Day # 80: Gifts of March

#80

I was given a very special gift this morning.  Grandmothers Counsel The World, by Carol Schaefer.  This book is the story of thirteen Women Elders who came together from all over the globe to "offer their vision for our planet."  I've spent a good part of the day reading it.  Like my book, it is a collection of women's voices combined; it tells  stories of elder women who represent thirteen different cultures and ways of being in the world and their wisdom.   It is really powerful and speaks to what industrialization has done to the planet and what we need to do to help heal.  

I have an extremely strong desire to collect stories.  I have thought up at least three new projects today.  How can I sustain a life doing this?   But people need to know about different ways and different cultures, about exciting projects and communities, positive things that are happening all over,  that would move others if they just knew about what was going on.  There is so much change that is needed.  How do we get others to move and to work for the good of the planet?  I don't know, I just have this feeling that telling stories is a huge step.  

I needed to get out of the house and go take pictures.  When I woke up this morning there were three fresh inches of snow on the ground and it was still snowing.  I went out anyway.  By the time Trace and I separated melting had already begun.  When I went out at 4:30 to photograph it was grey, but there was a distinct change in the amount of snow on the ground.  March marches on its mysterious way.

Non-frozen rivers, rushing water, visible rocks and mud, lots of mud, that is what I saw today.  

In a week I am going to a day of the American Adoption Association Congress conference in Cambridge where I hope to meet some of the women I am profiling.  I'm so excited.  I am going with Trace, who is presenting on the Lost Daughters panel.  I'm thrilled to be meeting Lost Daughters. Claudia Corrigan D'Arcy, who  has helped me with this project for a year now, and I have never met. We will next weekend.  How cool is that?  

I think a lot of work has been accomplished on the book and I have now really started creating the skeleton that will hold it all together.   Very excited!!!  I think that going to the conference will help me to begin to fill in some of the blanks I have.  It will give me a really nice arena to listen, to hear what others are talking and thinking about in the field.  And it will put my face and project together for others.  I really am looking forward to it.