I spent the Labor Day weekend at my country retreat in midcoast Maine where I own a cottage on a quiet country road sprinkled with modest homes. I make a practice of taking daily walks on this road, which I like to think of as my walking meditations. On Saturday I stopped in my tracks after noticing a flag at a home’s entrance. The words [...]
Pat Taub
Women give away their power when they accommodate in a way that stifles their voices, where they don’t honor themselves, but silence themselves because they fear upsetting the other and putting the relationship in jeopardy. It’s a hard pattern to break because, since the beginning of time, women have been conditioned to please others, [...]
Pat Taub
At a recent wedding reception, I found myself in conversation with a woman marine biologist with a sad face. When she shared her concerns about the warming oceans and her despair over the failed response of government leaders to address our diminishing sea life, I attributed her sadness to that shared by climate scientists who keep telling [...]
Pat Taub
The art world is seriously skewed towards male artists. Only 13 percent of artists in American museums are women, while only 15 percent are Black, Indigenous and People of Color. This dismal profile persists in spite of bold challenges by feminists, like the Guerrilla Girls, who emerged in 1985, donning guerrilla masks and staging women’s [...]
Pat Taub
GUEST POST by ELIZABETH LEONARD Did you know that at present approximately 140 million (!!) Americans live in poverty or one $400 crisis away from slipping into the financial abyss? In Waterville, Maine, where I have lived and worked for thirty years, I have been a local organizer with the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral [...]
Pat Taub
GUEST POST by JANET WEIL “Who should decide how best to use the resources of the earth? What are the most effective ways to build a more sustainable future?” – Adam Rome, “The Genius of Earth Day” Three years ago, early in the global COVID pandemic, on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, I wrote a guest blog post, a remembrance of [...]
Pat Taub
GUEST POST by MOLLY SCHEN I’m coming to climate activism pretty late in life, in my early sixties. I’m no Greta Thunberg. But I can’t stay on the sidelines any longer. I am dismayed by the frequency of severe weather events—floods, fires, droughts, and storms. And I cannot ignore my own lived experience of hotter summers, milder winters, [...]
Pat Taub
In a recent dream I was attending a civic meeting. I grew frustrated with the speakers who addressed safe topics, like improving city parks. I wanted them to take on the latest school shooting, which took place in Nashville, killing three 9-year-old children and three adults. Unable to hold back my frustration, I bolted from my chair, [...]
Pat Taub
This weekend I saw the powerful film, “Women Talking,” about life in a male-dominated religious community, where the women are powerless. Sexual assault by the men runs rampant. Women and girls are raped in their sleep, frequently becoming pregnant. When their victimhood becomes unbearable, a few of the women meet secretly to weigh their [...]
Pat Taub
“There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly, as love.” — The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm On this Valentine’s Day, let’s pause and reflect on love beyond exchanging Valentine’s cards, chocolates, and flowers. With intention and [...]
Pat Taub