Women and Nature

As a woman, I have always loved the earth. I inherited this from my mother, whose joy and celebration of nature was infectious, whether on knees in the gardens, getting water or swimming in the lakes, walking or gathering wild foods in the woods, cooking and preserving food in the kitchen. As I grew, it was the trees that I would lean against for strength, the earth that I would take in my hands to breath in her delicious smell, the sun that I would bask in for energy, the sounds of wild creatures that sang with the beat of my heart, the water that would take me to my deepest thinking, the wind that would carry me to new levels of inspiration.

Each year, as those responsible dig their heels deeper in, in denial whether for lives of extreme luxury, or the thoughtless convenience of water bought in plastic bottles in places where water still runs freely, I mourn. I mourn for this earth and for the people who are not surviving the floods, the droughts, the messes left by oil spills and other chemical disasters. I mourn what is being done to nature in the name of scientific discovery, in the name of peace. I mourn every loss, and this deep mourning at times causes me to lose all momentum, to lose all my energy, to experience too closely despair, as it has and does continually, especially to women, as we have this special bond with our mother earth, steadfast giver of life.

But I gather my strength to stop this terrible direction that mankind is taking, and it is the trees that stand by, welcoming my pain, strong enough to take it from my beating heart tight against their trunks, sending it down to the earth, replacing my pain with renewed strength and joy of being alive. This joy of the beauty of nature, this joy of being alive, this determination to protect our mother, is how I have found kindred spirits like you, dear sisters, who know that we are here to undo the cruel injustices being done to women and girls on this planet at this time, and, I believe connected and not a separate issue, the rape of and wanton control and destruction of this earth. It is incomprehensible to me, why this is going on. The ways that it is going on, and what we can do collectively to stop the cruelty and ruin, is my focus. The connection between the treatment of women, and the treatment of the earth is intertwined. As we find ways together to encourage strength in every girl and woman, and as we find ways to heal each part of the earth that is being spoiled, we are creating the needed shift.

To this end, we need to reverse the imbalance of power, to take our positions as leaders, and support women getting into positions as leaders on every level, everywhere, so that our womanly perspective can offer solutions currently believed to be impossible. We need to create a new world economy that solves poverty. A leap forward would be to tax even a tiny tax on the stock market, of the three quarters of the wealth of this earth, currently going off shore, untaxed. We need to continue to insist on environmentally sound business practises, no exceptions, and governments free of corruption and greed. Utopian, perhaps. But the enormity of the mess demands no less. With each other we are transforming the depth of our rage, as women who love this earth and who have survived and witnessed unspeakably shameful acts of violence, into leadership fed by our beautiful, limitless love.

I am grateful for this group, to find ever more strongly together, a very different way.

Love in Sisterhood,

Tam