Rose, the cantadora, who sings the songs (stories)
of the 100 Ladies...
of the 100 Ladies...
I started The 100 Ladies Project because they insisted on being born. I wasn't sure where they would lead me but I knew that they wouldn't steer me wrong, and they haven't. They have led me into a place where art meets writing, where stories come from deep inside of me from a place of time beyond time, and in the most unique and unusual of the women's stories there is a universal truth. The 100 ladies message is that every woman, in her uniqueness, in all of who she is, is an amazing miracle and brings with her myriad blessings and gifts that, when shared with other women, can create a tribe of women who can band together to create a worldwide movement. 100 women helping 100 women helping 100 women and so on into eternity. They mean to plant seeds that will bloom generation after generation. Their stories will never die.
I am a cantadora, a wisdom keeper, I sing the songs and tell the tales of women who have come before me, and those who will come after me, and those who are inside of me. I sing the lives of women I have known and women who have influenced, delighted, taught, and inspired me through their books and art and music. I write the stories that come in dreams and those from waking visions. Sometimes the lady comes first and sometimes her story but they come together, hand in hand, and their stories are more powerful linked together. United we stand, divided we fall, the ladies mean to band together, through space and time, and reach out to other women around the world. They want to hear your stories. They want to pass the talking stick until all the stories of all the women of the world are told. Their work will never end.
How do I hope to structure the real world work of these ladies? These are some of my ideas, and I am in the process of giving birth to more than a project, but a movement. I have always tried to leap into what should be long range plans before the time was right and this time I plan to move more slowly and grow into all that I hope to do but I can tell you that what I would like to do is to create a community where women can hear these stories, and learn the medicine, the wisdom, that Rose has come to teach, and start with a bi-monthly journal wherein subscribers, women committed to helping grow this community and help other women, will receive one of the ladies stories every other week. After the story Rose, the wise woman, teacher, and guide to the ladies will share the wisdom learned in this woman's story, and will guide a discussion in a forum created just for members. The forum will be like a cottage with many rooms where women can meet to discuss all manner of things from living their daily lives, to trying to find their way in the world and the path and work that are right for them, to how to build a life that is perhaps outside the norm but is the life they can best live to survive and thrive and grow the living garden inside of them even as they grow one in the real world.
I see the community of women gardening together, sharing seeds and stories, plans and dreams. Cooking together, sharing recipes and teaching one another about the foods and spices and traditions in their own corner of the world. These activities may be metaphorical and hold the energy of the activity, the nourishing quality of these activities that women have have taken part in in their daily lives since the dawn of time until recent generations. It is a call to bring back this energy and spread it, one woman to another, until all women know that their stories have merit and that in sharing them on they will change the lives of their children and their children seven generations into the future.
I have a dream, not unlike the theory of The Hundredth Monkey which Ken Keyes wrote about in his book of the same name. When enough monkeys shared the knowledge it spread through the tribe until the hundredth monkey learned the lesson and the collective energy shot through the tribe and soon around the world. What if...
... one woman told her story and encouraged the next woman to tell hers (and as each woman shared hers she share the one that came before her) and each one carried these stories and this wisdom forward and on and on until all women knew all of the stories and the collective wisdom spread across the land and around the world and women found the commonalities at the same time they were enriched by the differences. We are all one. Together we can change the world.
I am creating something that each woman who joins will receive. It will be, I believe, a revolutionary way to change the world, one woman at a time. I am more than excited. I am in awe of the power of women everywhere. This is an idea that is growing inside of me, the seed of a movement, or a gentle revolution based in love and kindness, in compassion and in the genuine desire to change to the world for all who come after us. It is my hope, my dream, my plan, my mission. And there is so much more.
The 100 Ladies are on the move. Look for more news here. I hope by September to be ready to open the doors and begin to grow the tribe. Some of the work will begin to go out through the summer. If you are reading this I hope you will join me. We are part of a great lineage. Our mothers, our grandmothers, and back and back and back. Our daughters, nieces, neighbors, grandchildren and on and on into the future, and their families and friends and the whole world around them.
Each one, reach one. That is the message of the 100 ladies. It is time to hear their stories. Let us begin...
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