SLY

Count your blessings…name ten attributes of yourself that you appreciate. These can be anything that you like about yourself from your hair color,  your laughter,  your abilities,  your relationships to your desires,  your character, or even your vulnerabilities or problems that you have resolved.  Reflecting on the present moment brings graciousness and vibrancy to the aspects of your life that resonate with you. When you embrace what you do have and nurture those elements of your life that empower you, good things begin to happen. We all have difficulties, some are more severe than others, yet when facing challenges, keeping our heart and mind strong enables us to live a more balanced life.

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Once you have made this list, take one of your items and for a day express gratitude for and appreciation of that portion of joy that you have honored in your life. Take the time to really understand that joy. What part of it gives you a sense of fulfillment? Is it something that you can expand and develop? Would you like to develop it? Or is it a static expression? Does it offer the possibility of a greater joy? Is it something you cherish? Is it connected to a Higher Power? Does it reveal something about your nature? Have you recognized it before?

If your joy has to do with relationships, what kind of relationships do you like to nurture? What are the specific attributes that are important to you in developing relationships? What is the kind of joy that you experience in relationships? Is that relationship supportive of your joy or in what ways is it supportive?

When you experience joy, either simply or magnificently, are there similar requirements that become the foundation to that expression of joy? Are there key elements that you can recognize as essential? Does the feeling of joy guide you in the creation of  honoring yourself?

Now for ten days, honor each of your joys for a day. Perhaps you might want to celebrate that joy and create a ritual for it. Create the possibilities… If the softness of your skin is one of your elements, perhaps a bubble bath to celebrate, or if it’s your wisdom, a candlelight ceremony; if your family, a special dinner; be as creative as you like and as profound. Find that connection to the joy within…

SLY

IF YOU’D LIKE TO USE THIS ARTICLE ON YOUR WEBSITE, YOU CAN! Simply include this complete statement when you post this article: “Written by DaVincisMuse.com… A Lifestyle of Creative Purpose and Worth: The Ultimate Resource for the New Renaissance Woman. Join our mailing list at www.DaVincisMuse.com.com for the vision of womanhood unfolding. As well, we promise to never sell, rent, trade, or share your e-mail with any organization. “

Lets look at you and your relationships to begin to get a glimmer of the community that is yours…


List the five most important people in your life today:

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After each of the people above, answer these questions:

What is it about this relationship that attracts you?

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Is this relationship support who you are and how?

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Are you feeling a victim of this relationship in any way and if so, how?

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What motivates you to be in this relationship?

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How are you accountable for yourself in this relationship?

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What is it about this relationship that you love?

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What is most difficult about this relationship?

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If you were to change something about your community of relationships that you would find to be more supportive of you, what 5 things would you like to create?

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What actions can you take within your community of relationships (or by finding new members of your community within which you can take action) that will create more mutually beneficial loving relationships?

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List the 4 actions you fell comfortable taking within the next month:

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List the 2 actions you feel comfortable taking in the next two weeks:

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List the FIRST action that you want to take that will that will be supportive of  who you are:

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How would you like to feel when you take that action?

Will you take that action?

When? (Date)

If you do not take action, how do you think you will feel?

What about yourself do you love most?


If courage is top on your list or the desire for courage, I encourage you to take action as long as the action is legal. And I support you in the changes that are guided by your love.

SLY

IF YOU’D LIKE TO USE THIS ARTICLE ON YOUR WEBSITE, YOU CAN! Simply include this complete statement when you post this article: “Written by DaVincisMuse.com… A Lifestyle of Creative Purpose and Worth: The Ultimate Resource for the New Renaissance Woman. Join our mailing list at www.DaVincisMuse.com.com for the vision of womanhood unfolding. As well, we promise to never sell, rent, trade, or share your e-mail with any organization. ”

What is it that we want as women? Collectively, there has never been a better time for the recognition for and of women as human beings. What does this mean? What is the opportunity at hand? And what are we to do with our own evolution as women? Individually, our stories vary, some more extreme than others. We each and all have our own journey and hardships along the way. So, how often do our experiences show to us that we are unique? Does the world that we live in reflect who we are? Can we thrive in the world through self-reliance and self-accountability? Is there something more?

What is the issue? What are we searching for in the darkness? What do we want? Do we know? What questions do we ask to begin discovering this answer? How many of you have asked yourself, “What do I desire that will bring me purpose and fulfillment whether independently or interdependently, yet of my own making?” And if you have asked yourself that question, what were your responses? What would be your responses now, today?

For many of us, this question does not even arise. The awareness of a personal self only faintly exists or the consciousness of the self has yet to develop and perhaps will so in time. And for many of us this question is not pertinent because the soul already knows and it is not necessary to ask. Oh, what a beautiful state, to live in the unfolding of life as it is given. Yet, for most of us, the question is present or soon will be and we start the process of uncovering our truth. Much of this evolution of consciousness or “uncovering” eventually leads to a joyous sense of self where your participation in life is substantiated by the change that you create. What changes would you like to create? What changes would you most like to create? Circle the three changes that you would most like to create.

List the changes here:

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When you look at the changes you would like to create, what does it tell you about your self-esteem, about you? By asking you this question now, at this point, I am really asking you to see things just a bit differently or at least from a new perspective. Before reading further, jot down a few answers to this question as simply or as complex as you would like. I FEEL:

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Now, beside each feeling that you have written above, write the polar opposite to those feelings. Circle the feeling that most represents you.

Self-esteem is the confidence and satisfaction one has in oneself, a self-respect if you will. If the feeling state that you circled above is supportive of you in making changes in your life, then your self-esteem is healthy and assists you in creating your life. If your self-esteem is less than you would like for it to be and if it prevents you from creating what you want or in understanding the meaning behind the unfolding of your life, then it may be useful to face that issue with support, whether the support is through education, friends, counseling or simply listening to yourself attentively and with care.

This exercise might be useful:

From the above changes you would most like to create, choose the one that is most important to you today and take some time to visualize the desired creation.

Bring as much of the senses as you can into the visualization and immerse yourself  into the senses: What does your desired creation feel like? Smell like? Taste Like? What sounds are coming from your creation? What does it look like? How do you feel about your desired creation? How does your creation feel about you? Is there alignment between you and your creation? What emotions do you embrace about your creation? Take note of all your responses and if you feel these senses are not yet supportive of you, play with the feelings and senses until you find a glimmer or can embrace them whole heartily.

Now, once the feelings and senses are comfortable, breathe in that visualization and substantiate the change that you want to create.

You can try on the above exercise any time you want. Notice how each time you make a shift in your life that supports you and helps you to create what you want, your self-esteem becomes stronger and your identity clearer.

May your countenance be filled with self-respect, love and grace as you move into your day!

SLY

IF YOU’D LIKE TO USE THIS ARTICLE ON YOUR WEBSITE, YOU CAN! Simply include this complete statement when you post this article: “Written by DaVincisMuse.com… A Lifestyle of Creative Purpose and Worth: The Ultimate Resource for the New Renaissance Woman. Join our mailing list at www.DaVincisMuse.com.com for the vision of womanhood unfolding. As well, we promise to never sell, rent, trade, or share your e-mail with any organization. “

“It seems to me this case is about three things:

1. Aging – How does one experience getting older?
2. Change – Is one a victim of it or accepting of it if agreements have been honored? And…
3. Self-ownership and accountability – Are the issues of the plaintiff having to do with a sense of self-worth, security or rather fear of change, the unknown and darkness, fearing the uncertainty of the opportunity for growth or a potential new experience of loving?

Other than addressing the broad question of the best way to support and manage “communal good”, the only question for me in this case is whether or not agreements were honored, regardless of whether the employer’s choice of management style is effective or not in meeting goals.”

Here’s my question: If California is an At-Will State, how can there be any grounds for discrimination? I support the underdog if an abuse of power has occurred, I believe in Unions to negotiate for the best interest of all those involved and I am very compassionate toward the suffering of others, have I missed something here?

Often times, our inspirations come from influences that resonate with our sense of self. My inspiration for writing this April Feature comes from Kate Douglas Wiggins and the letter she wrote to The Girl Scouts of America where she points out that The Girl Scouts is a training school for womanhood.

An Expose on Kate Douglas Wiggin (1856-1923)

Kate Douglas Wiggin was an American educator and author of children’s stories. She was born Kate Douglas Smith on September 28, 1856 in Philadelphia of Welsh descent and died August 24, 1923 (aged 66) in Harrow, Middlesex, England. A graduate of Abbot Academy, Class of 1873, she started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878 (the Silver Street Free Kindergarten). With her sister during the 1880s she also established a training school for kindergarten teachers.

Kate Wiggin devoted her adult life to the welfare of children in an era when children were commonly thought of as cheap labour. Born in 1856, Kate herself experienced a happy childhood, even though it was saddened by the American Civil War and her father’s death. Kate and her sister Nora were still quite young when their widowed mother moved her little family from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Portland, Maine, then, three years later, upon her remarriage, to the little village of Hollis. There Kate matured in rural surroundings, with her sister and her new baby brother, Philip. Her education was spotty, consisting of a short stint at a “dame’s school,” some home schooling under the “capable, slightly impatient, somewhat sporadic” instruction of Albion Bradbury (her stepfather), a brief spell at the district school, a year as a boarder at the Gorham Female Seminary, a winter term at Morison Academy in Baltimore, Maryland, and a few months’ stay at Abbot Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. Although rather casual, this was more education than most women received at the time.

During 1873, hoping to ease Albion Bradbury’s lung disease, Kate’s family relocated to Santa Barbara, California, where Kate’s stepfather died three years later. A kindergarten training class was opening in Los Angeles, and Kate enrolled. After graduation, in 1878, she headed the first free kindergarten in California, on Silver Street in the slums of San Francisco. The children were “street Arabs of the wildest type”, but Kate had a loving personality and dramatic flair. By 1880 she was forming a teacher-training school in conjunction with the Silver Street kindergarten. However, according to the customs of the time, when Kate married Bradley Wiggin in 1881, she was required to resign her teaching job. Still devoted to her school, she began to raise money for it through writing, first The Story of Patsy (1883), then The Birds’s Christmas Carol (1887). Both privately printed books were issued commercially by Houghton Mifflin in 1889, with enormous success.

Ironically, considering her intense love of children, Kate Wiggin had none. Her husband died suddenly during 1889, and Kate relocated to Maine. For the rest of her life she grieved, but she also traveled as frequently as she could, dividing her time between writing, visits to Europe, and giving public reading for the benefit of various children’s charities. Her literary output included popular books for adults, scholarly work on the educational principles of Friedrich Froebel, and of course the classic children’s novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903), as well as the 1905 best-seller Rose o’ the River. Wiggin’s home was in the Salmon Falls section of Hollis, Maine. During 1895, Kate Wiggin married a New York City businessman, George Christopher Riggs, who became her staunch supporter as her success increased. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm became an immediate bestseller; both it and Mother Carey’s Chickens (1911) were adapted to drama. Houghton Mifflin collected her writings in ten volumes in 1917.

For a time, she lived at Quillcote, her summer home in Hollis, Maine. Quillcote is now the town’s library. Wiggin founded the Dorcas Society of Hollis & Buxton, Maine in 1897. The Tory Hill Meeting House in the adjacent town of Buxton inspired her book (and later play), The Old Peabody Pew (1907). During 1921, Wiggin and her sister Nora Archibald Smith edited an edition of Jane Porter’s 1809 novel of William Wallace, The Scottish Chiefs, for the Scribner’s Illustrated Classics series, which was illustrated by N. C. Wyeth. During the spring of 1923, Kate Wiggin traveled to England as a New York delegate to the Dickens Fellowship. There she became ill and died, at age 66, of bronchial pneumonia. At her request, her ashes were brought home to Maine and scattered over to the Saco River. Her autobiography, “My Garden of Memory”, was published after her death. Wiggin was also a songwriter and composer of music. For “Kindergarten Chimes” (1885) she created some of the lyrics, music, and arrangements. For “Nine Love Songs and a Carol” (1896) she created all of the music.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

THE GIRL SCOUTS
A Training School for
Womanhood
By KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN

GIRL SCOUTS NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
189 Lexington Avenue
New York City
A Training School for
Womanhood

I am heartily interested in the Girl Scouts of America. The fact is, I think I was always a Girl Scout myself (although the name was unknown); yes, from the very beginning. Even my first youthful story was “scouty” in tone, if I may invent a word. Then for a few years afterward, when I was “scoutingly” busy educating little street Arabs in San Francisco, I wrote books, too, for and about younger children, but there came a time when “Polly Oliver’s Problem” brought me a girl public. It was not an oppressively large one; that is, I never was mobbed in the streets by Polly’s admirers, but they existed, and Heavens! how many letters they wrote!

I see now that “Polly” was a real girl scout, but faithful as she unconsciously was to the then unwritten laws of the sisterhood, she faded into insignificance when my absolutely true-to-type Scout appeared in the guise of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Rebecca did not reform, convert or uplift her seniors, her parents, grandparents, neighbors and constituents, but she could never keep her hands off things that needed to be done, and whatever enterprise was on hand there was Rebecca to be found—sometimes on the outskirts, frequently, I fear, in its storm centre.

Do you remember that it was Rebecca and her twelve-year-old friends who sewed the white stars on the Riverboro home-made flag, just as the Roosevelt High School girls have been doing for their great leader these last weeks?

My summer home lies between two Maine villages on opposite sides of the Saco River. There are Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts in each of the villages; but off the main roads, almost on the fringe of the pine forests, are boys and girls too far away from one another to reach any group. One little chap said to me: “My brother Tim wants to be a Scout, but there isn’t anybody to be a leader and the boys live too far apart. Tim’s got all the circulars and books and instructions and he can be a lone scout, but he doesn’t want to be a lone scout—Tim doesn’t; he wants to be with other boys.”

The very words “A lone scout” suggested a story to me that I have never written, but wish that these words might reach the eye of a girl who would like to practise the scout virtues, even if she cannot belong to the great band. It is hard, without the companionship and inspiration of a large friendly company, to follow a secret ideal and an imaginary leader, to be a lone scout yet to be working with thousands of unknown little sisters. All the while that the “lone scout” is learning to be a woman—true, brave, busy, thrifty, cheerful, she can say to herself: “To help a little is to do the work of the world.” That is the real slogan of the Girl Scouts since for the most part they do little duties, assume small responsibilities, carry the lighter burdens. Above all, they learn to “Carry on!” doing a woman’s work in a woman’s way, doing small things that women have always done as well as the new things that have opened to women, either by their own pluck or because men have at least given women a chance, and doing them patiently, self-forgettingly, with the old-fashioned touch of a woman’s hand. The world isn’t in need of women who are duplicates of men. A girl should try to be the best scout in the world, if it is in her to go so far, but she must remember that after all she is a Girl, not a Boy Scout.

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net.

How are you inspired to be a woman and how are you inspiring as a woman?

Often times, we set a direction and our journeys take us in other unknown directions. This is to say, that as women, we are complete even in the unknown. Everything we are and have is sufficient for the unfolding of our lives. We may need to take steps to discover our paths and to accomplish the tasks necessary to move along the path, but still we are whole and all that we need is inside us.

Timing is a curious creature. I must admit, I never know what the timing is going to be in these twists and turns of life. Sometimes, it is frustrating and at other times, I realize that in actuality it is a blessing to find out that some event would not have happened or some new insight would not have been revealed if not for the timing that factually occurred.

My mother passed away two weeks ago on March 15th. She had been in a nursing home for the past three years with a brain tumor. Her spirits were generally good, but she wanted to move on. In the end, the timing was quite magical as my brother just returned from living in Spain for the past thirty years. He had been staying with me in California when the nurses called me to say the time was near. My brother, Sean, went up to Poulsbo, Washington and sat with her around the clock for three days holding her hand until she passed away. This was a beautiful closure for both of them. I have been taking care of her for the past three years and so I knew it was his time to reconnect with her. Though she could not talk, she knew he was there as tears streamed down her cheeks in recognition of him.

There is a book titled The Grandmother of Time: A Woman’s Book of Celebrations, Spells, and Sacred Objects for Every Month of the Year by Zsuzsanna E. Budapest which I have in my library of books. I looked up the date of her death March 15th. It read “ Holiday of Cybele (Anatolian, Later Roman): Cybele was loved and celebrated all over Europe, and this holiday started the spring festivals. Cybele represents the Earth; her son Attis, is returning from the dead, which is the reason for the celebration-the Goddess defeats death. General picnicking is observed in this day, along with lying on the grass, eating, drinking, and marrying making.” When I read this, chills went down my arm, knowing Sean was with her.

I went up to Washington for the Memorial I had organized a few days later. It took place March 21st at Sacred Groves, Bainbridge Island, the day of the Spring Equinox. Budapest writes in The Grandmother of Time, “This day is a major sabbat for witches and celebrates the reunion of the daughter of the Earth, Kore, with her mother Demeter. Spring returns. Rebirth, the Earth, and our own lives rise up in triumph.” My mother’s life was a triumph.

After her Memorial, people gathered at Sacred Groves to bring in the Spring Equinox by planting flowers around the medicine wheel in the garden, singing, dancing and feasting in the style my mother would have appreciated. An Eagle flew by and hovered in the sky as if she was there. Was she?

Timing, the twists and turns of life, let us all learn how to appreciate the beauty and stillness of our lives while embracing the faster tempos of our lives too. In the cycle of life, books are completed, stories are told, and the new is just beginning. My mother’s story is in the book titled, Paperclip, which will be published this year, and is a tribute to all women. For now, on MemorialWebsites.Legacy.com my mother, Peggy Yarbrough, is commemorated.

Blessed are our mothers, the bringers of life, and all women who manage the twists and turns of life.

Stephany Lane Yarbrough

Published by Jean Shinoda Bolen on Oct 12, 2009
Category: Women’s Rights & Empowerment
Region: GLOBAL
Target: United Nations: Secretary-General and all relevant components & NGOs.
Web site: http://www.5wcw.org/

Background (Preamble):
A UN 5th World Conference on Women (5WCW) would be the most influential and far-reaching women’s conference ever held. Grassroots activism and political leadership needs to be mobilized or it won’t happen.

The 4th conference was held in Beijing in 1995, drew over 40,000 participants, and led to the Beijing Platform for Action, which if implemented would have created a world where women’s rights and human rights were one in the same. The empowerment of women changes priorities: safety for women and children, nutrition, health and education, and concern for the environment are women’s concerns.

With the creation of a UN women’s super agency equivalent to UNICEF for children, authorized by the UN General Assembly in September 2009, it is possible that this new entity could organize a 5th world conference on women in 2015 (instead of a Beijing +20 review). The effect could be synergistic in advancing a women’s agenda. Because this would not be an official UN conference of governments — but rather a UN -sponsored conference of non-governmental organizations in civil society — it could not re-open the many excellent official documents already produced by the UN, but would focus on turning them into reality in the lives of women and girls globally.

The 21st century is an era of communication: networking via emails, cellphones and websites, information through youtube and live-stream coverage, simultaneous regional conferences via satellite broadcasting could reach people all over the world. The event would raise consciousness about unconscionable conditions as well as solutions that could focus on the work of NGOs. It would encourage the formation of women’s circles and mobilize a new wave of women’s movement activism. It would inform the world that the Beijing Platform for Action and UN Security Council Resolutions #1325 and its amendments on Women, Peace, & Security–if implemented, would bring about gender equality, end violence toward women and lead to peaceful solutions to conflicts.

A UN 5th women’s conference and the events preceding and following it would create a critical mass, a tipping point of aware and involved women and men.

Information on website: www.5wcw.org.
and in Urgent Message From Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World. www.jeanbolen.com

Signatories: (http://www.5wcw.org/who.html)
Isabel Allende, author, activist
Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD, author Urgent Message From Mother, Jungian analyst,
Marilyn Fowler, founder US Women-Connect, Women’s Intercultural Network
Carol Hansen Grey, author, activist
Dr. Patricia Licuanan, President Miriam College, Philippines, Chair of prepatory meetings for Beijing conference
Susan Collin Marks, Search for Common Ground, Leadership Wisdom Initiative.
Patricia Smith Melton, founder PeaceXPeace
Joyce Oneko, founder Mama na Dada-Africa
Elly Pradervand, founder Women’s World Summit Foundation, Geneva
Zainab Salbi, president Women for Women International
Leticia Shahani, Secretary-General 3rd UN World Conference on Women (Nairobi)
Gloria Steinem, founder Ms. Magazine, author, activist
Alice Walker, author, activist
Rosemary Williams, founder Women’s Perspective
Lea Wyler, co-founder ROKPA International