October 27, 2004
Connecting hearts with minds
at the Gather the Women Congress
...and some disconnects
by Stephanie Hiller
So we are here, the women. We are gathering. We are gathering because it is our mandate.
The second Gather the Women Congress held in Dallas, Texas, October 14-17, was designed according to the principles of self-organizing systems, to create an open space for women to "to find bold and loving ways to weave with others," as organizer Kathe Schaaf stated in her opening remarks.
"Gather the women is a question," she added. "We are being led quietly forward to a new way of being. It takes a new kind of courage to tolerate the ambiguity of Gather the Women."
It's a brave idea, this new paradigm thinking, as compelling as it is vague, to create a space without an agenda, where women can feel safe to speak what is on their minds.
This year's Congress succeeded in creating that space. It honored the feminine, anchored the energy in the four sacred elements, called on the Goddess and invited the grandmothers to speak. As is often the case where women gather, it generated a lot of emotion and reflection. Unlike last year's Congress, it allowed room for informal conversation and networking. And perhaps because it drew so many less participants than had been expected -- many of the international guests were unable to get visas -- there was much more room in which to navigate and connect. But at the end of three days, it remained unclear where this women's movement is headed, and how it might address the multiple crises of our time.
Presentations were resolutely upbeat, though uneven in quality, with some speakers using the podium to promote their pet projects.
Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson inspired her listeners with her assertion that "when women come together, they become a powerful force." She urged us to honor the differences that "define us but never must divide us." She invited men to join us, but was clear that women's leadership is essential: "As strong as men are, and as loud as they talk, women do lead them. And when they realize we are the majority, they'll follow like they should."
With her lilting voice and gentle demeanor, Johnson can say things like that and make men smile.
Two other speakers made powerful marks on the weekend's proceedings.
Patricia Smith Melton stunned the audience with the weekend's most serious and compelling moment, a poetic statement theatrically rendered by the lanky Patricia, in a voice of keen delicacy and carefully registered passion. In it she conveyed reasons why we ought to be adored -- and adore ourselves -- for the unique power of women to think from the heart and feel with the eyes the whole unbearably touching panorama of humnan sufferings. And its awesome potential, transforming the enemy with love. Love is the answer! Please read our excerpt from this amazing presentation.
In tailored contrast, Jane Roberts presented a model of determination in application -- with a will to triumph. She narrated the story of the campaign she started with Lois Abraham to help UNFPA. They two, separately, had had the same response to Bush's refusal in 2002 to fund UNFPA -- the United Nations Population Fund-- and joined forces to raise that $34 million by asking 34 million women to contribute a dollar.
One woman dies every minute in childbirth, Roberts reminded us, a calamity UNFPA works to prevent. UNPFA also provides family planning services, which is why Bush withdrew US funding. The organization Roberts helped start, 34 Million Friends, has collected more than $2 million for the fund. Roberts so was compelling that women passed the hat immediately -- a purse, actually -- and added to the collection. Please visit the website and help deliver this simple statement: We care about women.
Roberts' brave effort shows what women can do -- and how it's never enough as long as governments move stubbornly in the opposite direction. With the stroke of a pen, Bush took $34 million out of the fund, and after two years women and men have been able to make up less than a tenth of the funds lost. This conflict between our noble intentions and the jarring reality that surrounds us was an implicit sour note in the weekend's proceedings, one that sounded in many contexts without being spoken lest, each reluctant to rain on the party, a chance to relax and be among women who earnestly desire the same thing for the world.
We had a choice of workshops in the afternoons, all conducted along circle principles, and on Friday I chose the Peace and Security workshop run by Peacexpeace, where again, our ideals stood in painful juxtaposition to the dark forces that continue to rule.
Arlene Steputtat facilitated the first half of the workshop using a manual by theologian John-Roger who has written many books about making peace and is President of the Institute for Individual and World Peace. He is one of the proponents of the view that in order to create peace we must first find peace in ourselves. No one can argue with that. But he has devised a process for learning how to do that, with the injunction that we can proceed to peacefulness only by giving up our "againstness" -- choosing to let go or accept rather than oppose or judge.
Women in the workshop took turns reading a page from John-Roger's book and taking responsibility for ways that they contribute to conflict. It was quite touching, but as more women spoke, I began to feel restless and disturbed by this continuing self-effacement whilst real tanks are moving across the landscape and very real bombs exploding that have nothing to do with any of our failure to be "at peace" &endash; and submissive.
Present were two beautiful women from Israel, the lovely Elana Rozenman, and her friend from Palestine whose name I do not recall. These women meet in circle through the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, a very good and longstanding organization that has been bringing warring Jews and Arabs together in the worship of their one God for fifty years. They are also a circle in the growing Peacexpeace network, which has been doing tremendous work uniting circles here with circles of women in the war-torn world. And they need your help! Your circle can hook up with a circle of women anywhere in the world you would like. What an exceptional idea. Please visit peacexpeace.org to learn more.
Back to the exercise in the workshop -- I got kind of mad at John Rogers. I'm not sure that women, who are always taking the blame for everything anyway, should take the responsibility for wars. Women do not create wars. Why hasn't someone noticed that?
Indeed it's frustrating to contemplate this New Age practice of purging the resistance from our own hearts in the vain hope that the world will become peaceful thereby. After 30 years or more of such intensive work, we are now facing the most heightened state of agonized warfare since the second World War. Activists might argue that it is the very lack of resistance that has propelled us to this uneasy state.
Yes, it's about getting peaceful. And yes, it's about getting fierce -- throwing the rascals out of our beds like Julia Ward Howe. This attempt to be "good" &endash; to be pretty &endash; to be accepted -- seemed to plague this Congress as it did last year's. Once again I saw good hearted women hoping and wishing that they could create solutions by dreaming them into existence because we do not believe we can actually do something about it. Of course we can do something about it. We just have to start!
The setting of the Congress was another disconnect.
The Omni Mandalay Hotel is plush and expensive. They gave us good room rates and I assume they also accommodated the Congress on other costs.
But the atmosphere was nothing less than palatial. Our climate-controlled room -- overstocked with every beverage one could possibly want ($5.75 plus tax for a bottle of Evian!) -- overlooked a flat expanse of tall fancy corporate headquarters like the hotel itself, separated from one another by artificial lakes and huge lawns -- a sort of latter-day Coliseum, testimony to America's extraordinary wealth, which is derived in large part from the exploitation of its overseas colonies. Welcome to Dallas. This is a big town full of big men with big youknowwhats who all vote Republican. You remember Texas. Cattle and oil men with ten gallon hats. These men also buy guns. They love to go hunting. And they love to make more guns to sell overseas to keep the hunt in business.
Ah yes, the Omni was total comfort. It's so nice, to be treated like that once in awhile! Uniformed doormen open the door for you with a smile Wow. The food was excellent.
Yet -- why here? More than one woman complained that it seemed strange to talk about feeding the hungry in such an opulent setting. If we are changing the world by changing ourselves, then surely we could meet in an environment that does not reflect so extravagantly the values of our consumptive existence.
How can we help the impoverished world by consuming it? Small drops of charity won't suffice. A shocking 2 percent of American philanthropy goes overseas. What a disgrace! With one mocha latte a day, we could feed whole families in the third world. And what would be the result? World peace.
Also at the workshop &endash; my, it was full! &endash; after seeing the new Peacexpeace film, The Peace Circle [which you can order from us] we heard an excellent presentation from Rose --- titled Food and Violence. Rose's work is really profound. We are honored to publish this talk here. Once again, we make the connection. Food equals love equals peace.
So in this open field created (or received) in Source, and held by the mothers of Gather the Women, the founding members of WOVA (Women of Vision and Action) including the inimitable Barbara Marx Hubbard, who sent us a video sharing her life as a visionary and admitting to us that at 74 she was just learning how to " incarnate her authentic being." Wonderful stuff.
So we are here, the women. We are gathering. We are gathering because it is our mandate. And if we don't know yet exactly what we're going to do, or how we're going to do it &endash; we've already begun. We'll figure it out as we go. We can do this. We have to.
Stephanie Hiller is the publisher of Awakened Woman and the founder of Women for a Better World. WBW brought Afghan goods to sell and information about building a global women's network exchanging goods and services in a mutually beneficial form of commerce. More about this concept after we attend the Gift Paradigm Conference next weekend. It's all about new economies. In Las Vegas &endash; talk about the belly of the beast &endash; or can it really be worse than Texas? &endash; www.giftparadigmconference.com/ Come if you can!