If you’re casting about for a way to take the edge off Trump’s wrecking ball, I heartily recommend the uplifting powers of a great...
COME TO THE CABARET
GUEST POST by MICHAEL STEINMAN Every day, I encounter deaths and illnesses: people I know and admire. Someone is no longer there. My first response is a horrified helplessness, emotional paralysis. But I cannot live in fear and premature mourning. Because I am not morose by nature, what bloomed in my mind today was whimsical and introspective, [...]
Can Women Peace Workers Save Us?
Women have the capacity to lead us to a more peaceful world with compassion, affection, and kindness. . . Females have more sensitivity for others’ pain and suffering.”——–Dalai Lama As we celebrate the holidays, “Peace on Earth,” is echoed in card, carols, and greetings we exchange, but our male leaders seem tone-deaf [...]
How Did You Get to Where You Are?
GUEST POST by SHIRLEY DELONG Remember when the only way to figure out how to get to a place you’d never been before was to use a paper map? If you were like me, you’d write down all the road names in order, each left or right turn you had to make, approximate mileage and some landmarks to help you know you were on the right track. Or depending [...]
Humanity In A Dark Time
Every morning I watch Democracy Now for updates on Gaza, and weep. It feels important to be a witness to this genocide happening in real time. I force myself not to look away from the traumatized children, covered with ash, sitting on the ruins of their former homes, crying aloud as their thin bodies tremble. I see humanity in the exhausted [...]
Coping with Loneliness
“I do pretty well living alone, but on days when I crave companionship, it becomes depressing.” “I’m too embarrassed to reach out to friends when I’m feeling lonely.” “My family sees me as a strong woman, so they don’t realize I get lonely and would like them to contact me more.” “I wish there were places, other [...]
It’s Not Complicated
GUEST POST by MARY DUNN How did we come to live in this time where genocide is accepted, defended, and cheered? Many dissuade debating this incredibly important issue claiming it’s “complicated”. No, really, it’s not. Every religion teaches us to love our neighbor, take in the stranger, and certainly thou shall not kill. But here [...]
Owning Your Voice
My class of “Women and Aging,” got into a lively discussion for maximizing our later years. After the class one member dashed off a group email apologizing for “interrupting and talking too much.” Her email was promptly followed by another class member who echoed the same regret along with her apology. A little later a third [...]
Competitive Grandparenting
GUEST POST By ANONYMOUS* In a clear sign of the sickness engendered by the long reign of patriarchy in Western culture, grandparenting is now seen as a competitive rather than collaborative endeavor. Despite research confirming the long-held notion that children with at least one grandmother alive are far more likely to thrive than those without [...]
The Real Story of Witches
The saying, “History is written by the winners, “ applies to the story we’ve been told about witches as ugly, evil creatures. Since today is Halloween, it’s the perfect time to set the record straight on witches. We have to travel back to the 1500’s in Western Europe, when women healers and midwives played a central role in village [...]
Give Peace A Chance
In our war-torn universe I long for the world to embrace John Lennon’s famous lyrics, “Give peace a chance.” But peace is off the table when it comes to Gaza, whose homes, hospitals, and schools are being bombed around the clock, drawing comparisons to the fire-bombing of Dresden during WW ll. On top of this, water, food, fuel, and electricity [...]