International Women's Day

International Women’s Day. I feel far away from the real women in my life as the trip winds along with key characters Chris and Michael acting out the stereotypic sex roles that both excel in. We are listening to the audio book A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hossieni about the life of an Afghan woman from her impoverished childhood on through a terrible marriage.. can’t wait for the part about the Taliban…
Women are the heart of the world. Some men have the expansiveness of the heart space but mostly I attribute it to women. I don’t know about all women, but in the women I love and admire there is an evolved quality of sensitivity and warmth.. an interest in Life and the Quality of the fabric of who we are and how we live. It’s a nurture quality that I’m still surprised hasn’t shifted the world into a safer place. I think it actually is shifting it, with the expertise and will of men, now that women aren’t just chattel as they were/are in patriarchal traditional cultures, and now that men and women value women more inclusively.
As women, we have to keep identifying and building the intellectual and emotional muscle to work up to what we want to achieve during each phase of our lives despite biological imperatives. Not hold back. Not wait. Define ourselves. Push forward consciously.
Men need to have an International Men’s Day too. A day to be introspective or rock out about what defines them or feels celebratory.
I give each of you, woman or man a hand, a hug, a flower on this day of mothers, daughters, girls and women. The miracle of life, male or female, that comes through our bodies be worshipped throughout life in each of us as our mothers’ gift to the future. Respect your/my body and your/my spirit as that gift grows in wisdom throughout life.