Being a Woman is Often No Treat
This post and this one on Blog Sisters have drawn attention to the fact that religious fundamentalists around the world are joining forces to halt the efforts of women around the world to ensure their rights as autonomous human beings.

Back in 1975, the First world Conference on Women in Mexico City called for a Treaty for the Rights of Women. I still have in my jewelry box the pin that I bought to assert my support of that still U.S.-unratified Treaty and of the (finally) official acknowledgement by the United Nations of International Women's Day (which was first established in 1911). The bird-in-flight design of that pin is the logo for the current web site of the Treaty for the Rights of Women.

I am asking that all who read my weblog take action and overwhelm our government "leaders" with statements of support for this Treaty. Why? Because (as the Treaty site indicates) even though the lives of women in some countries have improved, there is still much that needs to be done on these issues:

-- Female genital mutilation: 130 million women are victims worldwide;
-- Maternal mortality: 510,000 women die each year from pregnancy-related complications;
-- Obstetric fistulas: some 2 million girls suffer uncontrollable leakage of urine and feces through vaginas damaged in obstructed labor, most because of forced early marriage;
-- Sex trafficking: 2 million girls are sold into sexual slavery each year;
-- HIV/AIDS: women are four times more vulnerable than men, and 1.3 million die each year;
-- Violence: an estimated 25 to 30 percent of all women experience domestic violence;
-- Discrimination: millions of women lack full legal and political rights.

Today, the headline of an Associated Press article by David Crary announces Bitter Divisions Resurface Over Global Women's Rights Treaty That U.S. Has Never Ratified. There is great pressure being exerted by Americas religious fundamentalists to join with kindred soul-less males throughout the world to to destroy the spirits of women by defeating the Treaty for Women's Rights.

Just who's really in control here?
b!X posted the other day "about a recent poll from blowhard William Bennett's new pro-war group." As usual, my erstwhile son presents the issue better than I might, ending with:

Although I do find it interesting, as always, that apparently those who make themselves allegedly subservient to a God who commands against killing might be the most willing to go unquestioningly off to kill at the behest of their government. Which, I guess, means that it's not about God -- because, well, you know, you're suppoed to obey his commandments and all -- but about a preference for being under someone else's control.

And so, again, yet another affirmation of the wisdom of my remaining an irreverent non-believer and equally irreverent citizen.

Holy Halley!

I'm back from my trek to the Maine shore, where the highlight was a chatty day spent with Halley Suitt, walking on the beach, analyzing sea weed, reading Tarot cards, and doing some major Blog Sister bonding. It was pretty windy on the beach that day, but it was Halley who really blew me away with her amazing energy -- both head and heart -- and her genuine openness to whatever life throws her way. I have always liked what she says in her blog; what's even better is how she says it all in person.

The rest of the week was just what I intended -- lots of beach time (yes, Maren, I did wear lots of sunblock), quick reads through a couple of sexy mystery novels, and hours of just doing absolutely nothing. The bright half-moon meandered past my bedroom window each night, and clear blue skies woke me each morning. The real beach season started today, so even the beach time was peaceful, wrapped in the hushed rushes of Maine's mini-waves.

Tonight's the Solstice, and I've just finished painting a t-shirt for b!X with an image of the Sri Yantra. Now it sits with a major crystal -- progammed by Marcel Vogel himself -- holding its center, waiting for the full moon on Monday, when the ritual will be completed. All together now, everyone chant -- "Om Namah Sivaya."

Very often asserting the power of intention for someone's benefit doesn't bring to that person what he/she thinks he/she wants. What it usually brings is the wherewithall to help that person get what he/she needs. So it seems it is with Mike Golby; so, I suppose it is with Chris Locke. Or maybe not. And so, I imagine, it will be with b!X. Or maybe not. As with the saving of Tinkerbell, magic only works if you believe.

My bags are packed
I'm ready to go. Got my trashy novel, my Scrabble game, my flip-flops, the ritual object I'm working on, and enough assorted clothes for any kind of weather. I shaved my legs and painted my toenails. Tomorrow I'm off to York Beach, Maine but will be back for the Solstice, when I am doing my last ritual for a while. This one's for b!X (and he knows why). But most of the time for the next five days, I'm going to be somewhere on that beach communing with the sea and the sun (what there will be of it). I need to re-create.

I've set my mom up with food and emergency numbers. She's also going to feed my cat (I hope, I hope!) so I made little baggies of cat food and posted the feeding schedule all the hell over the place so that she doesn't forget. My brother says that he'll be up on Tuesday and stay overnight. That’s better than nothing.

So, please don't blog anything important until I get back. I hate it when I miss out on something big.

From Father to Son
b!X is in a posting frenzy, and I hope that those of you who might have given up on him are rediscovering his way of hitting the mark with clarity and brevity. If you're interested in the ongoing discussions about journalism vs blogging, read his take here.

A Father's Day Synchronicity
My Dad died 18 years ago. Each year since then, I have ignored Father's Day. It's irrelevant to me.

Today I was contacted by a writer from my home town of Yonkers, NY -- a woman who writes for a Polish weekly newspaper. She wants to do a feature on my Dad, who, during his lifetime, was well known in that city, not only for his work among the Polish community, but also for a range of political activities behind the scenes that put him in contact with some of the major players in New York State.

So, I spent this afternoon-before-Father's Day looking through the folders where my mother has stashed dozens of newspaper clippings, award certificates, photos, and other documentation of my father's life as an active citizen. There are notes from Nelson Rockefeller and photos of my Dad with Thomas Dewey. There's another photograph of him with Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York back in the '50s.

What really got to me, however, was a copy of an op-ed piece I wrote that the Yonkers newspaper published on January 31, 1985, a little over a month after my Dad died from pancreatic cancer. In email conversations I had with Halley Suitt while she was struggling with her father's dying, I mentioned the article, and she asked me to share it with her if I ever came across my copy.

So, here it is now, edited for length and relevance. This is for you, Dad. I am thinking about you this Father's Day after many years of not wanting to feel your loss all over again.
_____________________

My youth in Yonkers was bordered by death. My father was an undertaker, and I grew up with death as a matter of everyday, emotionally distant, fact.

When my father received his own death sentence last October on his 71st bithday, however, death abruptly closed that distance. For the first time, I looked death in the face, and it was my father's face.

My father was well-known in Yonkers. In his prime -- which it seemed extended throughout his lifetime -- he was well-respected by colleagues and adversaries alike for his compassion, pragmatism, and humor; for his ability to see all sides fairly; for his willingness to seek and accept advice and cooperation. These were the virtues that brought meaning to his life. These were the virtues that brought dignity and courage to his death.

Four days before Chrismas, having become progressively weaker, despite the best effort of hopital staff, my father told us that he wanted to die. He had, in his life, virtually worked miracles for the Polish people of Yonkers, but he knew that there would be no miracle for him. The next day, irreversibly weakened by the strain the disease had placed on his system -- but mentally alert and aware -- my father asked to have all tubes removed from his body. The nurse had tears in her eyes when she came out of the room with the doctor after thay had presented their final argument for delaying the invevitable.

The hospital staff had all liked my father; no matter how weak he was, he would find something to joke about. When one of the doctors had asked him what he did for a living, my father paused for a moment, smiled, and shot back, "I take care of your mistakes."

We cared for my father at home for four days, massaging the tired flesh hanging looser and looser from his proud bones; struggling to move him, turn him, find ways to ease his bad back, urge liquids into him --first with a straw, then with a spoon, and finally with an eye dropper. We warmed his icy hands in ours, wiped his forehead of the cold sweat that matted his still-thick head of gray hair. We told him jokes and told him we loved him. We assured him, again and again, that we would be all right; he was not to worry about us.

At one point on the night before he died, I went into the living room where the movie "Gandhi" was playing on the television. That night replays through my mind like scenes from a Coppola movie -- sudden shifts back and forth between two simultaneous occurrences, tension mounting toward some anticipated disaster. I would watch Gandhi building his ashram and then tiptoe in to see my father clutching at his pillow. I would listen to Gandhi speak for peace and freedom and then return to hear my father's raspy breathing. And so it went, until the burning pyre turned the TV screen red, and my father's cough brought my mother out of her light sleep in the other room.

Finally my mother lay on the bed we had pushed next to my father's, her hands folded around his. He was sleeping, panting rather than breathing; she was watching, murmuring encouragement and prayers. I fell asleep next to her.

It was the silence that awakened me. The clock said 6:26 a.m. For the first time in days, his hands were warm.

You Can't Have Love and Patriarchy
As RageBoy continues his mystery-shrouded evolution into ...well, we don't really know exactly "what" or "who" yet. But there is a definte pattern in his growing affinity for females of obvious power -- both silently mythic and vocally authentic.

His latest discovery is Carol Gilligan's new book, The Birth of Pleasure, and he links to an interview with her that is well-worth the read.

The research documented in Gilligan's landmark book, In A Different Voice, provided the foundations for a major project that I was assigned back in the 80s to analyze the exhibits in the New York State Museum in terms of the "voice" they gave -- or in this case, did not give -- to women in the history of the state. In Gilligan's own words, the "Voice" book shows how including women's voices changes the human conversation, makes it more expansive, more real in certain ways and that's not only for women; enlarging the conversation and changing the resonance can also encourage men to say things that they know but may have felt but they couldn't speak about. That book not only triggered major changes in the way the Museum's exhibit designers and curators were expected to do their work; it encouraged me to release my own voice, both in the workplace and in my personal life as well.

Interestingly enough, Gilligan used students at the Emma Willard School for much of her research interviews. I did "development" writing for that school several years ago during a series of events promoting "girls in Science." I even got to write a speech for Jane Fonda, a graduate of that school, who came in to do the opening presentation. Heh. She used about half of it; most of the time she promoted her exercise videos. But that's off the subject.

Carol Gilligan's new book takes her basic premises in a necessarily deeper direction, one that she believes is beginning to begin the end of patriarchy. I particulary like the following statement that she made in her interview: Once feminism is understood not as a battle between the sexes but a move to free both women and men from contraints that have limited their capacity to love and live fullly, it becomes clear that feminism is one of the great liberation movements in human history.

You can't have love and patriarchy, Gilligan asserts in her interview. I agree. But, personally, I don't think that most men are going to be willing to give up the power of hierarchy and patriarchy for such a simple thing as love. As Gilligan goes on to say, Love means.....being willing to change.

Into the silence, we leap.
With Andrea's Seven Memories piece added to the "power and protection" shield crafted for Mike Golby and his family, the ritual object is ready to be mailed out to Mike in South Africa tomorrow. This is the note that is going with it:

“Healing is the leap out of suffering into myth.” --Joseph Campbell

Native American shamans constructed “power shields” as part of healing ceremonies, often including or attaching images of sacred animals and representations of spirit folk to reinforce the protective capacities of the ritual object. The circle, itself, is a powerful symbol of wholeness, completeness, and the front of this shield is woven in concentric circles, an ancient symbol of the power of the feminine, the all-embracing, all forgiving, Great Mother. The colors and textures are like the fabric of life – unplanned, pieced together, varied and vibrant. The back of the shield symbolizes the power of what is often hidden deep in the great sea of memories, hopes, and dreams.

This gift, this prayer, this creative act carries with it the magic of friendship and opens a way to make the leap into the magic of healing.

Identity Crisis
While I blogged early about my take on AKMA's theme du jour, "identity," I am now as lost at sea as was once the intrepid Odysseus -- referred to by Tom Matrullo in his post on the subject. This is not the first time in the land of Blogaria that I find myself time traveling back to my old chair in my old office, looking at an assignment from my boss to interview relevant professionals about on how they apply "integrated arts education" or "non-traditional learning" or "diversity in the workplace" and recognizing that I first have to go back to my boss and ask her how she defines those terms. Because I already know that there are as many definitions of those terms as there are people who use them. I know, from past experience, what happens when you set sail on a group journey of discovery without first all getting into the same boat. You often wind up all sailing off in different directions, having different adventures, and discovering different continents. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Except that the original "identity" of the journey gets lost at sea. Like me. With this whole "identity" trip. Hell, I know who I am. And if you read Frank Paynter's interview with me, you know who I am too. So what's the big deal anyway?

Life is what happens while you're making plans
I'm supposed to be heading out for York Beach, Maine next week with one of my best friends. This afternoon, I'm taking my mom to the doctor's -- dizziness, weakness -- maybe a flare up of the multiple myeloma, the beginnings of which she was diagnosed with several years ago. I haven't had any time away -- I mean really away -- in more than a year. I really need this little 5-day vacation. I hope that I can still go.

This is the first time that I'm feeling angry about having to be the sole caregiver. I have an unmarried, unemployed brother who could very easily come up here (he lives about 80 miles away) and take over for a few days. But he always has an excuse. This time his cat is pissing all over his house because she's afraid to go outside because some other cat is menacing her. One would think, then, that the solution would be to get her a litter box. Only he doesn't want to have to clean out a litter box. So he has to stay home and make sure the cat doesn't continue pissing indoors. What's very very very wrong with this picture! (Oh, he says maybe he can come up for one overnight. What a guy!)

I want to cry "ENOUGH!". But there's this frail, frightened little old woman who depends on me. Someday, perhaps but I hope not, I will be just like her, and I will need someone to care enough about me to set plans aside and take care of life.

I want so much to have a few days at the ocean, nourished by the healing murmurs of Mother Sea, the warm Apollo sun -- to sit around playing Scrabble, laughing, and having a beer or two -- going out for some good dinners. Well, I have to remind myself that at least I'm not buried in a burda. Life. Happens. But I still just want to sit down and have a good cry. Oops, too late.

Hecuba should have cried ENOUGH!
b!X ends this post with "Enough is enough."

The two statements above are synchronistically related.

Tonight I watched the film version of Euripedes' Trojan Women that featured Katherine Hepburn as Hecuba, Queen of Troy, who was given no choice but to watch while her city, her countrymen and women, and her family were ravaged by men of great ego and little else. They took everything from her that they could -- her birthright, her identity, her freedom. But what they couldn't take from her was her voice.

I watched the film with a group of women called together by my therapist friend in ritualized support of one of those woman -- an American nurse suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as result of her expriences in Viet Nam. We were there to help her give voice to her painful memories, to rage and cry out and vocalize whatever was staying stuck so painfully in the deep wounds of her soul. (Ritual, art, drama, healing: the legacy of Asclepius.)

ENOUGH! We wanted Hecuba to finally cry ENOUGH! We wanted the Trojan Women to all finally cry ENOUGH! But they didn't, and so we all cried ENOUGH for all the times we didn't -- for all of the times that men and women of conscience do not cry ENOUGH loud ENOUGH for all of the times that men of great ego and nothing else continue to repeat and repeat, over and over again, the very same tragic scenario that Eurpides so eloquently and dramatically and ritualistically unfolded all of those centuries ago. When will it be ENOUGH?

In the Middle East men of great ego and little else ravage and destroy what they cannot possess. In our very own America, men of great ego and little else take away everything from us that they can -- expect us to watch and endure, like Hecuba. We are all Hecuba, watching, enduring, while men of great ego and little else ravage our liberties, our identities, the very planet that sustains us.

Where are our voices crying ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH!

Love those connections!
So, here I am blathering on about T.S. Eliot (like who but me even thinks about that guy any more), and after I sign out to do some surfing, there on Tom Matrullo's blog today is a couple of quotes from another Eliot poem. Now, I'm sorry to admit that I had not gotten around to putting Matrullo on my blogroll. But I have taken care of that pardonable (I hope) sin of omission. I take these kinds of synchronistic connections very seriously. Indeed I do.

Cybill Sibyl Symbols
I am an old woman with a deck of cards
A witch, an Amazon, a Gorgon
A seer, a clairvoyant, a poet.
I have visions of becoming and
I dream in female
--(Barbara Starrett, 1974)

I adored the character that Cybill Shepherd played in her '90s sitcom. Raunchily relevant in menopausal splendor, she laughed a lot --mostly at herself -- loved largely, and dreamed in female. The Lady of Situations.

Sibyl is another gut-grabbing female, one I first encountered the first time I turned to the first page of T.S. Eliot's "Wastland." (I still have verses from that epic endlessly looping through my brain: Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyant/ had a bad cold nevertheless/ is known to be the wisest woman in Europe/ with a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she, / is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor (those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) / Here is Belladonna, the Lady of Rocks, / the lady of situations.)
*****************
"For I once saw with my own eyes the Cumean Sibyl hanging in a jar, and when the boys asked her, 'Sibyl, what do you want?' she answered, 'I want to die.'"

The quote which prefaces T.S. Eliot's "Wasteland," "NAM Sibyllam quidem Cumis . . ." is taken from the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter, a Roman of the first century B.C.E. The Sybil is a prophetic character who, when granted a wish by Apollo, asked to live for as many years as there are grains of sand in a handful. She forget to ask for eternel youth, however, and is confined to a bottle so as to prevent her body's disintegration..... The Sibyl, then, is a bit of a paradox: she strove to live eternally yet ended up in constant danger of decay and pain. Her quest for eternity was a failure that Eliot finds terribly important yet terribly dangerous. His goal is not to end up like the Sibyl, but to free her. (quoted from here)

Cybill and Sybil, symbols of women with strong voices -- strong with meaning, with intention, with visions of constant becoming -- with guts full of female dreams and hearts used to surviving great tides of sorrow. A lot like the many women bloggers I know and love.

But we still have to watch what we wish for.

It's All in the Timing
Since the announcement of the New Moon ritual to bend the universe a little in favor of the Golbys, lots has been going on with Mike, including his belated Viking-type burial of his father's ashes. As Andrea stirred up her memories and turned around to catch an unexpected rainbow, on the other side of the planet, Mike was unknowingly mirroring her experiences. Some might say the magic is working. Others might simply note in passing that I have uncanny ability for insinuating myself into the destinies of others just at opportune moments. Personally, I have no idea how all of this happens -- something about the Flow, or quantum physics, or maybe it is just my surprisingly accurate sense of timing, my own destiny as a perennial catalyst --sort of like being always the maid-of-honor and never the bride. (Well, OK, not never; I was a bride once. Once is enough.)

The worrisome thing is that now Andrea's getting sick. That's what happened to Jeneane after she gave her all to the RageBoy ritual. Either I have to figure out how to protect my cronies (pun intended) from totally depleting their not-insignificant energies, or I'm going to have to become a Lone Crone.

Just as whatever was put into motion for RageBoy has not yet played out, so is the Golby saga continuing. It will be another couple of days or so before the ritual artifacts are complete enough to send over to Mike in South Africa. So, the magic energy is still out there, homing in on the Golby hearts and hearth. Pay attention. It's all in the timing. And the connected destinies.

E-writer Reveals (Almost) All
As a pre-eminent blogger, Jeneane Sessum tends to be magnificently forthright and open in what she writes. But if you think her blog has revealed all there is to Jeneane -- well, read her interview with Frank Paynter and find out what she hasn't told until now. Once again, Paynter reveals his own artistry in getting to the good stuff.

It's interesting that, as b!X keeps track of our government's plans to make sure we keep nothing secret from them, we bloggers are keeping nothing secret from any one. (Well, almost.) I wonder what would happen to the world if there were no more secrets, if everyone revealed everything. It seems to me that it would pretty much level out the playing field. Actually, we'd probably have to call off the stupid game completely. Heh.

Now, for something really serious
So, now that we've had our fun bending the universe in the direction of South Africa, it's time to tackle some very serious stuff.

I finally read Gary Tuner's post (somehow I missed that, what with all the fun I was having) about creating "Global Villagers: the Sitcom." He says As blogs extend the boundaries of communication into telephone conversations and now meetings (great post Anita) I think that it's now about time we had our own sitcom show.

Of course! That's it! That's what we need to really put us on the map, and Gary makes some suggestions for sitcom characters. For example, he says Chris Locke can play a mad hippy revolutionary in a lead role reminiscent of Becker or something. David Weinberger can base his on-screen character on someone more sensitive like a Niles Crane. Crazy Marek J can be a bald clone of Kramer from Seinfeld.

After some very clever additional suggestions, Gary asks for input. Hah!

How about Anita, Andrea, Halley and Heather doing a kind of "Laverne and Shirley meet Thelma and Louise" type characters. (I didn't include Jeneane because Gary's post already mentions a role for her.)

As for me, it's got to be a Cybill-type (of the '90s Cybill Shepherd sitcom). A menopausal prima donna who does pratfalls and howls at the moon. Whoever wrote the scripts for that must have been following me around with a hidden camera. Of course, Cybill shares the spotlight with her friend Maryanne, a brassy, boozy, bombshell with a sharp, quick, and well-aimed wit. Sounds like either Shelley Powers or Mike Golby in drag, doncha think? Now, Gary, for you... I'm thinking maybe Alf?

In Comments to Gary's post, AKMA suggests the much more appropriate title: "Bloggal Villagers" and Andrea mentions "Blogwhore: The Web Game," which already has set a precedent.

So, forget Blogtank, Gary. This is the kind of serious stuff that we really want to work on.

While the Golbys sleep....
...the magic continues. I've added a few more pieces. Andrea is doing her thing. Then we will join our magics and our part will be done.

While Mike's blog sits still, Mike is not. Things are stirring. Maybe the universe is, indeed, bending just enough. It's not over until it's over.

And, of course, Blogaria waits for RageBoy's next move. Is the voodun done? Has the magic worked? Patience. Patience.

We all wait with the moon.

Moon Time
For me, it goes until midnight here tonight. Then it will move into the lives of the Golbys. The magic.

I started last night, outside under the moonless, cloudless, deep magic midnight sky. Among the various artifacts I took out there with me was this:



These are the sides of the Golby shield, without the piece that Andrea is making today to add. One side vibrant with color and surprises and a patchwork of textures and movement. Like life. The other, the dark of a moonless sky, the deepest ocean calm -- the place of dreams and memories.

Mike Golby's blog is in stasis. We are all waiting for this magical ecliptical New Moon day to move into the past. And then the rest will begin. This day is for the Golbys. Send them your most loving thought.

Feel the Power
The Golby shield is finished, except for the piece that Andrea, the Crone-in-Training, will add. This Geek Icon is coming into her own, and I can tell that I'm soon going to have to share the throne.

After midnight, it begins for the Golbys.

Meanwhile, like Andrea, I'm into the Ya-Ya Sisterhood thing and am going to see the movie later today with a buncha my ya-ya friends. Then out to dinner. Then...then...getting ready for the New Moon magic.

Countdown to Golby's New Moon
It has begun: a woven shield for Mike Golby, the deep serenity of the midnight sky on one side and a vibrancy of colors and textures on the other, symbolizing the balance that one needs in a full and healthy life. Art as ritual. Ritual as art. It's not done yet, and there's much left to be done, so probably not much blogging until then. The good news is that I have a "sorceresses apprentice" conjuring on the West Coast, where she will be able to see about 50 percent of the eclipse that also will happen with the new moon on Monday. She will incorporate that "magical" phenonemon into whatever she contributes to our Mike-centered magic. Blog Sister and Geek Icon Andrea, cybercrone-in-training. Stay tuned. Join in and think of Mike on the New Moon.

Oh yeah, Andrea. We Got Mana! heehee cackle cackle