talks with me about her book Gracious Wild: A Shamanic Journey with Hawks.

Playwright Candyce Rusk Talks Sister Rosetta Tharpe on Healing Wisdom

Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Godmother of Rock. Original Soul Sister. Pioneer.

Thursday Morning at 9am ET on Healing Wisdom on Cape Cod's Outermost Radio I speak with playwright, intuitive, Ayurvedic practitioner and former Provincetown year rounder Candyce Rusk about the life and work of Sister Rosetta Tharpe and her play Rosetta.

Candyce Rusk’s plays and musicals have been staged throughout the US and Dublin. Plays that have received Austin FronteraFest best of awards include: Rosetta; Dice; A Shining Attribute and Riverview Ritz. Her play Little Baby Two Shoes was adapted into a short film by Paul Bright. Candyce is currently developing Rosetta into a full-length musical. It’s based on the life of the legendary American singer, songwriter, and guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Candyce Rusk is also an Autsin-based intuitive, with a post graduate degree from the International Institute of Ayurvedic Medicine and a member of the Dramatists Guild. She will be workshopping her musical Rosetta in Provincetown in early June 2015 at the Provincetown Theatre.

Pandora's Jukebox Does Spring Pledge Drive

This Sunday night between 9pm and midnight ET, the Jukebox will light up, and make the kinds of music only possessed jukeboxes can. Put in a request and see what plays.

Join us for WOMR's annual Spring Pledge Drive. Local drummer Rikki Bates and DJ Deb K will be joining us for the festivities. I'm doing short live tarot readings on our 1-800 number as well...

Join the hootenanny on 92.1 WOMR fm in Provincetown and 91.3 WFMR-fm Orleans and streaming globally at http://womr.org

Call in with your pledge!

I'm quite busy with angel readings, so I'm not quite sure what music the night will have in store. I'm bringing some boxes of vinyl records. I'm feeling my mortality, and the fragility of the human experience, so who knows what I'll play until I play it. Rikki will have a guest set after 10pm. Call in and show your support! I'll try to play your requests.

Cape Women's Coalition Breakfast For International Women's Day

These types of gatherings are so important for women to come together. It was a pleasure to speak at the event about WOMR's programming and to read Kristin Knowles poem. I love how women discuss and brainstorm together.

Ann Bookman...

Ann Bookman captivating Senator Dan Wolf and friends...

Round table discussion with moderator WAVE founder Paige Riley...

Sisterhood, Solidarity and Our Mother

It was a pleasure to speak at the Cape Women's Coalition International Women's Day breakfast in front of 200 women. I gave a presentation on WOMR's forthcoming IWD programming, photographed the event, and had the pleasure of being asked last minute to read a poem by Kristin Knowles. Here it is.

Our Mother

Our Mother,
in art and nature,
passionate burns thy flame.
Thy strength is one
with moon and sun
on Earth as up in the heavens.
Teach us the way to lightly tread
and relieve us our distress as
we receive those who would prefer our silence.
And lead us not into frustration
but deliver us from ill will.
For thine is the freedom, power and glory,
herstory,
now and forever.
Blessed Be.nowles beautiful poem "Our Mother".

**

IWD tomorrow! At 10:30am, we have a gender identity discussion at 10:30am with Sarah Carpneter, LGBTQ transgender advocate, gender diversity trainer and author of “Religion, Faith and the LGBT Community, a Ground Level View From a Faithful Exile”, Erica Kay Webster, Founding Board Chair and CEO of the Foundation For International Justice, Vice President PFLAG of Cape Cod, founder and CEO of Promise Place, transgender musician Rikki Bates, and transgender advocate and spoken word artist Joi Helena. We discuss the gender binary and issues facing transgender people.


At 11:15am, Dr. Z Budapest gives us her Top Ten Heroines in History.

At 11:30am, I am accepting call-ins for live tarot readings. It may be tongue-in-cheek, or dead serious, depending on my callers. Choose your own adventure.

Streaming at http://womr.org

Greek Nymph Goddess of the Snow Chione with Anya Messina!

Great photoshoot today. Silliness, costume-making, makeup play, hot peony tea with cinnamon and honey, pratfalls in a hoop skirt, a bit of bawdy talk in fake accents, babysitting angst, The Pixies, The Pierces, and Paris Combo.

IWD is Not a Form of Birth Control

IWD is not a form of birth control, and it's not a synonym for the akashic records of Hollywood films, it stands for International Women's Day...

Mari Oxenberg, CNM, CPM, owner of Birthwell LA is using an article I wrote on breastfeeding in her educational packet for expectant mothers: Hurray!

Here's what an old friend who discovered it said: "I absolutely love that your breastfeeding article is in my Birthwell binder from Mari. You have come such a long way from those first moments of being a reluctant pregnant mama to the force of empowered knowledge in motherhood and creating your own paradigm. You have always been an inspiration, love." Lifts the icy spirits! Gonna keep writing...

Looking forward to a new goddess shoot this Tuesday. This time it's herbalist Anya Messina, a past guest on Healing Wisdom, as the Greek goddess nymph of snow Kione. I'm thinking: I wanna get that contemplative sernity of Winter conveyed but also that German Expressionist sulky distopian circus act energy with a shot of ennui, an umbrella of madness, and a twist of surrealism with a sugar cube of dadaism.

What McYoga and Repulsion Have in Common

Thanks to my twitter feed and Xeni Jardin from BoingBoing, I read about sexual assault allegations facing Bikram Choudhury. Before that moment of truth, I hadn't wanted to face the rumors that my husband's beloved guru had been more than a tough yoga nazi. A sexual predator? Never! Sure, he used humiliation and degradation to gain control, status and power over his minions. But they needed direction, guidance and self-control. Sure, he lured men and women into brushing his hair and giving him both public and private massages for hours on end. But, there's gotta be perks to being a yoga guru, right? Sure, his talent shows invited public displays of incest between twins. But, that was in no way reflective of the permissive or over-sexualized environment. Sure, he was a misogynistic busybody who took it upon himself to publically slut shame and enable a stalker ex-boyfriend of one of his students. But, none of that would have happened if his newly coupled students hadn't been making out during class. Sure, his yoga students were severely dehydrated, stressed, overworked, under-nourished, and collapsing in class. But, maybe that was due to whatever drug was making the girls' noses bleed. It'd be like blaming him for the cold sores students acquired for the first time from the steam room on his personal hygiene. This guy was on to something, he was a guru after all.

Bikram, "aka" Boss, had saved my overweight husband from his potbelly and a life with perpetual back problems, gout and no flexibility. He had brought my husband from being a stinky man with no focus and yellow toenails, to being a goal setter with a six-pack and healthy blue-white nails. My husband was eliminating every morning and drinking two gallons of water a day! He also brought my husband prestige as a beloved yoga teacher, who the ladies threw themselves at in spite of the fact or because he wore girly yoga pants every day to work. Because of Bikram's teacher training, my husband was able to help many students who lacked mobility and had pain. One student who literally crawled into class after an accident, credited my husband with his ability to walk again. Bikram was a godsend. And, to this day the benefits continue. Bikram is credited by hundreds of celebrities for bouncing them back from poor health. He had reversed gangrene in legs that would have been amputated and helped people live past their ETAs at the Pearly Gates. A guy who had been in Special Ops, who propelled down a wall and shattered "every bone in his body" told my husband that it was Bikram's yoga that healed his bones and allowed him to walk again. How could this man who had saved so many people's lives be a sexual predator?

After reading some of the accusations, I am more than inclined to believe the claims.

Reading about the crumbling reputation of the Bikram empire, led me to reading the 1977 court transcript of testimony against director Roman Polanski. As someone who was sexually abused as a child by authority figures whom she feared, I am disappointed in the Hollywood machine for supporting this guy. By his own admission he had sex with a 13-year-old girl. Her dreams of being a model, shouldn't have given him a license to sexually exploit her. In my opinion, and the Law's, a 13 year-old-girl is not capable of sexual consent regardless of her behavior. I was a horny 13, internally lusting after (really nice and mostly appropriate) teachers twice my age, but I had been sexually abused. This girl didn't drug and seduce him whereupon he relented in a powerless moment. He wasn't a physically weak, mentally vulnerable, unintimidating milkman she dragged through the backdoor, before pouncing on him and groping him mercilessly. There is not even the faintest shade of gray here.

This child was drugged, bullied, intimidated, and said "No" over and over again. Why would people support someone who did this to a child? Perhaps because Hollywood is rampant with the sexual exploitation of girls and young women? Young previously exploited women and girls start off playing prostitutes and giving head for opportunities to die in horror films. It seems to be an initiation into the domination and abuse of power by the Boys' Club, if you track the career trajectories of the majority of leading and lesser known actresses. Hard to believe there are so many opportunities to play the ho. Are each of these supporters pardoning their own predatory behavior or are they a victim in denial who has justified the abuse they suffered? Or, are these supporters like me with Bikram before I woke up? 'But, this man is a godsend'. Repulsion and The Tenant are great films. So, what? Talent doesn't justify murder and it shouldn't justify sexual abuse. Rape wounds the psyche, subjugates girls and women, is used in war to traumatize and destroy morale, and has been the primary tool of the patriarchy.

If things are gonna change for the better, we gotta be willing to rock the boat.

Gracious Wild

I'm interviewing writer and wild woman Stacey Couch for Healing Wisdom, after my laryngitis heals next month in March. She is the author of "Gracious Wild: A Shamanic Journey with Hawks".

"In a gripping memoir-narrative, Stacey Couch takes us on an unforgettable and seamless journey from the Dream World to the Real World, from the Scientific World to the Hawk World, from urbanity to wildness. Along the way, we become enthralled by the magic of synchronicity and the joy of spirit mirrors. In the madness of this modern world that we live in, I found *Gracious Wild* to be a gentle oasis of joyous and uplifting sanity."
- Jon Turk, author of *The Raven's Gift: A Scientist, A Shaman, and their Remarkable Journey Through the Siberian Wilderness*