DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

 

 

...My heart is moved by all I cannot save

So much has been destroyed


I have to cast my lot with those

who age after age, perversely,


with no extraordinary power,

reconstitute the world.

 

From Natural Resources

-Adrienne Rich

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

"Democratic Womanism"

~Alice Walker~

You ask me why I smile
when you tell me you intend
in the coming national elections
to hold your nose
and vote for the lesser of two evils.
There are more than two evils out there,
is one reason I smile.

Another is that our old buddy Nostradamus
comes to mind, with his fearful
400 year old prophecy: that our world
and theirs too
(our "enemies" – lots of kids included there)
will end (by nuclear nakba or holocaust)
in our lifetime. Which makes the idea of elections
and the billions of dollars wasted on them
somewhat fatuous.

A Southerner of Color,
my people held the vote
very dear
while others, for centuries,
merely appeared to play
with it.
One thing I can assure
you of is this:

I will never betray such pure hearts
by voting for evil
even if it were microscopic
which, as you can see in any newscast
no matter the slant,
it is not.

I want something else;
a different system
entirely.
One not seen
on this earth
for thousands of years. If ever.

Democratic Womanism.

Notice how this word has "man" right in the middle of it?
That’s one reason I like it. He is right there, front and center. But he is surrounded.

I want to vote and work for a way of life
that honors the feminine;
a way that acknowledges
the theft of the wisdom
female and dark Mother leadership
might have provided our spaceship
all along.

I am not thinking
of a talking head
kind of gal:
happy to be mixing
it up
with the baddest
bad boys
on the planet
her eyes a slit
her mouth a zipper.
No, I am speaking of true
regime change.

Where women rise
to take their place
en masse
at the helm
of earth’s frail and failing ship;
where each thousand years
of our silence
is examined
with regret,
and the cruel manner in which our values
of compassion and kindness
have been ridiculed
and suppressed
brought to bear on the disaster
of the present time.

The past must be examined closely, I believe, before we can leave
it there.

I am thinking of Democratic, and, perhaps
Socialist, Womanism.
For who else knows so deeply
how to share but Mothers
and Grandmothers? Big sisters
and Aunts?
To love
and adore
both female and male?
Not to mention those in between.
To work at keeping
the entire community
fed, educated
and safe?

Democratic womanism,
Democratic Socialist
Womanism,
would have as its icons
such fierce warriors
for good as
Vandana Shiva
Aung San Suu Kyi,
Wangari Maathai
Harriet Tubman
Yoko Ono
Frida Kahlo
Angela Davis
& Barbara Lee:
With new ones always rising, wherever you look.

You are also on this list, but it is so long (Isis would appear midway) that I must stop or be unable to finish the poem! So just know I’ve stood you in a circle that includes Marian Wright Edelman, Amy Goodman, Sojourner Truth, Gloria Steinem and Mary McLeod Bethune. John Brown, Frederick Douglass, John Lennon and Howard Zinn are there. Happy to be surrounded!

There is no system
There is no system
now in place
that can change
the disastrous course
the Earth is on.

Who can doubt this?

The male leaders
of Earth
appear to have abandoned
their very senses
though most appear
to live now
entirely
in their heads.
They murder humans and other
animals
forests and rivers and mountains
every day
they are in office
and never seem
to notice it.

They eat and drink devastation.

Women of the world,
Women of the world,
Is this devastation Us?
Would we kill whole continents for oil
(or anything else)
rather than limit
the number of consumer offspring we produce
and learn how to make our own fire?

Democratic Womanism.

Democratic Socialist Womanism.
A system of governance
we can dream and imagine and build together. One that recognizes
at least six thousand years
of brutally enforced complicity
in the assassination
of Mother Earth, but foresees six thousand years
ahead of us when we will not submit.

What will we need? A hundred years
at least to plan: (five hundred will be handed us
gladly
when the planet is scared enough)
in which circles of women meet,
organize ourselves, and,
allied with men
brave enough to stand with women,
men brave enough to stand with women,
nurture our planet to a degree of health.

And without apology —-
(impossible to make
a bigger mess than has been made already) -—
devote ourselves, heedless of opposition,
to tirelessly serving and resuscitating Our Mother ship
and with gratitude
for Her care of us
worshipfully commit
to rehabilitating it.

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Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.


~Martin Luther King, Jr.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.
DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Touching the Earth for Our Adversaries
By Caitriona Reed


You, who deliberately engage in the destruction of the environment for your own profit, you show me how much I value what is honest, what is generous, what has been clearly thought through, what is expressive of love for this planet home and our human and nonhuman fellow beings...


So I bow to you in gratitude and touch the Earth.

You bring forth in me the passion and love I feel for this life-bearing land, its soil, air and waters, and the beings they nurture; the passion I feel for integrity and strong, sustainable community. Because of the strength with which I resist your actions, I have seen how strong my love and passion really are...


I bow to you in gratitude and touch the Earth.

Because the pain I feel when I allow myself to witness the pain of the world is no less than your pain--you, who perpetuate destruction and cut yourselves off from needs of the present and the generations of the future...


I bow to you in compassion and touch the Earth.

Because the pain of greed, alienation and fear are no less than the pain of sorrow and mourning for what is lost...


I bow to you in compassion and touch the Earth.

For the power of my anger, transforming itself into love for the beauty and integrity of all life-forms, and for the bright energy of my passion for justice and the health of all beings...


I bow to you in gratitude and touch the Earth.

Because we all want to be happy, to feel ourselves intact and part of a single whole, for that shared longing...


I bow to you in compassion and touch the Earth.

Because you challenge me by your actions, demanding that I release my attachment to the belief that my view, my understanding, is the only correct one...


I bow to you in gratitude and touch the Earth.

For you who teach me that the mind is a limitless source, a miracle capable of manifesting as love, as greed, as fear, capable of clarity or delusion, blind to the consequence of action or open to the boundless coherence of all that we do and experience in life. For you who show me what I myself am capable of when I let my life be governed by fear and greed, great awesome teachers...


I bow to you in gratitude and touch the Earth.

In awe of the mind's capability for delusion and alienation that calls me so insistently to understanding and joy...


I bow to you and touch the Earth.

With the understanding that all this will pass and with love in my heart...


I bow to you and touch the Earth.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.