Articles by Anyaa – Page 2 – Goddess On the Loose

For “Lucy” R.I.P. (and others like her) by Anyaa McAndrew

In the past several months I have been feeling more deeply than usual about animals. Sweet dear innocent animals, those that have been companions to my friends, have been leaving. Every time it happens, I drop into grief. I grieve for my friend and his or her loss, and then I remember the loss of my closest friend in the world, Miss Lily, an extraordinary Westie dog, who left me at 15 years old, about 7 years ago. That loss was the hardest I have ever experienced, because I gave her the gift of euthanizing her when it was her time to go, and it was an excruciatingly painful act. I miss her terribly, and I often think about seeing her again in another world. Now I have 2 cats rescued from shelters, and 3 dogs, one rescued by a rescue group, one we rescued from an ad on freecycle.com, and one inherited by my stepfather who died. My ex-partner has the last one.

Once I tap into that grief, it blends into the losses of life in general, the disintegration of our planet, and loss of countless animal and human lives each and every day, including 200 species a day going away. After all of that, it becomes easier to also grieve the recent loss of my relationship, a marriage of 5 and a half years, and a relationship of 9+ years.

Clearly, I have a strong empathic relationship with the animal world, especially the plight and circumstances of companion animals. Once a few years ago, I spent several months volunteering at a cat shelter, brushing and talking to 70-80 cats once a month or so, just to move beyond my over-sensitivity to their plight of being abandoned or dumped or abused by the people in their lives. I never made it to volunteer at the local animal shelter (which is a kill shelter) because I did not have the courage. I still don’t.

About 10 days ago, 2 sweet small elderly dogs were dumped near the entrance to our community. Three of us took responsibility for them and they stayed in a wood shed for several days. We got them bathed, and fed them, and spent some time with them. I named the girl-dog Lucy, because she looked like my sister’s family dog from the past. The boy-dog we named Winston. We had concern for their health because Winston has some tumors on his body, and Lucy was shaky, weak and possibly vomiting with diarrhea. We all tried desperately to find a rescue group to take them or a family to adopt them or foster them, but the shelters were all full, or we were asking from the wrong county, or the rescue groups were in overwhelm. Finally a compassionate animal activist called in a favor and we got them into a shelter in the next county. I picked them up at our sister-friend’s woodshed a few days ago, and noticed that Lucy was weaker than ever and shaking badly. When I left them at the shelter, I asked the staff to please get her examined quickly. I left them a good amount of food, a check for $200 for the rescue group, and a bottle of Rescue Remedy (to my astonishment they had no idea what it was), asking them to keep it in their water, explaining that it clears trauma in people and animals. I called the rescue group that was going to pick them up and asked them to please tend to her medically as soon as possible. I was assured that it would happen ASAP.

Today I called the shelter to see how they were doing, and was told that Lucy had been found dead this morning. She was not taken by the rescue group yesterday because they found lots of ticks on both dogs so they were “treated”. “Treated” means chemicals, and I am pretty clear that in the condition Lucy was in, the last thing she needed was a big dose of chemicals. What she needed was an emergency vet to examine and treat her for whatever was ailing her. I regret not taking her the vet 4 days earlier myself. I hoped she would be “rescued “ by someone else so I would not have to put out the funds to pay for emergency treatment. If I had not been so busy, so pre-occupied, so unwilling to stretch myself further, she might still be alive and be on the way to recovery. She was clearly suffering and I just did not have the time to more fully tend to her. There are lots of ways this could have worked out and she still might have died. I will never know.

I am grieving for Lucy tonight. She was a sweet being who did not deserve to be left alone in her pain. She deserved to be treated with love and respect. She was probably a family dog at one time who lived in service to her people, who brought love and joy to those around her. She was a good dog.

The people who dumped their dogs in our community and left them to fend for themselves created bad karma for themselves. They created a ripple effect that has affected many beings over the past several days. One of the effects is that hearts have been stretched open, prayers have gone out. That’s not so bad. Another effect is that service agencies, volunteers and people like us have been taxed and strained and stressed. The biggest effect is that a presious life has been lost. Another effect is that Lucy’s brother, the one we call Winston, is now alone, and probably grieving as well. his grief will likely be ignored in the throng of other needs. He has lost his lifelong companion. Maybe the people who did this have been feeling regret and wondering what happened to their dogs. Maybe they will wake up a bit, and eventually pay back their debt to the animals. I can only hope.

Here is the south we have more homeless animals and mistreated animals than anywhere in the US. In our mountains dogs are left in cages in the heat and the cold, only to be left out at hunting time. Yesterday I heard from a friend in Minneapolis that their city just received 150 homeless dogs from Texas. A plea was broadcast on the evening news encouraging people to adopt one of these animals! Thank Goddess for the rescue agencies in Texas and thank Goddess for the companssionate people of Minneapolis.

So, I am writing this for Lucy, in hopes that even one person who has ever abandoned, abused, ignored, or betrayed a companion animal or an animal in trouble will read it, and think twice about their choice to abdicate responsibility or the choice to assist. I am writing it in hopes that even one person who never steps up when they are given the opportunity, will decide to step up and help, to foster, to host, to make a phone call, to donate some money, to assist with a fundraiser, to carry food in your car for hungry animals, to adopt a homeless animal, to take a chance on a dog or a cat and make this being a part of their life. Maybe you do it all the time, because those who do it tend to take on more than their share. Maybe you have never done it, and maybe it is your turn to do it. Maybe it is time for you to speak up or to stand up when you witness the way an animal is mistreated.

I personally will make a choice next time that will be more heroic, more caring, more daring. And, I really hope I don’t have too many opportunities because I am pretty raw from this one.

P.S. 5-16-16

Lucy’s necropsy found that she had an overgrowth of whipworms, and that is what killed her. If she had been wormed earlier, her death may have been prevented. Sarge’s said it is very easy to treat. Winston is at Sarge’s rescue shelter in Waynesville NC and is doing well. He was de-wormed, had his shots and is headed to the vets to be neutered soon, as well as to have two growths removed. We will see what the say about these growths…hopefully they are benign. Check back as I will post it here next week.

Merging with the Ancestors: The Adventures of the Crop Circle Clan August 2015

We gathered together in South West England from many places: our South Aftrican crystal skull carrier Jennifer the furthest, then Daniel in the Phillipines, then Jacqueline living in Tuscany, and from Kansas City, Cincinatti, Atlanta, Washington state, Central Florida, and North Carolina. Our local right side-of-the-vehicle, left-side-of-the-road drivers Christina and Sara live the closest. We are a friendly and enthusiastic bunch. We have been connecting by email for months, and many of us are in interconnected circles, students of Daniel, priestesses in my lineage, and like-minded adventurous souls. The cross-quarter time of Lammas, Venus’s close conjunction with Mercury and Jupiter and her movement into the Underworld to transform into her incarnation as Leo, all set the cosmological stage.

Our gathering place is an old country estate and villa in Swindon, UK, some 600 or more years old, added onto to many times. It was owned mostly by a family of elites with legacies of rigid, crippled people and acting out rebels. More than a few wives were “banished” to this summer estate for some kind of impropriety (Oh, to be banished here must have been such a hardship!). A few of us take the tour of the ancient house, walls lined with portraits of stiff but important people, and we easily conclude that this was one unhappy family. The 250 acre estate grounds showcases several huge old trees, a pond, and a carefully tended ancient walled garden with species dating back to the 1700’s. The park continually buzzes with families, children and dogs. There is a very old church in the back yard of the house, which must have been a constant source of angst for the household residents. 600 years later in our built-on hotel next door, we had sumptuous food served to us 3 times a day, afternoon tea, sweet single rooms, and a swimming pool. We had a big meeting room with windows and breezes blowing through, all looking out onto uncharacteristically sunny summer English days, to immerse ourselves in the Shamanic Astrology mysteries. We shared our stories and our place on the wheel, listened to Daniel teach, to stories of the Celtic pantheon, enjoyed two fascinating guest lecturers, danced a bit to Celtic favorites, made a collage, and dreamed into our daily excursions and ceremonies. We sensed that the ancestors of Lydiard Park were happy to have us, and accepted our presence.


	Heritage apple trees from the 1700’s, gigantic thistles and large thriving blooms of the Lydiard House Walled Garden

Our intention was to weave back together what Patriarchy has torn asunder in humanity, and in ourselves, especially in our connection with our ancestors. We all resonate with the Celtic lands, and in this area of the UK, we can feel the magic that surrounds us. We are an hour from Stonehenge, and the new archeological finds in that area that continue to be unearthed daily. We are 20 minutes from the Avebury area, where a series of stone circles within stone circles, stone avenues, chambered cairns, barrows, man-made hills, and curious chalk drawings etched into hillsides are everywhere. As a bonus, this is where crop circles pop up during this time of year, and we are all keen to visit at least one. After all, we are The Crop Circle Clan. The first day we head off to the village of Avebury, smack dab in the middle of all the stones.
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Bookstores, Cottages, and
the irresistable Pub
at Avebury

The local metaphysical bookstore has a large map of the Wiltshire area, a county of 1,300 square miles, with the season’s crop circles dotted across the landscape. Unfortunately, the farmers of the area are not often willing to open their land for visitors to see them these days. After years of losing money because they sacrifice the crop in the field where the circle appears, and folk disrespecting their property in various ways, there are not many who take kindly to crop circles. We were lucky, though, and we found two that were close to each other and allowed access, thanks to Gabriella Kapfer http://peace-trails.com/ who scouted them out before we arrived. The Crop Circle Access Centre, who sponsored a Crop circle exhibit in Marlborough that several of us visited (imagine, an exhibit of circles, research, videos and photos over 25 years), was on hand at our first circle, the Eagle at Uffcott Down, to collect funds for the farmer. The second circle seemed to be on land that was not oveseen. The Eagle was huge, with no way to know where we were except for a map we were given when we paid our £3 admission. With Gabriella leading the way, we headed to the crown chakra of the Eagle. Some of us felt electrical energy, hands buzzing, a charged feeling. I was fascinated at how the wheat was precisely combed, layed and cornered by whatever force created this masterpiece. Later we headed to the heart, just below the crown, and we concluded the energy was yang, activating and definitely solar. The Crop Circle Connector interprets this one as 2016 being the possible return of Quetzacoatl, the year when the circle makers meet humanity. See the full interpretation here.



	Walking into the Eagle, discovered a week before we arrived, and sitting at the Crown Chakra

The eight-pointed star within the square and circle, Etchilhampton near Devizes, discovered August 7th, a few days after we arrived in the UK, was 15 minutes away. As we headed down the road, we were the Crop Circle Clan On Fire from our experience at the gigantic solar eagle. This next circle was a new kind of woven formation, seen in recent years. The wheat is layered over itself in exquisite patterns that cannot be fully appreciated from within the circle. The eight pointed star is subtle, and can barely be discerned in the arial photos. We promptly feel asleep or went into deep meditation in this layered feminine energy, as if we were being held in a basket.

The eight-pointed woven star, and earlier woven formations (below), breathtakingly intricate and complex.

After that, crop circles sprung up around us all week, and we are pretty sure we called in one of them, as it was an astrological wheel! There was no time left in our fast-paced, full-to-the-brim week to chase after them. Because of our crop circle immersion day, we all seemed content to be surrounded by them at a distance. It was clear to many of us that we wanted to come back for more on another adventure at another time.

The largest stone circle, dated about 2,600 BCE that surrounds the village of Avebury, is itself surrounded by a henge, an ancient circular ditch, that probably contained water at one time. The two inner circles are connected to two stone avenues, that lead to a meeting place between the two. One seems for the masculine and one for the feminine, and it is easy to imagine the surrounding site of Silbury Hill, a huge human-made hill also surrounded by a henge, alight with a flame on Beltane, and processionals of people gathering to celebrate this Wheel of the Year point from all over the world. Many still do. The Avebury area draws many thousands of visitors each year. Artifacts have been found from Egypt and other parts of the world in the the West Kennet Long Barrow, a 5,700 year old multi-functional chambered site. We could not get enough of the magnificent and prolific sites at Avebury. There was too much to explore and not enough time to do it all.

Peter Knight, guardian and expert on West Kennet Long Barrow, emphasized how all the sites in the area are intimately connected, with site lines to other sites as long as 3 miles. The crop circles add another texture to this rich area of sacred sites. West Kennet is 16 miles from Stonehenge and just south of Avebury, part of an extended landscape of earth temples. Every mile or so, there is a chambered longbarrow, with West Kennet being the largest. Peter feels it was the abode of wisewomen and priestesses who oversaw births, deaths, and other rites of passage. The burials that were most predominant were the placements of only human bones in the chambers. Huge boulders in front of the entrance indicated that the site was closed 1,000 years before the Avebury circles were built. Perhaps it had served its purpose and a new era was ready to be birthed. Perhaps our current monotheistic religions will someday see that they have outlived their own uselfulness, too! Peter guided us in a night-time shamanic journey within the longbarrow, where we were encouraged to call to, and receive messages from the ancestors. Many of us saw images and heard messages that continued to stir the pot of ancestral awareness.

Stonehenge was scheduled many months ahead by sound healer Gabriella, so that we could actually go inside this closely guarded monolith. This beautiful large stone circle was a disappointment for many reasons. The police guard warned us that if we so much as touched a stone, we would be asked to leave. The stones were clearly restored to the point that they could have been part of a museum or Disney display, the life in them long gone. Our sound healer and her partner did their best to create music over the loud traffic on the ground and in the air. A large group of us paid thousands to the curators for the privilege of sitting inside Stonehenge for an hour, and got up in the wee hours of the morning to travel there to boot!

On the way back from Stonehenge, we visited the Salisbury Cathedral that was celebrating the Magna Carta signing 800 years ago. There was an old pagan site next to the church that emphasized how Christianity built over the sacred sites, and knew that the ancients were connected to the magic of the land. We wandered around, intrigued by the stylized but spooky beauty of the place, where hundreds of notables were buried in tombs in the floor, the strange religious custom of the day. I suppose if you had the money, you could get really close to God. Some tombs were built into the walls, and had porcelin effigies guarding them.

The ancestors were stirring within and without, the Partriarchs, the Celts and the Neolithics. Daniel’s keynote of the week was his famous evolving lecture Who Are We and What the Hell Happened? As we visited the sites, felt the stirrings of our own personal ancestry, and heard from Daniel about the recent discoveries around this area and around the world, we felt ourselves getting ready to honor them. On a rainy day towards the last of our week, we gathered an altar cloth, symbols of the old story and the new story, a libation and some food and headed out to the park-like grounds of Lydiard House under a big old tree. We called in the directions and the elements. We spoke to them from our hearts, from our personal stories, forgave them, and asked them for forgiveness. We asked them for what we needed in the coming times to help us bring in a New Earth and a renewed connection to the land and to what really worked in their times, especially the pre-Celtic times before patriarchy. We honored that in this part of the world they held off patriarchy till 1,500 BCE in some places in England, Scotland and Ireland, as much as a few thousand years after it had overtaken the rest of Europe. We felt that our ceremony was good and our week was near completion.

Our final ceremony began at one of the ancient standing stone avenues of Avebury, where we wound down and around to two huge standing stones that are obviously yin and yang gateways. In the twighlight crack between the worlds, we gathered together the jewels of our week as adventurers of the Crop Circle Clan, and spoke our commitments to our own sacred marriage within. So Be It As We Make It So!

2016 Excursions: Ireland and Scotland

Visit our webpage on this webiste, and our facebook page for details on the 2016 Renaissance of the Sacred Feminine: Stars and Stones of Ireland and Scotland excursion~retreats. Join us for all 14 days or just 8 days, on the wild western coast of Ireland at Kilronan Castle and then the Newgrange area, then 6 nights on the Isle of Lewis at lovely Doune Braes hotel, our homebase to explore the great Callanish Neolithic circle and surrounding sites for 6 nights and 7 days: August 20th through Sept 3rd, 2016.

If you have read this far, enjoy my SPECIAL ADDITION BELOW! Pictures from the Cropredy Music Festival, Cropredy Village, UK August 12-15, 2015 sponsored for the last 10 years by the 70’s British band, The Fairport Convention! The Brits love their dogs as much as us Americans do (attended by me, Daniel and Jacqueline after our Avebury adventure).

Women Awakening through the Priestess Archetype by Anyaa

Initiatory ceremonies are the domain of all religions and spiritual paths. The path of the female mystic, or priestess, can be seen in its own light in these times of great turmoil and change at the “Turning of the Ages.” It is unique not only because it is a feminine path, but because it has been absent from our psyches for thousands of years. We have witnessed the shadow side of the Divine Masculine, the Patriarchy, gain ascendancy and foster many forms of oppression, including the suppression of women’s rights, Holy Inquisitions, and the negation of feminine mysticism. Over millennia we’ve had priests but no priestesses; a male God, but no Goddesses. It has been out of balance, but things are changing.
One of the features of Patriarchy has been an emphasis on “solar initiations” or those that focus on transcending the body to join with Spirit. Fire-walking, warrior sweat-lodges, the Sun Dance, mental meditations, some martial arts, and many forms of vision quests use the mind and endurance to reach out of the body and thereby elevate consciousness. By contrast, the Divine Feminine employs “lunar initiations,” or those that call Spirit into the body, a welcome alternative to jettisoning out into the universe to make a connection! The feminine loves the sparkle of life, the senses, getting down into body, the pleasures and pains, joys and tears of earth.
Another feature of Patriarchy is our loss of soul connection to our bodies. The result is that most of us center ourselves from our neck up, denying the life-force energy that enlivens us and makes life worth living. We identify heavily with our thinking and action based on thought alone. But as women reclaim their Divine Feminine natures, the true feeling function of femininity gets to play and be re-membered. Shakti dances into ecstatic bliss. Aphrodite revels in sacred sexual pleasure. Pele fully runs the life-force energy of fiery passion. Inanna consciously surrenders to the death-rebirth mysteries. Baubo laughs her bawdy belly laugh. Kuan Yin cries her tears of compassion for all living things, while Gaia pours forth her infinite abundance. Priestess consciousness allows the many faces of the Goddess to be soulfully expressed, as the human woman learns to step into her spiritual power.
After a long suppression, the Divine Feminine and the priestess archetype are returning to cultural consciousness and acceptance. Women walk differently on a spiritual path when they are fully encouraged to express their soulful nature. They are wild, willful, chaotic, earthy, sensual, sweet, empathic, merging, deeply emotional, passionate and compassionate. These natural soul qualities are the qualities of the Divine Feminine seeking to awaken the priestess within the woman. Through our wild desires and intricate passions, we find our soul stirring and our spirit calling. We stop silencing our deepest dreams and allow the voice of the Goddess to come through as our own. This awakening, can result in the full empowerment of a woman as a priestess whose temple is the everyday world. She exerts her influence in all of her roles—as daughter, mother, lover, career woman, neighbor and in every interaction she has, moment to moment. The divine feminine and the divine feminist are joined. We can embrace a movement of soul and spirit, human and divine. We can experience the sacred in our daily lives and express our life force energy in everything we do. We can include the essential factors that make the new feminine mysticism, the priestess within, grounded and practical, yet imaginative and sacred.

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The Shamanic Priestess Process is Coming to Central Florida!

WHAT IS THE SHAMANIC PRIESTESS PROCESS—AND WHY SHOULD I BE INTERESTED?
The Shamanic Priestess Process is a life-changing initiation & spiritual process for women. As the Shift of the Ages progresses, as the Feminine is called to take the stage, we… as sacred women walking a spiritual path… discover that indeed, We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For! The Divine Feminine is returning, and women are called to participate in the healing of ourselves and our planet.

We learn that the old “power over others” patriarchal model has kept us from discovering who we really are. The Shamanic Priestess Process empowers women to walk through their own fears to gain their own personal power, magnetism, and explore their passions.

Shamanic Priestess Circles become catalysts of change in the lives of every woman in Circle.. We awaken, enliven and integrate the priestess within. We find our own sacred work, and bring forth our unique gifts to serve ourselves and the world in a bigger way.

WHEN IS THE SHAMANIC PRIESTESS PROCESS COMING TO CENTRAL FLORIDA?
This month, from November 14-16 2014, we’ll do several previews around central Florida, to “gather the women.” We’ll be doing them in New Smyrna Beach, Deltona, Casselberry, and Kissimmee/Celebration.

The preview will give you a “taste” of what the Shamanic Priestess Process is like. If it resonates for you, we’ll invite you to join us for the FIRST Central Florida Shamanic Priestess Process Circle, which will begin in January and complete in July. (More details on the below and on our Facebook page.)

I hope you’ll be able to join us in November; below are the dates/times of the gatherings. Please choose one you prefer and email Melody or Roxanne, our coordination team, immediately to confirm. We have limited space and it’s first come, first in.
1. FRIDAY NOVEMBER 14, 2014 from 7 to 9:30pm in New Smyrna
2. SATURDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2014 from 11am to 1:30pm in Deltona
3. SATURDAY NOVEMBER 15, 2014 from 7 to 9:30pm in the Orlando area
4. SUNDAY NOVEMBER 16, 2014 from 1 to 3:30pm in the Kissimmee/Celebration area
YES, you may invite your friends! And YES, teens are invited to attend with their mothers!

The 2.5 hours we’ll spend together at the preview will answer your questions and allow you to feel your resonance with the Process. We’ll connect via phone or Skype with Anyaa McAndrew, our facilitator, who has been seeding the Shamanic Priestess Process around the U.S. and Canada for the past 14 years. Find more about Anyaa on this website.
The power of our gatherings won’t always be immediately felt, so we also have a Facebook page for women to post questions, ideas, insights and allow the energy to build.

WHEN WILL THE FIRST SHAMANIC PRIESTESS CIRCLE IN CENTRAL FLORIDA BEGIN?
In 2015. On Jan. 23-25, we’ll experience our Shamanic Priestess Introductory weekend retreat. You can register and attend the January retreat (which is only $260) without committing to the entire Shamanic Priestess Circle. After the January retreat, only women who are committed to the Circle will be able to attend the remaining sessions.

Our first central Florida circle will have 20 women and will run from January 2015 to July 2015, meeting every other month. In these gatherings, we’ll explore:
• The New Priestess & Women’s Mysteries
• Initiation of the Priestess Within
• Enlightening the Shadow Between Women
• Telling the Stories of Our Spiritual Journeys
• The Archetypes We Carry
• Sacred Marriage with the Inner Masculine
• Conscious Death of the Old Self
• Sacred Rebirth of the Shamanic Priestess
• Emergence & Ordination

I’M INTERESTED. WHERE CAN I GET MORE INFORMATION?
Go here for the flyer, and for more information about the Process go here, for audios describing the Shamanic Priestess go here and for what women who have done the Process have to say, go here. You can also read interviews here and articles here!

Callanish, the Sacred Feminine and the New Earth: On the Grand Cross of 2014 by Anyaa McAndrew

When we know about the sacred timings, and choose to participate in them, we have the capacity to influence the outcome of things. Events are not pre-determined. Consciousness is what the Universe is made of, so as we add our own conscious intent to the great forces at play, there is the possibility that we just might help move events along in a direction that we want them to go. In this case, our direction and intent on our trip to Scotland was to re-connect land and sky, soul and spirit, masculine and feminine as it once was in pre-patriarchal, pre-Celtic, Neolithic times. Continue reading “Callanish, the Sacred Feminine and the New Earth: On the Grand Cross of 2014 by Anyaa McAndrew”

Gloria Steinem: We Are Not Done! by Anyaa McAndrew

Gloria Steinem spoke at Western Carolina University on Thursday, March 6.

I had the honor of attending a lecture at Western Carolina University here in my mountains of North Carolina…a remote place for sure to see Gloria Steinem speak! But, what an amazing opportunity it was. Gloria turns 80 in a few weeks. Dressed in a simple black jumpsuit that belied a tall slim figure, hair tied back in a braid, there was little sign of alteration to Gloria’s natural beauty other than a few gray roots in her reddish hair. She was her usual straightforward self, admitting to us that although she was asked to speak about the changes she saw from the 60’s till now, she did not tend to look to the past, but lived in the future. So, getting this opportunity to compare her view from here to back there, she spoke a version of her famous quote: “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off!” She confirmed that there were lots of things to piss us off these days, the condition of women’s rights in the U.S. and in the world on top of the list. Gloria feels we have made only incremental changes, and if we invested in women the way that we invested in bailing out banks and corporations, the return on that investment would have been all the economic stimulus we would need. Women don’t tend to put their money in Swiss bank accounts, but to spend it for the good of their families and communities. “It is more rewarding to watch money change the world than to watch it accumulate.”

We tend to think that feminism is old-school, over, done, passe’, but the truth is that we are just getting started. As long as there is racism, discrimination, reproductive coercion and repression, class-ism, heterosexism, and patriarchy, there has to be feminism, says Gloria, because it is all just imperialism towards one group or another. The core abuse is towards women, because as long as abuse and violence towards women is tolerated, every other form of abuse will be tolerated as well. We have made little progress in the 47 years since the 60’s, because the God we worship still looks like the ruling class, and that means we are still in deep trouble. Gloria said many times in her talk that there is nothing wrong with the majority, and that most of us are aligned with women’s economic and reproductive freedom. The issue is with the 1% who still holds onto the power over. The old boy network is still in charge and has in fact taken over many states. We must stand together to shadow our state legislators, demand fair voting districting, and do our part to stay as aware, active, and attentive as we can every day. The empowerment of women is still ridiculed and it is still threatening to the 1%. We can continue to stand up and speak out. As Gloria says: “Women may be the one group that grows more radical with age.”

And, I love Gloria’s definition of feminism: “A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men.”

Enjoy this very entertaining and moving TED talk by Isabel Allende from 2007: It all still rings true-true today in this time where our greatest hope is that the patriarchy will have a good death…..soon, and that women can finally come out of the shadows and into the sun of a new day on this precious and abused (feminine) planet.

March is Women’s History Month http://womenshistorymonth.gov/

http://blog.ted.com/2008/01/03/isabel_allende/

Heritage apple trees from the 1700’s, gigantic thistles and large thriving blooms of the Lydiard House Walled Garden

Bookstores, Cottages, and the irresistable Pub at Avebury

Walking into the Eagle, discovered a week before we arrived, and sitting at the Crown Chakra

The eight-pointed woven star, and earlier woven formations (below), breathtakingly intricate and complex.

2016 Excursions: Ireland and Scotland

The Shamanic Priestess Process is Coming to Central Florida!

Heritage apple trees from the 1700’s,
gigantic thistles and large thriving
blooms of the Lydiard House
Walled Garden

Bookstores, Cottages, and
the irresistable Pub
at Avebury