November 11, 2004
Warrior Mothers:
Stories to Awaken the Flames of the Heart
by Thais Mazur
If you have ever imagined a world without violence, hunger, or hatred, a world that supports life, rather than destroys it - Thaïs Mazur's new book, Warrior Mothers: Stories to Awaken the Flames of the Heart, points the way to your ability to make a difference. Twenty-four women, from all walks of life, offer their personal stories to inspire and awaken us from apathy and despair to a call to action. Armed with passion, a fierce protective nature and the undeniable wisdom of the ages, these women change the world one person, one block, one cause, one city at a time. Each woman's story affirms a belief in humanity's capacity to make changes and supports the dream that a better future is possible.
The stories in this book encompass many lifestyles and situations of women who have committed simple and courageous acts. These stories show us that making a difference in the world doesn't take a rich, famous or highly educated person. Sometimes, out of simple and ordinary lives, events occur that spur us into action. LaDonna Redmond tells the story about her infant son who was faced with a life-threatening illness from the food he was eating. She decided to organize the first black farmers' market and is now organizing the first organic food cooperative in her Illinois community. Terri Swearingen heard about a toxic incinerator being built 400 yards from a West Virginia elementary school and became a full-time activist to shut it down. Marsha Green fell in love with whales on a vacation in Hawaii and is now spearheading the battle against low frequency active sonar testing, which has killed hundreds of marine mammals.
These women show us that it doesn't take a super heroine to create change. Most took their first step unknowingly, guided by a calling they could not ignore. It either launched them onto a path of harmony with their life or created a major turning point full of challenges and unknowns. Like throwing a pebble into a still pond, a simple thought became an act rippling outward, gathering energy like a wave rolling across the ocean. Whether it involved their family, their community or the world, each woman was moved by a deep inner wisdom -- an undeniable call -- that transformed their lives and those around them ... a call awakening the flames of the heart.
Here is an excerpt from the Prelude of Warrior Mothers by Thaïs Mazur published by Rising Star Press.
It was the night before Winter Solstice and I was standing silently in a large room with a wood planked floor. A brilliant light streamed in from all directions and the air was quivering with a white radiance. There, in the center of the room stood my martial arts teacher whom I had trained with for eleven years. Standing in front of me, she held out a red velvet sheath. I reached for the handle emerging from one end of the red cloth and pulled out a gleaming silver broad sword. My teacher gracefully raised her two long fingers, in the mudra of Kwan Yin, and placed them on my third eye, saying, "Remember." In that moment, I awoke from the dream, feeling a surge of energy and clarity. I thought about the ancient broad sword form I had studied while I was her student, its grace and power. After having a baby, I had placed the sword in the corner of my home office where it stood like some bygone trophy. The dream had rekindled the strength of the blade, cutting through the muck, going straight to the core with extension and light. The message was clear. The coming year was going to reawaken the sword. In the darkness of early morning, I reached out and put my hand on my brand new sleeping baby, feeling the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. Life - a miracle!
When I embarked on the path of motherhood, not only was I amazed at the dramatic opening of my heart as I gazed at my newborn baby, but also the profound connection I felt towards all people and all living things. At the same time, with the events of September 11th, holding my tiny daughter in my arms, I was reminded of the vulnerability of life and felt the immense need to nurture my young daughter and protect her from the darkness enveloping the world. In the past year, my martial arts teacher and over twenty other women that I have known, have died of cancer. Each death made me acutely aware of the toxic state of our environment and I questioned the healthy future for my daughter. A feeling of despair fell over me along with an intense desire to step forward and do whatever I could to help shape the future for all children and for this precious life on earth. The stories that I had heard about women in Bosnia crossing mountain passes in midwinter with their babies to escape enemy armies, the thousands of mothers around the world watching their children die of starvation, the mothers that risked their lives to stand up to militias, these became my story. My maternal instincts had expanded to encompass the entire world and I was overcome with grief and rage about the injustices that threaten the most important thing of all - LIFE.
In my life I had taken a stand many times before. I had fought for the environment and for women's rights. I had marched against racism, poverty and sexism. I had worked in underground print shops and I had even run an underground newspaper. But this felt different. I was a mother who was embracing the earth with the same spirit of love that I had for my daughter. Weaving together all of my triumphs and defeats into one solid net, both wisdom and fire had awakened in my heart.
I found myself thinking about the heroines of our times and how I had been inspired by their acts of courage. Like the mothers of the disappeared in Argentina that started an international nonviolent peace movement standing in silent vigil for their lost loved ones; the mothers who crossed the border into Gaza and grabbed their soldier sons, saying, "you will not fight in this unjust war!" and marched them back to Israel; and the women in Chiapas who stood hand in hand and made a huge circle around their village to keep it from being destroyed by soldiers. I began to have a new understanding of the women who take a stand against violence in their households and in their communities and who have no choice but to say, "NO MORE!"
Women who love deeply and openly, who weep and cry for the future of humanity and see the world for what it is. For me these women embody the warrior spirit which I first encountered in my study of martial arts where compassion and wisdom were the guiding principles. It makes sense that this spirit, coupled with the feminine inspired values of nurturing, caring and support, is essential for upholding the value of life, taking precedence over all other values such as materialism or domination.
Throughout history, we have witnessed this melding of warrior and nurturer in such inspired individuals as civil rights activist Rosa Parks, spiritual teacher Mother Teresa, and physicist/ecologist Vandana Shiva. These luminaries have offered the world significant roadmaps for generations to come. There are many women today who are taking a stand the against seemingly impossible odds of adversarial corporate leviathans, rogue governments and the military industrial complex. There are also women who have turned the most simple act into a potent tool for change. The image of women, as protectors, has been written about in many cultures as fierce female deities rising up to defeat demons that threaten the world. The blending of this warrior spirit and the protector/nurturer creates an archetype that I have named Warrior Mother.
I began to think of ways that I could take action both as a woman and a mother - a Warrior Mother. This led me on a search for paths of action and for women who were making important changes in their families, communities and in the world. I began by interviewing women in my immediate circle, and soon was finding women around the country who openly shared with me their own process and experience as an activist. From my research, I quickly realized that this network of women activists is quickly growing as the threat of environmental catastrophes and impending wars increase daily. A groundswell of women finding their voice and speaking out against that which is destroying the foundation of life. The women that I spoke with showed me that I didn't have to be a super heroine to create change. Most of the women took their first step unknowingly, guided by a calling they could not ignore. It either launched them onto a path of harmony with their life, or created a major turning point full of challenges and unknowns. Like throwing a pebble into a still pond, a simple thought became an act rippling outward, gathering energy like a wave rolling across the ocean.
Before I had my daughter, I was an energetic artist/activist who worked around the clock on different issues. When I was pregnant, I was certain my days as a professional dancer, sculptor and writer were over. I was quietly resigned to the fact that I would be streamlining my life to raise my child. The first nine months after my daughter was born, I lived in total bliss under the veil of love hormones. In 2001, when George W. Bush was selected president, something shifted. With the inauguration of Bush, I shuddered to think of the years of hard work to protect the environment, honor a woman's right to choose and other humanitarian efforts unravel before my eyes. I called the local Unitarian Universalist minister and said, "I am going to stand in silent vigil in solidarity with the international Women In Black movement. Come join me. Dress in black and meet me on Main Street in front of the Town Hall."
Having just moved to a small town on the Northern Coast of California, this was a bold act. I put on a black dress and drove to the busy corner on Main Street. I was relieved to see Marianne, the minister, already standing there wearing a long black coat and holding a candle. We stood together for an hour, people racing by in their cars. The next month there were five of us standing. And within four months there were over 20 women and men, all of us wearing black and standing in monthly silent vigil. Then, September 11th happened, and women with babies on their backs and in strollers began to join our vigils. Soon after, the United States began bombing Afghanistan and then Iraq, surrounding towns began holding their own monthly vigils. Now, in this small community, we stand every Friday for one hour, imagining peace and sending our love out to the world. It is a simple act, but a powerful act. A new alliance of women has emerged, working to send blankets and medical supplies to the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq. Events such as Artists for Peace have taken place. Sewing circles have met to make prayer scarves for Women In Black in Israel. Discussions about the state of the world have become a daily occurrence in our local cafes and markets.
The creative energy I have gained is not a mere river, as it once was, but a raging flood. The work I do now is a salutation to the life force that flows through a pregnant woman's womb. It is the tornado that launches women into animal wildness during labor. It is a tribute to all of the women who are working to protect and nurture the future so that we can live in a kinder, more ethical world. While the focus of this book is about women, this spirit also emerges in men - the spirit of the protective father to nurture their children and the Earth. And it is through this nurturing and caring that we inherently connect with others, igniting the moral and spiritual core of our existence.
Historically, women have gathered together and have upheld the sanctity of life. There is a call to protect and nurture that lives in our cellular memory. Thousands of years ago, in the inner sanctum of caves, women weren't just sitting around nursing their young, they were into deep magic creating the first early agriculture, domesticating plants and animals, the midwives of birth and death. They were charting plants that could heal and using their hands to support life, not destroy it. It is the women who wove the first nets, baskets and cloth to gather food and provide clothing. The same thread that inspired women to weave the first net, still flows in our consciousness. Although we live in a modern world, we are still the weavers of truth, courage and compassion, creating a net that holds our world in a strong and gentle way. And when life calls out, we still rise like the She Bear to protect.
This reverence towards life has given women a special courage, a sacred courage that brings together the deep love of creation and the fierce instincts that all life must be honored. Women naturally want to make a place where children can gather and be healthy. They want children and grandchildren to live a life full of passion and choices. Women carry a unique social intelligence that has emerged from the feminine perspective and from their roles of creator and nurturer.
Women are the ones who have the ability to host life and experience the monthly bleeding from our womb which richly attunes us to cycles of beginnings and endings. We feel our bellies move and quiver as a tiny human develops, getting ready for entry into the world. Women are the ones that feel the immense pain and elation as a baby makes its way down the birth canal, twisting and pushing and straining with every contraction. Women create the most wholesome food known in the animal kingdom, breast milk. As a doctor friend reminds me, the father provides half of the blueprint, but a mother provides the the other half and all of the building materials.
It only makes sense, then, that women would be the ones to be the peace bearers. The ones to make moral responsibility to others our nature and to transform opportunistic greed in to sharing and cooperation. The ones to uphold a vision for a world where life is honored and protected rather than mutilated and destroyed. But there is more than the biological experience of bearing a child. There is the essence of the Divine Mother, the Kali Yuga rising up and saying, "Enough is Enough!".
Many women around the globe are standing up for what they believe and showing their fury and fierceness in the face of opposition, deeply trusting what they know is right. These women are setting a precedence for all of us - heads of state, people raising families - any of us who share this precious planet we live on.
Making a difference in the world doesn't take someone who is rich, famous or highly educated. Sometimes, out of simple and ordinary lives, the most important things rise that spur us into action. In this book, LaDonna Redmond tells her story about her infant son who was faced with a life threatening illness from the food he was eating. She began researching food and realized not only was her son subject to the poor choice of markets in her neighborhood, she saw that her entire community, predominantly African American, was disenfranchised from having healthy food. She decided to act and began the first Black Farmers Market and is now organizing the first organic Food Coop. Terry Sweringen, a mother and nurse in a small midwestern town, heard about a toxic incinerator being built 400 yards from an elementary school close to her home town and became a major organizer to shut it down. She has led one of the longest running environmental fights in the history of the United States. Marsha Green fell in love with whales on a vacation in Hawaii. Her love for these gentle giants sent her into battle against LFA Sonar testing which was killing hundreds of marine mammals. These women had not planned to be activists, but they were unable to just sit unmoved and watch injustices be carried out in the world.
Their choice to act was not without sacrifice. Many of the women in this book have endured hardships, both financially and in their families. Women in this book that are mothers, struggled between the demands of parenting and the strong, undeniable call that there was no choice but to take action any way they could.
Stricken by the bombardment of media and feelings of isolation, the troubles of the world seem insurmountable and many people find themselves immobilized, feeling ineffectual and powerless. When we try to imagine the amount of time and patience one needs to inspire change, we are struck by the magnitude of it. No ordinary human being would have the inclination to spend their lives working endlessly towards solving the problems of the world. There is no great money to be made, there is nothing to join or pledge allegiance to and there is no guarantee that these actions will reach an end goal. And yet, many of the women in this book were living ordinary lives, without money, fame or power when they took their first step towards action. Each woman found themselves personally affected by something they could not neglect and their decision to act unleashed tremendous energy. When we begin with the first drop, like a fountain turning into a river - energy flows with unimaginable love and power, a dynamic blend of compassion with action. A spirit arises with an abundant source of energy that drives us towards righting the wrong.
This book, Warrior Mothers is written to encompass many styles and situations. It highlights stories of women who have committed simple acts and courageous acts. Women who have made changes in their families and women who are working to change to world. There are women who have adopted their children, women who have raised children with disabilities and women who have raised children with other women. It also features stories of women that chose not to have children and pour their maternal energies into healing the planet. These women wield the sword of compassion and have risen up to take a stand bringing forth the strong maternal energy springs forth, that at any cost, will take the risk to stand up for life.
Both men and women, who are tired of the current state of the world and who are looking for a new approach will find that these stories show us what is possible. The health of the planet and the health all life must balance out with the desire to drill for oil, make more money or create bigger and better corporations. This book is for people who are looking for a new vision for our world; a world that values human life and human dignity.
This book is not about philosophy. It is not about a new age. It is about THIS moment and the stark reality that we are killing the planet we live on, poisoning our children and obliterating their birth right to live long and healthy lives. It is about clean air, real food and our right to know. It is about our collective remembrance of the deep feminine and the mother, in all of her forms, teaching us about love, compassion, and integrity. It is about embracing the source of all creation and letting that be our guide, holding life, without question, in total reverence.
We currently live in one of the most challenging times in our history on this planet - the rapid destruction of our environment, violence and terrorism on the rise around the world, diseases killing thousands people and extermination of entire species of plants and animals. It is my hope that the stories in this book will inspire anyone who has a desire to make a difference, but feels disempowered by the overwhelming state of the world.
Many people today are disillusioned and are looking for an alternative to the current dead-end paradigm minimizing the quality of life and ongoing desecration of the planet. The human values that make our world a livable place need to be honored. Under the shadow of corporate greed and war mongering politicians, the price of human suffering and the price of a poisoned world, is causing our quality of life to deteriorate rapidly. We need to collectively create a new paradigm, a new way in which we can shift the world so that it is healthy and supportive of all life. The key to this shift is the Warrior Mother spirit that can arise in both men and women when they experience an undeniable call to rise up in the face of injustice.
About the Author:
Thais Mazur, M.S., a Warrior Mother herself, has traveled around the world adventuring and working as a radio, newspaper and investigative journalist. Mazur is renowned for her in-depth reporting, including a four-part story on Aborigines and uranium mining and her groundbreaking broadcast of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. She has been granted awards for her work as a choreographer and is the artistic director of the acclaimed Women In Black Dance Project.
To find out more about Warrior Mothers visit: www.mazurarts.net To order the Warrior Mothers, check your local book store or contact: Rising Star Press RSPeditor@earthlink.net