| November 18, 2007 |
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| Women’s rights are
human rights?
Stephen Henry Lewis,
United Nations’ envoy for HIV AIDS in Africa, 2006, said:
“[Women's rights have] never been made real, and so long as men control the levers and bastions of power… it never will be real. The demeaning diminution of women is everywhere evident… freedom from sexual violence, the right to sexual autonomy, to sexual and reproductive health, social and economic independence, and even the whiff of gender equality are barely approximated. It’s a ghastly, deadly business, this untrammeled oppression of women in so many countries on the planet.”
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Luckily Lurking Intuition
Laughing Stock Traded
My cousin and a best friend are both celebrating birthdays today (December 1). Mine is December 6, and I’m thinking perhaps that’s part of the reason we three are closely tuned to each others’ ups and downs. Time after time during the past twenty years, at least two of us have experienced synchronistic events or feelings that made us reach for our phone to call the other. It happened again today with my cousin, although the beginning of our intuits are difficult to place in a time frame. Perhaps mine started last year, but hers evidently started as long ago as thirty years.
I love to shop for greeting cards, and often spend the better part of an afternoon boo-hooing or giggling over the Hallmark racks or my local grocer’s. I’ve purchased many a card that has stayed in my Special Occasions organizer for years, just waiting for an unknown and unplanned perfect moment to get sent. The most recent was an ugly birthday card with a rather abstract drawing of two lady bug sisters on a picnic; one of them named Lilly and the other named Laura, my cousin’s name.
After much hesitation at the store, I purchased the card wondering if ever I would get low enough on birthday inventory to actually send it to her. Last week, while choosing from multiple cards on hand—some too formal, some to gushy—I decided it was just weird enough for Laura and would likely match her sense of humor. I hoped she would at least react bemusedly as I addressed and sealed the envelope. Holding the greeting in my hands, my memory flashed back to the first time I ever held her in my arms.
North Star Route
I was nine years old when little Laura was born—she missed being born on my birthday by a measly five days. I was very disappointed about her delivery date but was even more disappointed when my mom told me we weren’t going to be able to go see her until springtime. Dad had decided he just couldn’t take a chance of traveling ‘up north’ in the winter time, lest we be snowed- or iced-in at our relative’s house, causing him to miss work back in our hometown.
I quickly recovered though, as Christmas was fast approaching. I knew my attitude had to improve because I’d been told there would be chunks of coal showing up in my stocking if I didn’t.
One of my most requested presents arrived from Santa that year—a life-sized baby doll with life-like skin, movable arms, legs, eyelids, and even a head that turned. The doll was my main present, and was accompanied by other gift-wrapped packages containing all the paraphernalia one would need if caring for a new-born: bottles, blankets, diapers, clothing, booties, and doll-sized toys.
At once, I began to practice being a mommy, and could hardly wait to demonstrate my skills until I could eventually hold the real thing, Cousin Laura, if and when spring rolled around. Well it did, with summer close behind. She was almost six months old and we still hadn’t met! Finally, plans were made for our family of five to make the four-hour trek in our somewhat undependable car. I had more fun packing for my doll than I did for myself. At last, we piled into the much too small auto with our suitcases, travel games, baby gifts, and sandwiches. We were on our way north!
It was a wonderful reunion with family from the moment we arrived. My mom and Laura’s mom were identical twins; my dad and Laura’s dad were like brothers, having played in the same dance band years before. For once I wanted to hurry and get the hugging behind us and get to the crib where the baby was, of course, sleeping.
While the grownups tarried, we able-bodied children carried in the luggage, the leftover snacks, trip trash, extra coats, and my doll and her suitcase. When baby Laura finally began to awaken, I made a mad dash to mom’s purse for the Brownie camera and its flash attachment and dutifully surrendered it to the nearest adult.
I had to wait my turn while my mom, dad, and older brother held her and had their pictures taken with the newest member of our families. My younger sister and I sat on the sofa, expectantly impatient, arms at the ready to receive Laura into our lives. It seemed like an eternity before this yearning to bond with someone I didn’t know became a reality. By now, I had my doll in one arm, and the other one poised to embrace a wriggling, smiling, preciously dimpled bundle of energy for our first photo as cousins. My doll was bigger than she.
Etheric Solvent’s Song
Laura and I, because our mothers were twins, grew up in the presence of their inexplicable intuitive energies. It seemed totally normal to us as children, and we were middle-aged adults before we ever discussed their etheric intuitive gifts. When we began to explore the synchronistic occurrences we had dubbed intuition, we both were amazed at the numbers of times it happened between our mothers, and more recently, ourselves.
What is intuition? How does intuition ‘work’? Why do more women than men have ‘it’? Where does it come from and when does it arrive? What are its boundaries if any? Who can explain it, define it, or duplicate it? These are questions that have long been asked and seldom answered sensibly.
She called me on her birthday (yesterday) to let me know she had received the card. When I heard the laughter in her voice, I knew a mystical energy had played a major role in the obvious enjoyment she was expressing, but I had to wait for her to reveal the tale’s unfolding. When Laura’s three children were small, they all watched kiddie television together while she did household chores in their small apartment. It seems there was a song about lady bugs on a picnic which they all loved, memorized, and sang together frequently. She proceeded to sing all of its verses for me, long distance, without missing a lyric.
I’m discovering that the voiceless, soundless, stirrings in my being have always led me to right actions and safe journeys, the right people at the right moment. The few times I’ve ignored their signals have taught me lessons I would not otherwise have learned. No one knows its true name, but intuition works for me.
This holiday season, I hope you’ll listen to the ethers surrounding you, protecting you, and guiding you in the ways that you should go—even if it’s to a ladybug picnic on a blanket in the snow.
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