Women's Day and Ecofeminism

“You’ve got to be small and different.”

— Dr. Vandana Shiva

In honor of Women’s Day, I signed up for a three-day advocacy course with Dr. Vandana Shiva on Ecofeminism, through her organization, Navdanya.  Women from around the world dialed in to hear about Dr. Shiva’s most recent work, and to be encouraged and inspired to be confident protectors of land, soil, seeds, food, and human rights.  

Read more about Navdanya here https://www.navdanya.org/site/ and here https://navdanyainternational.org/. 

I have followed and admired Dr. Shiva’s work for decades.  Her voice is a persistent, lucid, and fierce international presence in the realms of organic farming, world-wide agriculture policies and widespread corruption, colonization and technocratic interference with indigenous sovereignty and natural systems of resilience. 

“The future will be what we seed.”  

- Dr. Vandana Shiva

I am an inexhaustible activist by nature in the areas of women’s health, food as medicine, bodily sovereignty, medical freedom, and in my inconsolable desire to activate human potential.  As an Ayurvedic and Chinese Medicine practitioner I have been trained to seek, understand and address root causes of imbalance and dysfunction.  This leads me to be keenly interested in ecological disruptions, women’s health (and therefore human health and well-being), the up-rooting of humanity through mass displacement and perpetual crisis (trauma), food and housing insecurity, and thus, necessarily, political and economic corruption and grassroots activism.  Currently I am delving into issues of soil health and seed security by aligning with gardening experts and activists around the world, and by getting my hands into the soil to tend and discern the lessons held at the roots of life on this planet.  All of these issues, of course, are one and the same in their implications for human and planetary health and vitality.   

In a conversation about how to be effective in methods of stewardship and activism in the face of massive, extractive and manipulative global powers, Dr. Shiva tells us that “You’ve got to be small and different.”  Top-down mechanistic power structures seek to impose uniformity, conformity, and monocultures of the mind – in exactly the same way that mechanistic, market-driven agriculture debases the soil by planting low-nutrient, genetically modified single-species crops for volume and profit.  Dr. Shiva guides us instead to cultivate relationships in our local communities and with our natural environment, and to learn and practice indigenous regenerative agriculture methods that favor crop diversity, rich nutrition, and a reciprocal relationship between the land and all who inhabit it.

Through patents and intellectual property rights that now aggressively claim ownership of seeds – laying claim to life itself – corporate agribusinesses are increasingly seeking to bully, conquer, manipulate and master land, food, and the right to farm the land in India and around the world.  Dr. Shiva teaches, writes and implores individuals - especially women - to disrupt this pattern by taking responsibility to study and engage directly with the living systems in our local environments in order to create ecosystems and communities based on co-evolution, partnership and relationship; driven by what women bring naturally – an appreciation and deep connection with the aliveness and vulnerability of our world, nurturing care, sensitivity, awareness, compassion and love.   

How do we come together to effectively dismantle/disempower power structures that extract, manipulate, and seek to colonize and capitalize on every aspect of Nature’s bounty – seed to harvest, birth to death, from cellular structure to spirit and soul?  After years of advocacy on various issues myself, I suspect the way to do this will have to do less with opposing or fighting anything or anyone, as this is exhausting and leads to more and more physical, emotional and psychic violence.  I imagine that getting in the trenches; hands in dirt – heart-to-heart and shoulder-to-shoulder with our neighbors – will be the way to steward the Earth in a way that will make our ancestors smile and ensure abundant landscapes for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren to inherit. 

In conversation about the lessons she’s learned as an activist and food and soil protector, Dr. Shiva had this advice for us:  (some comments are paraphrased) 

·      “Hold your ground.” 

·      “(Cultivate) resilience.”

·      “Keep doing the right thing.” 

·      Don’t wait for external funding to start or motivate your actions.  External funding means that you will be indebted to the wishes of those who financed your projects. 

·      Take action with commitment, conscience and courage. 

·      Walk lightly; be extremely sensitive.  Let the universe take care of you.  Give your bit; do your best, but do not expect an outcome. 

·      Life does not thrive with the imposition of top-down orders.  Mechanical systems dissipate energy.  Life thrives when it is tended with the love, compassion and nurturance of women. 

Read Dr. Shiva’s book Oneness Versus The One Percent. 

Watch the trailer for the soon-to-be-released documentary about her life, Seeds of Vandana Shiva:

“Monsanto’s worst nightmare...”

https://vimeo.com/518756378

Read about the farmer’s protest happening in India now, and the history of agricultural policies and corporate take-overs that have harmed India’s small farmers for decades. 

https://navdanyainternational.org/30-40-years-indian-farmers-protest/

Read recent reports published by Navdanya:

http://navdanya.org/site/eco-feminism/women-feed-the-world 


https://www.navdanya.org/site/eco-feminism/the-earth-rising,-women-rising

Wounds, Grace, and Superpowers

I was recently invited to offer some inspiration for healing at a forum on the global issue of violence against women and girls at Webster University, Athens. This essay is what came through me and what I offered at the event. 

I would like to talk with you about Wounds, Grace and SuperPowers.  The way I’d like to do that is by talking about the practice of the Red Tent for Women, the power of our cyclical nature, and what we have to gain, and to offer, from being in intimate alignment with our own cyclical nature and that of Mother Nature herself.   

I am a trained natural healer of many stripes.  I also consider myself a “wounded healer.”  I know I’m not alone in this.  In fact, I will go as far as to say that we are the daughters, mothers, sisters and stewards of a wounded humanity…. We bear the wounds of our own lifetimes, and of our lineage, wherever it is we hail from.  We are in a moment where humanity the world-over knows the ruthless smack of war, forced displacement, slavery, exploitation, sexual abuse, domestic abuse, economic crises, homelessness, hunger, deep social and political division, and ironically, illness caused by habits of endless excess and exhaustion.  We are more disconnected from ourselves and others than perhaps ever before, giving ourselves to constant busyness, and often, for our nervous systems, and our bodies that don’t often enough receive the benefit of our attention, gentleness and care, there is a feeling of being in a constant state of crisis.  While technology has brought us many incredible developments and conveniences, it also brings perpetual news and influence – much more than we can reasonably keep up with and process emotionally and spiritually.   

It is my intention today to remind us that we have a very powerful ally in our corner, nourishing us, holding us, offering us Her wisdom all day, every day – if we slow down enough to perceive what is right before us, and in fact, within us.  Our Mother Earth – her nourishment, her seasons and her cycles, for women in particular, is an infinite resource and inspiration.  When we remember how to listen deeply, tend to vulnerabilities, harness her power, and to be her ecological stewards, we will be making enormous steps towards personal and collective health and harmony. 

 I’d also like to talk about the notion of Grace:  Merriam Webster defines grace as

“ unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification.”

This spiral is a diagram of everything – oversimplified, but infinitely true.  This is simply and elegantly how the living world works.  In this spiral we can map life cycles, infinite patterns of birth, growth, manifestation, death, decay and regeneration; also the circulation of blood through our arteries and veins; the perpetual expansion and contraction of waves rising and falling, cycles of breathing in and breathing out, moons shining brightly and becoming dark again, and, most essentially, our very own cyclical nature as women. 

Making these connections, of course, is not original wisdom on my part. 

In traditional cultures such as Native American and others, there was the notion and practice of the Red Tent – a gathering of women at the new moon, also called a “moon lodge,” where women went to rest and be together when they were menstruating.  They engaged in self-care, conversation, meditations, and this is where the young were guided by the mature women of the tribe.  In Lara Owen’s powerful book for modern women entitled Her Blood Is Gold; Awakening to the Wisdom of Menstruation, she shared her personal experiences, as well as her extensive academic research into modern and traditional attitudes and practices around menstruation.   She documented numerous tribal cultures that viewed this extraordinary feminine phenomenon as Sacred.  Sacred as life itself.  In fact, what comes through as an overall theme in her writing, is embodied in the beliefs of the Cherokee tribe, that “the menstruating woman is performing a function of cleansing and gathering wisdom, that is beneficial not only for herself but also for the whole tribe.” (pg 33)  She writes that “Our monthly shedding is a key to our own renewal, our health and our personal power.  Every month we have the opportunity to renew and refresh our whole being, physically, psychologically, and spiritually.”  Thus, in the modern red Tent, we reclaim this gift and responsibility to tend to our vulnerabilities as well as our dreams, to re-align with the wisdom of the natural world, and thus to holistically empower ourselves. 

Long before we were living under fluorescent lights and in front of screens, women would tend to menstruate together, at the time of the new moon; the darkness nature’s cue to encourage deep rest, deep dreaming; allowing space for important insights to come in the quiet of these tender moments when women are most sensitive and attuned.  As we let go of our blood and metabolic debris, so too do we have the opportunity to process and let go of emotional debris. 

Most of us will relate to tears and discomfort being experienced as this time, even rage.  These are messages from deep within us, meant to guide our way forward.  Our task is to responsibly, gently, with great forgiveness and ever-evolving maturity, transform the metabolic and emotional residue of painful experiences, and even tragedies, into insights, wisdom, and a renewed sense of purpose and courage. 

The principles of Yin and Yang, from traditional Chinese medicine offer another rendering and perspective on the relationship between darkness and light, masculine and feminine, expansion and contraction, seasons and cycles, which we embody.

By honing our sensitivity and cultivating the art of going with the flow, we collect our nuggets of truth as we go, shedding skins, growing, transforming, slowly, slowly, month by month.  Year by year.  It is a beautiful, graceful, powerful, difficult process.  It often hurts – and it is not to be taken for granted.  We must come to understand these energies, our bodies, our emotional life, and we must engage with courage and great intention.  In doing so, we more intimately understand the Mother Herself – correct choices become more obvious and more compelling, as we recognize Her patterns, Her vulnerabilities, and Her power in ourselves. In modern times, in the circumstances in which we find ourselves, the imperative is to slow down in order to feel, to let go, to heal, and to finally break free from our patterns of pain, abuse, and extraction.

 Grace is our surrender to nature, coming to terms with our pain and vulnerability and also coming to terms with the power of our creative and thoughtful actions.  Grace is deep listening, keen observation.  Grace is forgiveness.  Grace is being humble and rising from the ashes of despair to be in true service to humanity, ecology, and holistic vitality.   Grace is communities of women coming together in genuine support of one another to tend our sensitivity, celebrate our beauty, and to stand as anchors of hard-earned wisdom, emotional intelligence, and humanitarian integrity, and to be catalysts for positive change.

What is inevitable is that this process of generating momentum and power happens with or without our conscious engagement…..cycles of expansion and contraction, extroversion and introversion, joy and pain, chaos and calm are guaranteed to be in store for us.  The process of birth, growth, decay, death and rebirth – as we witness in the elegance of a flower from bud to bloom to wilted compost – goes on with or without our conscious engagement with it à  So what happens if we do not engage?  If we avoid the storms, or pretend they’re not happening, or we medicate our pain for years on end, stuff our emotions with comfort food and our bloated bellies into skinny jeans?  The powerful energy of hidden agony will inevitably gather momentum and collide with other repressed emotions and wounded beings, and patterns turmoil, illness, and violence will erupt again and again and again. 

 As empowered women, what kind of storm do we wish to unleash in this world?

Feeling deeply into the shadow aspects of ourselves gives us clarity and insight to choose our actions wisely.  When we emerge in our more expansive, expressive phase of being; when our ideas and our work - having been generously tended, nurtured and encouraged - are ready for the world; there is no stopping us.  Our capacity to speak truth articulately, to create and collaborate according to our core values, and to connect with others in a meaningful, harmonious and productive way, becomes exponentially more effective.  We develop the ability to act and speak with clarity, confidence, and conviction.  We develop the courage to say YES to life when it is aligned with our desires and when it represents an opportunity to grow, and to say NO with grace and conviction when it is necessary to set a boundary.  Imagine the ecological impact we will have when we ourselves are intimately and blissfully aligned with the natural order, when we know it in our cells, because we have learned to catalyze healing and vitality through our own felt experience. 

 In practicing our skills in community - among our Sisters - in the tradition of the Red Tent, we develop an innate sense of belonging, as well as a sense of responsibility.  We learn that we ourselves are sacred and essential pillars, each firmly held by, and ultimately responsible for, holding up the structure and integrity of our communities. 

I would like to share a quote from Judith Duerk’s book, Circle of Stones; A Woman’s Journey to Herself: 

“How might your life have been different, if, as a young woman, there had been a place for you, a place where you could go to be among women…a place for you when you had feelings of darkness? And, if there had been another woman, somewhat older, to be with you in your own darkness, to be with you until you spoke…spoke out in your pain and anger and sorrow.

And if you had spoken until you had understood the sense of your feelings, how they reflected your own nature, your own deepest nature, crying out of the darkness, struggling to be heard.

And, what if, after that, every time you had feelings of darkness, you knew that the woman would come to be with you? And would sit quietly by as you went into your darkness to listen to your feelings and bring them to birth…so that, over the years, companioned by the woman, you learned to no longer fear your darkness, but to trust it…to trust it as the place where you could meet your own deepest nature and give it voice.

How might your life be different if you could trust your darkness…trust your own darkness?”

In closing, I will ask us to stretch even further and ask: 

How would our world be different if every month over the course of a lifetime, every woman comes back into her center, into a deep sense of herself, and what feels right and in alignment with nature, and what feels wrong, and that through that meditative, sacred process, month after month, year after year, she continually informs and refines her purpose, her actions, her priorities, her confidence, her relationships with other powerful women and her impact on her community and the world.  How would our world be different? 

Conflict, Curiosity and Compassion: Healing a Divided World

This article was originally published in Acupuncture Today in December 2017.  

In March 2017 Acupuncturists Without Borders (AWB) brought 18 practitioners, it’s mobile clinic, and its therapeutic “Peace Circle” on a World Healing Exchange tour to Israel and the West Bank.  With hearts and minds full of curiosity and compassion, a bus-load of practitioners traversed Tel Aviv, the Negev Desert, the Dead Sea, the Christian, Jewish and Muslim sacred sites of Jerusalem, traditional herbal farms, a kibbutz, a TCM Conference, a local hospital’s TCM department, and several Palestinian and Bedouin villages with the intention of connecting, learning, and considering the role of healers in the pursuit of a more peaceful world, at home and abroad.  

We experienced in real time the pulsation of a land whose very culture is conflict; palpably present on both sides of infamous and controversial border walls. We traveled through armed checkpoints where we were at times searched and interrogated. The young soldiers, about the age of my college-sophomore son, were strapped with large weapons and trifled through our bags and asked pointed questions.  Though the landscapes and cityscapes we tread through were breathtakingly beautiful, they were commonly demarcated by threads of barbed wire.  The honey-gold vitality of the desert and rolling hills we traveled between on crude, bumpy single-lane roads to get to a Palestinian village one clear morning was betrayed by an ominous tension, and the sound of a military helicopter circling above our caravan.  

At each of our destinations there were a few awkward moments of looking one another up and down; can we trust these people?  Do they trust us?  Are we safe?  What makes us so different?  Are they judging us?  Are we judging them?  Our ability to manage our own mind chatter and Qi disturbances was challenged daily, for sure.  

Our own angst and discomfort as a group was unearthed and aired clumsily, in our practice of “Council” between destinations.  Council is a process of interpersonal conflict resolution and effective communication that has its origins in Native American, Quaker and Buddhist traditions. Council employs active listening without interruption and speaking succinctly from the heart.  The benefits of practicing Council are personal and professional.

As healers who travel into areas of crisis and high tension, we are regularly and unavoidably impacted by the suffering we endeavor to alleviate.  AWB maintains that individual and interpersonal healing practices such as acupuncture treatments, Qi Gong, and Council are essential for maintaining proper boundaries and staying well in the field.  An essential part of AWB’s mission is to support healers in developing awareness and capacity to manage one’s own triggers and Qi disturbances.

Our team was led by an Israeli-Palestinian tour guide impressively well-versed in world history and religions.  Under his care, we were safely and skillfully guided through armed checkpoints, villages, markets, temples, holy lands, history books and propaganda. I was impressed by his ability to impart stories through a prism that could reflect as many perspectives as there are people on the planet, as well as his active refusal to give up the dream of a peaceful existence.  

We encountered many Israelis and Palestinians who are valiantly working together to transform conflict into cooperation.  We were told everywhere we went that PTS (post traumatic stress) is epidemic and part of the fabric of everyday life, having tenaciously infiltrated generations, families, communities and nations.  

Among the diverse cast of characters we met was a woman that was a main character in The Lemon Tree, the true story of a 35-year friendship between an Arab and an Israeli whose families shared the same home; an Israeli colleague who gives acupuncture treatments in a bomb a shelter along the Gaza strip, and told us of the bomb protocol – down to the number of seconds she has to prepare when the alarms are sounded; a Bedouin woman who gathers herbs in the desert, makes medicines and lotions by hand, employs and inspires the women in her village – and around the world; artisans of all stripes who imagine, create and bring to market the soulful fascinations of their hearts.  

We participated in a mobile clinic with Physicians for Human Rights in a Palestinian village with doctors and acupuncturists that regularly venture to “the other side” of the wall to provide care and friendship.  We visited the Temple Mount, the Wailing Wall, the site of Christ’s birth, and Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Museum).  We visited herbal farms employing Israelis and Palestinians, entrenched in property battles, and targeted by the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement. 

We had tea and cake on a rooftop in Jerusalem with two men who live in diabolically opposed worlds, divided by walls and generations of conflict.  They shared the stories of their personal tragedies perpetrated by “the other side,” each having lost a child in violent incidents.  They shared their story of friendship and reconciliation, and introduced us to Parent’s Circle, the peace organization which they now both represent.  

Without exception, our hosts and hostesses welcomed us with hospitality, traditional homemade dishes and tea, curiosity and lively conversation – if complicated at times by language barriers.  Time and again we experienced face-to-face meetings – human proximity – where body language, smiles, gestures, warm eyes, hand shakes, hugs, and simple offerings of hospitality are capable of dissolving fears and ideological barriers.

Since being on this journey, I’ve been contemplating walls and checkpoints; how we consciously and unconsciously - figuratively and literally - build walls.  Is it human nature, somehow, that we so skillfully and nonchalantly alienate ourselves from one another?  I suppose it’s not unlike the walls which we construct within ourselves to dissociate from our uncomfortable emotions; little bits of tension, crooked postural habits, aches and pains, full-on disease patterns.  Coping strategies.  When we dissociate from ourselves, we cause self harm, often unconsciously, by eating food until we’re numb, working until we collapse, drinking until we feel no pain, or using recreational drugs, sex, relationships - or whatever – to experience momentary relief; numbness.   There is alienation between body and mind; spirit and matter.  The community of cells, organs, tissues, fluids and vibrations within us becomes hampered in its capacity to regulate itself and inner pathology develops.  

In our outer world we place physical and ideological barriers between “us” and “them.”  Religion, ideologies, border walls, cultures, economic circumstances, sex, physical and lifestyle differences are some of the many things we use to judge and dissociate ourselves from other humans. We build walls around our hearts and around our properties.  We work in cubicles and use literal and proverbial walls to delineate who we are and what’s mine and what’s yours.  Perfectly human nuances and potentially empowering institutions can be swiftly, if insidiously, deployed as weapons that decimate our capacity for genuine human connection and, ironically, compassion.  

I noticed many times during our journey that when we left a room it was always with our hearts fuller than when we entered; smiles from the inside; eyes full of hope; yearning for more time together - deeper connection, more productive conversations.  I wondered if our hosts and hostesses felt the same way?

Could it be that in the heart of the world’s suffering lies the impetus for the greatest healing?  That this entire conflicted land could serve as a dynamic acupuncture point for the entire planet, sending a ripple of human healing potential into the cosmos? It feels as if we’ve visited the orchestra pit from which a band of worldly healer/musicians are sending their unique and sophisticated sounds and sensations of love, understanding and compassion into the world through education, cultivation, hospitality, artistry, healing modalities and other diverse means.  The invitation is for the world to be inspired and to join the orchestra, in whatever healing capacity each one of us instinctually and passionately embodies.

The potent beauty of what we bring as acupuncture practitioners – Qi doctors – I think, is the capacity to transcend words and stories; to gently touch and re-organize dis-ease into fluidity beneath the surface, at the level of cellular consciousness. We know well that when isolated cells start communicating and collaborating, miraculous transformations are possible.  We can see in and among our patients that when one cell lights up, the one next to it already feels brighter, more alive.  With a few intelligently placed needles, and the exhilarating experience of heartfelt connection between humans, we embark on a mission to ease and inspire internal worlds, outer auras and, through a ripple effect, entire communities.