Now, you see, women cannot gather and speak with each other for very long without stopping to acknowledge and be grateful for the men behind their success. Whether they are there in body or in spirit, women will wax poetic over how the men in their lives — their fathers, their husbands, bosses, colleagues, friends, technical wizards have been a critical and major part of who they have become and where they have arrived. It’s always a very touching and inspiring part of a woman’s speaking.

At the panel discussion of the Software Development (SD) Forum on Women & Technology in which the topic was “Mothers of Invention”, there were I think 4 men who were there in a small-auditorium-full of women. They mingled quite a bit before the panel, were quiet during the panel discussion, and only one of them asked a question once in the Q & A and dialogue that came after.

At the end of the session, several of us stayed to mingle and talk and I ended up talking with one of the men there. His girlfriend had been making statements about not needing to make a difference between women and men and how our society always wants to put people in categories because it makes it easy for our minds to grasp our differences (like using personality type instruments to “brand” us so we think we can understand ourselves and others better) and we don’t have to hold & “deal with” the whole complexity and uniqueness of each individual we meet. (I agree with her about this.)

What this young man said next was eye-opening for me. He said that while he generally agreed that we should not be making differences between men and women — and certainly not in ways that cut off a man or woman’s ability to be different than the “generality” being made - he also shared that –whether nurtured or by nature, women together were different than men together. He explained that he had been to three other conferences by women of late, where he was one of  very few men in the audience. In the first one, the Q&A portion of the event was opened and when many people’s hands were raised, the woman moderator distinctly and unwaveringly said, “I would like to ask the men to please not raise their questions and comments first. I’d like to hear from the women first.” and for the next 20 minutes, the discussion was made only among the women. He said that when the rule that women would be speaking first was made, there was an audible gasp in the room and his first thought was, “b—-”. But, as the discussion opened and continued, he was increasingly surprised and moved by the questions and sharings that the women were making. He could easily tell that he himself would never ask the questions that were being raised, nor could he imagine any man raising them….and how he really appreciated being able to really listen and hear women’s concerns, their ways of thinking, and their “emotional” nature and strength in their speaking. He said that, since then, he has learned to really honor the women their space, their time to speak with each other and how grateful he was to be able to listen and learn in these gatherings.

I felt a deep gratitude for his sensitivity and brilliance in picking this up. It made me reflect on the evening itself and see how the men at the event — all four of them — all felt deeply honoring and respectful of women and the space they needed to speak in — that is, from their hearts, and to the heart of the matter. In their own way.

A few years ago, as I was just discovering the work and essence of Offerings as a co-creative field for evolving women, a man of Native American descent said to me that it was time for women to step into the center of the vision for the human race and the Earth; and for the men to hold and guard the perimeters of that vision. I remember feeling the truth of that message back then, but am just beginning to understand and perhaps further realize its deeper meaning.

For this unfolding truth, I have the men and the women to thank. With my whole heart and soul.

Teresa

Two days ago I attended a panel discussion of the Software Development (SD) Forum’s Women in Tech SIG. Its title was “The Mothers of Invention”. It was hosted by Adobe and the woman who founded and heads their women’s network at Adobe opened with the now-famous quote by Madeleine Albright, “There is a place in hell for women who do not help other women out.”

The conversation among the women leaders there whose backgrounds were in engineering, science, and IT was wonderfully honest and open. The main concerns were very real, appropriate, and well, just wonderful:

* how to innovate technology to meet and support social transformation;

* how to keep thriving and innovating in the face of our society’s challenges (everyone said…it’s NOT the time to be collapsing into old “safe” ways!)

* the responsibility of our generation of women leaders in supporting and mentoring the next generation of young women in technology and the girls who hopefully will not have to separate science and art/humanities in their lives

I bring this up here because of my awe that women (in general, in hordes!!!) are amazing in their unstoppable concern for that which is beyond their own personal gain. Moreso, that they are unable to look at their personal gain without seeing and considering its impact on their colleagues, the business, families, communities, the world. One’s self is inseparable from another’s and from the collective Self.

If you ask me, I would support women’s initiatives and inventions anywhere!

Teresa

My Awakenings readers have been sending such wonderful questions that I thought I might try to respond in blog fashion.

Here’s the first:

I was reading the story in Awakening the Energies of Love about when people ask at social events, “What do you DO?”, and how you learned to say, “I’m living my life!” But do you ever know “once and for all” what you LOVE to do and what NOT to say YES to? How do you direct those “energies of love” that flow through you? Because 24 hours is not long enough. -Mary

What a beautiful question! For me, life gets more precious every year, and there are so many things I am passionate about. As you say, 24 hours a day aren’t long enough! A lot in the work world is draining of energy, so I had to learn what activities and practices energized me and brought me joy. Often they had nothing to do with work as we know it. But I’ve discovered that if I’m to remain healthy in body and mind, I have to make sure they don’t get sidelined. These are the little things: just sitting for a while and contemplating the beauty of the land, arranging flowers, planting my vegetable garden, being with a friend, taking a walk, and maintaining spiritual practices like meditation. They help to keep me in balance. So does my actual work, but it took a long time to find what gave me the most joy: writing and working with the small groups I call Soul Work. One balances the other the first, inward and solitary, the second outward and so very satisfying. My other decisions in response to requests and activities are based strictly on what my body indicates: the clear Yes/No described in Awakening the Energies of Love. When you learn what your body knows, you’re home free. With Love, Anne

My 60th birthday is rapidly approaching - Yikes!  And yes, it does feel as though no time has passed since I was 20, 30, 40, etc…which makes sense since all there really is - is the present moment.  It is as though I snapped my fingers and Zap - here I am 60 (well not until next month).

I have been wondering, for the past few months, what stepping into this new decade — this new age of my life — means to me.  Here are some of my thoughts:

• No more waiting until tomorrow - I’ve taken and am taking the time to listen deeply and take action - this sacred marriage of the divine feminine wisdom from within joined in union with the divine masculine ability to move effortlessly and directly in bringing to form the wisdom of the heart.
• No time for Fear, of what someone else might think, to stop me in my tracks - Here’s an example:  I decided that the gift I really want for my 60th birthday is to have donations made to Folk Arts Rajasthan (I am a Board member of this awe-inspiring organization committed to empowering women and children in Rajasthan, India).  So I used another fabulous site, First Giving, to make a fund-raising page.  I was feeling quite good about what I wrote, and then I went to e-mail the donation request to people on my mailing list.  Suddenly, I was stopped in my tracks, editing who I would send it to: not wanting to seem too pushy; not wanting to make people feel obligated or uncomfortable with my request.  I listened to the internal dialogue filling my mind and said, “Stop! Fear, thanks for sharing, I’m sending this request out to everyone on this list - as long as I remember who they are!”  And that’s what I did.  I have held back so many times, in past decades of my life, from asking, inviting, and sharing ideas, causes, products and services with others.  No more - I’m ratcheting-up my “putting it out there!”
• It’s time to trust in the fulfillment of my Dreams - I’m looking at my bucket list, and staying focused on it.  I don’t have to know how I’m going to get there — I simply have to keep my “eye on the prize” and take one step at a time.  There is a scene in an Indiana Jones movie where Indiana Jones wants to get to the other side of a ravine.  He is on a peak - with a big drop below and the distance is too great for him to jump.  So he takes a step and the bridge appears. I trust the bridge is there for me or if not, that I will sprout wings and fly — or angels will carry me.
• I can learn the new technologies - I have been resistant to social networking — in a whiney voice I declared, “I don’t wanna’ have to do this.”  Well that’s all changed - I recently read a fabulous book CauseWired by Tom Watson about the interface of social networking and philanthropy and my resistance has been transformed.  I’m tweeting on Twitter and making new friends on Facebook daily.  Yes, I can!
• Love is the answer - and what I am for giving is Love ~ when in doubt, ask:  What would Love do here? and then — and this is important, listen to the answer and take action.
• The present is our point of greatest power - each moment I get to choose my thoughts, where I focus my attention - this is power, this is freedom.
• Yes, I am starting a podcast by the end of March - there I’ve said it, I can do it.

What have you learned?  How are your life lessons guiding you?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

My wife and I are having an amazing adventure.  It is quite expensive although it’s subsidized.  It is full of twists and turns, misery, pain, triumph, success, disappointment and revelation.  It is unfolding now and what it has created in me is a new space in my heart where I feel more and more in love with her.  What is this adventure you might wonder?  It’s spending a week around the clock most days in a hospital wing where everyone is recovering from surgery on one joint or another.

My wife had a total knee replacement on her right leg.  She had lived with a deteriorating knee for the past few decades and finally relented when the arthritic pain and the disfigurement of her bone on bone joint were impeding her love of exercise and speed.  Last year she skied using up every last ounce of that knees ability to propel her in her world.  We have walked Paris night and day, villages in Italy and neighborhoods of London.  We’ve strolled on beaches in Mexico, Hawaii and Greece and walked for miles stopping in art galleries in Cape Cod.  All the time these past few years she’s done this with more and more increasing pain.  She’s done it because she loves life and experiences and she’s had the surgery to allow for more and more.

They replaced her knee with a specially designed titanium replacement made to order.  The joint works perfectly and went in smoothly in her less than two hour surgery.  She came out of it hopeful and couldn’t wait to get off the drugs that were making her loopy.  Over the first two days after her surgery she went from 10 hits on her automatic drug drip every hour and two additional pain medications every four hours to a few hits and 1 additional pain medication, she walked over 150 feet and climbed a flight of stairs.  On the third day after her surgery she was walking with crutches making two laps on the hospital floor, had bent her knee to nearly 80% (started at 50%) and was down to level 2 out of 10 for her pain.

On the third day something else happened.  Her surgeon came to see her in the morning and said, “I’m concerned that it was so difficult to remove that drain from your leg, I want to take an x-ray.”  The day before, his intern had attempted to remove it with three rough yanks, causing Jane to yelp with pain.  The surgeon himself had to use force and finally got it out.  When the doctor came back on the morning of the third day he said, “I’m sorry to tell you that there is a piece of plastic lodged in your knee that doesn’t belong there, it may not cause any problems and you could just leave it there , but I’m not sure what will happen.. It’s up to you but I am thinking we should remove it.”   I was holding her hand as soon as the doctor came in with that certain look on the face “remember show empathy”.  I began to cry immediately– tears rolling down and dropping gently on our clasped hands.  She said “I guess we better do it, I want this done right”. This is the point where my inappropriate personality was screaming from inside my brain “WE what the fuck is this WE!  They left a goddamn piece of shit in your body and WE need to do something about it!?  I started to breathe and listen to her saying “when can we do this?”.  ”It will have to be fit in with a full surgery schedule tomorrow, it’s likely to be between 4-6 p.m.  I don’t want you to eat or drink anything after midnight though just in case we get in earlier.”  A whole documentary of emotions passed over my wife’s face and then she said “okay, I’m really disappointed, but I want this to be perfect.”  So we settled into the idea and I got her to eat dinner and then eat again at 930 p.m. to face the next day.

The next day she woke up after sleeping fitfully from the guy next door who liked to yell at the top of his lungs “NURSE!!!”  And then when they arrived into his room within minutes he would yell “NO, NO, NO, don’t touch that!”  We spent the day together seeing a few visitors, watching television, exercising her legs, putting her in the CPM (continuous passive motion machine) and giving her these little green sponge tops dipped in ice water to make her mouth feel like she was getting water.  After three o’clock came and went and no word when the surgery was coming we got her put on an IV for some fluids.  It was six before we knew it and still no word.  I began requesting that they call the OR to see what was happening.  I did this every hour up until 9 p.m. when I finally got an answer that it was going to be no earlier than 10 p.m.  It didn’t happen until 11:45 p.m.  So this was after 25 hours of no water and food and no word in between.  She had a total of thirty minutes (spread out over 10 different times)where she was slightly upset.  We watched movies and entertained each other.  A friend hung out with us for a while and blew up the latex gloves and put faces on them as well as making new pain levels on their pain chart that originally went from one to ten.  Eventually with our friends drawings added it went from level one to S&M.

I got to stay with her until they wheeled her into the surgery theatre.  She said “pray for all these people honey, they’ve been up all night and I want them to feel good working on me.”  I was humbled and I prayed.  I prayed for my own clarity that somehow in this chaos something perfect was happening.  I looked into her eyes when she left and into her eyes when they wheeled her back up to her room.  She was shaken and a little frightened but she wasn’t daunted.  I gave her some soup and water and she drifted off to sleep.  ”Thank you for being here baby, I love you so much.  Please go home and get sleep, I promise I’ll call if I need you”.

The day after the re-invention ( I love this term they use for an f-up) ( Ok so I have some stuff to process). She was feeling a little low.  She was walking, she was sitting, she was on her CPM machine but the pain and swelling had reversed her progress.  Honey I hope you won’t be mad if I can’t go home tomorrow. it broke my heart open.  I would never be mad at you about when we get home.  I just want what is best for you and I want them to care for you well.  I gave her a valentines day card and she cried at the sentiment.  She said to me “you know we can get through anything together” and I said “yes we can and I am in love with you.

….of the Age of Aquarius….7:25am PT today marks the dawn of a new age, a new era!!!!! Finally! One we’ve been waiting for and moving towards….knowing we are the ones we’ve been waiting for!

I celebrate being alive at this time and sharing this time with you!!! What mystery and magic awaits…

Inspired by all my recent introspection, and Carey’s comment on my last Zebra Sounds post, and Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Manifesto, and a creeping sense of global economic doom, I’m performing a bit of personal affirmation today with a list of Ten Things I Believe.

1. Normal life is extraordinary.
2. We are all capable of magic; it’s important to perform some every day.
3. True creativity starts with optimism and a willingness to fail.
4. The act of listening is not instinctual; it’s an art.
5. Everything that ever happens to you, happens right now. Pay attention.
6. Money is no more the root of all evil than religion is.
7. Generally speaking, you get what you expect from people.
8. Being yourself is the easiest way to fill your life up with people you love.
9. This cliche is true: Laughing is the best medicine.
10. A beautiful spirit is irresistible.

What do you believe?

(Also posted on my blog, Zebra Sounds.)

The 25^th TED conference ended after four days of non-stop learning, inspiration and world changing conversations.  The themes of the conference were Reboot, Reframe, Reconnect, See, Understand, Invent, Dream, Discover, Grow, Dare, Predict and Engage.  The lessons were deep and sometimes disturbing.  Here are some of my favorite quotes and lessons that I am just beginning to let sink in.

97 percent of all life on the planet is in the water.  Life in the water creates most of our oxygen:   Sylvia Earle, Oceanographer www.tedprize.org

The earth is a fragile island of life in a universe of possibility.  The amount of exploration we have done in space is equivalent to exploring the ocean in one cup of water.:    Jill Tarter, Astronomer www.tedprize.org

Involvement in great art leads to an affluence of spirit.:  Jose Antonio Abreu, Maestro. (Founded “El Sistema” in 1975 and has seeded 102 youth orchestras) www.tedprize.org

www.makelovenotporn.com ( a new website created by a woman who wants to help young men especially understand that hard core porn is not a replacement for sex education)

Shai Agassi has a vision for breaking the worlds fossil-fuel habit:  Electric cars and battery replacement stations.  This is a moral choice; we can no longer stand by and say that for the economy we must keep making fossil fuel burning cars.  200 years ago 25% of the GDP of Great Brittan was the slave trade, it was said that stopping it would stop the nation.  Instead, slavery was abandoned and the UK had 100 years of economic growth.  We must make the moral decision on cars, NOW.  www.betterplace.com Theft is a crime.  Pollution and destruction of our environment is theft of our children’s future: Ray Anderson, CEO Interface (hot Flor modular carpet system) This company went from a top user of fossil fuels and a top contributor to the carbon footprint that is destroying our planet, to adopting a vision and values which state; “take nothing that can’t be replaced and do no harm”.  The company is now the leading example of sustainable decision making and manufacturing. www.interfaceglobal.com There are 1 billion cells that make up your body but there are 10 trillion bacterial cells in you or on you, you are 99% bacteria.:  Bonnie Blassler, Molecular biologist. Bacteria protect us, make vitamins, communicate with each other and act as community.  There are some bacteria that should not be in you or on you at anytime.  Bacteria are multilingual and effective in organizing themselves.  A new antibiotic paradigm is arising, studying bacteria to understand the principles and rules that drive it will lead to eradication of diseases and health management.  We can improve the communication and community action of good bacteria, the more we understand how it works.  www.molbio.princeton.edu

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web just 20 years ago, now he wants the world to add raw data to all the documents, videos and pictures that populate the World Wide Web.  He believes that data in a standard format made available freely can exponentially increase our ability to solve the world’s greatest problems.  Can you imagine all researchers working on similar problems providing their raw data and what new insights we could learn?? Everyone’s data is on their computer in their office or in their lab, we must unlock the data!   www.w3.org

From Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, I learned to think twice before criticizing the solutions that some body or organization or politician comes up with.  This is why when five people are involved in making a decision there are 120 interactions involved in making that decision.  Our minds can manage 120 interactions or pieces of information.  When 10 people are making decisions, there are 3.6 MILLION interactions.  No mind can keep track of this, the use of statistics and computer modeling in this complex world is necessary now.  (Bruce is political scientist whose predictions have consistently exceed any other prediction method for world events) www.politics.as.nyu.edu

Dickson Despommier spoke to us about our food predicament.  By 2050 we will have another 3 billion people on the planet based on current trends.  Within 20 years 80% of people will live in cities and suburbs.  The solution he provides is vertical farming and the idea of the sustainable eco-city.  Using hydroponics /aeroponics and drip irrigation inside and on top of buildings we will reduce water consumption and ocean pollution, 75% of which is caused by agricultural run off.

Every person on this planet deserves 2.3 liters of clean water to drink and 2000 calories to eat each day.  We captured the dust on the tail of a comet, we can do this.  www.verticalfram.com

That is the first ten!  More to come.  What does this bring up for you?  What are you inspired to do?  What are your questions?

Christie

www.imspirit.com

Vertical farming, bacteria making up more than 90% of our bodies, bacteria who organize, communicate and act, women who dedicate their lives to saving the canopy of trees that help create the life we enjoy and a man whose compassion reforested 100’s of acres in South America because he saw the eyes and heard the cry of an abandoned baby orangutan.  Herbie Hancock offered a gift of his presence and music to punctuate a day that had so much in it you were not sure how you felt at the end only that you could learn courage with the man who flew from mountain tops in a wing suit and a woman who is living a fuller life than most without arms and one and a half legs. I am humbled and grateful.

One thing for sure I need to learn more about vertical farming.   I did not understand that we are already using more than 80% of the available farm land and that our population continues to grow.  I loved the elegance of the solutions of farming inside in urban areas (where most people will live in 2050) and the safety of the food, the lack of pesticides, the lower requirement for water.  This is something I should pay attention to — what else should I be paying attention to?  I shook Al Gore’s hand and thanked him for all his passionate work on behalf of all of us, but what can I do about the polar ice cap?  How can I help end malaria?  I can do my best to contribute positively to all of life and do no harm. And what does that look like?

Day two

I saw many ‘celebrities’ Glen Close, Robin Williams, Meg Ryan, Goldie Hawn, Daphne Z, Darryl Hannah… but I didn’t have anything to say to them and they were not the stars of TED. They were there enjoying, immersed, non-glamorous and it seemed appropriate that they were just among the luminaries.  One person there was surely an iconic legend and that was Quincy Jones.  The true stars of the day however were people I would not have expected, some that I had never heard of and some that I had only read.

The woman who explained that our love of fresh bread and all things organic is wonderful but it is a privilege and that on most of the planet, small local farming is not a solution, so she implored us to recognize our privilege and to help solve the food crisis for the whole. Solutions that work in large cities and urban areas where there are no farmers markets. She woke us up. As she broke a loaf of bread with the audience and reminded us to be grateful, I felt tears welling up in me.

The tears spilled over when Elizabeth Gilbert took the stage and shared her fears. She talked about how people come up to her and say aren’t you afraid that you’ll never have a book as big as Eat, Pray, Love?  Aren’t you afraid you’ll never write anything good again?  And her answer was yes, yet she then began an authentic conversation with the audience about why we accept the idea that creativity and suffering must go hand in hand.   Why we accept that so many of our brightest stars die early of their own hand or the inability to live with the accolades and pressure of earning more and more.   She said she went back in history to find a community that treated the creative’s differently. The ancient Greeks.

Elizabeth asked us to consider that what we have within each one of us is genius or as the Greeks called it a Daemon.   And this spirit entity infuses us with our creative ideas and that we don’t take credit for what is brilliant or feel responsible for what is not, but that we just continue to have the courage to be the channel and trust. She spoke eloquently and directly to the heart, this is a must see talk when it comes up on the website soon.   I could never do it justice in a blog but when I went up to her at a party later, we had a beautiful moment where I thanked her for her message and shared with a shaking voice that I realize the perfectionism in my daughter, her fears of being forever more and more were inherited from me… we talked a few moments about recognizing the true Source of all, and she hugged me tight and kissed my cheek and said, sister, keep doing good. Yes sister, keep doing good and it is enough.