Spontaneous wave of heartful intention

Dear friends of The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering,

Something amazing is happening!!! Here's what I know from a few of the emails I've received in the past week:

1. Deb Ballam, Associate Provost for Women's Policy Initiatives at Ohio State University and a group of women from Columbus, Ohio were so inspired by The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering they created a website (translated into 15 languages!), a YouTube video, and 20,000 postcards and are blanketing the globe -- literally! -- with a message asking women and men to stand in their local parks at 1 p.m. on Sunday, May 13, 2007 -- Mother's Day. See www.standingwomen.org.

2. Teena Booth, a television screenwriter who works in Hollywood and lives in Arizona had the same idea at the same time and created a website inspired by the Grandmother story, asking people to stand at 1 o'clock on Mother's Day. Please see her most compelling website at www.standintheparkforpeace.org.

3. Linda Merryman, a convener of the Millionth Circle Initiative inspired by Jean Shinoda Bolen's book, linked up the two women and made sure news of the Mother's Day event made it onto the Millionth Circle website. Linda emailed this morning to say already she's gotten word that Millionth Circle will host a Gather The Women of South Florida Mother's Day event. (See Linda's poignant letter about standing in Ashland to help save the world at www.standintheparkforpeace.org)

4. Justine Willis Toms, co-founder and co-president of New Dimensions World Broadcasting, whose weekly in-depth interviews are heard on National Public Radio, will announce Deb and Teena's events in the March New Dimensions Newsletter and will call for people to stand at 1 o'clock on Mother's Day (www.newdimensions.org).

5. A woman from British Columbia who was representative to the 5th Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the United Nations and is part of a grassroots grandmothers-to-grandmothers campaign to help women in Africa, wrote to say she and a woman from India are organizing a Great Silent Grandmother Gathering on the steps of the Parliament Building in Victoria, B.C.

Please tell your friends and groups. And please consider standing, if only for a few minutes, at 1 o'clock on Mother's Day, May 13, 2007. Maybe, just maybe, this spontaneous wave of heartful intention will be the tipping point.

With love and hope.

He that forgives wins the first laurel

My friend Nancy and I drove from Ashland to Redding yesterday, over Siskiyou Summit which had hours earlier been closed to traffic because of a blizzard. More snow was predicted and I have to get to Sacramento to fly to Kansas City tomorrow for a long-planned speaking event. We squeeked through between storms.

Last night, in the lounge of the Holiday Inn, Nancy gave me my Christmas present (yes, I know it's the end of February, but things have been a tad hectic). It is glorious. And perfect. A quote by George Fox (Quaker, 1624-1691) calligraphed by Ashland's Diane Amaratico on ivory-colored art paper. I want to share it with you.

"A good end cannot sanctify evil means nor must we ever do evil that good may come of it. It is as great a presumption to send our passions upon God's errands as it is to palliate them with God's name...We are too ready to retaliate, rather than forgive or gain by love and information. And yet we could hurt no man that we believe loves us.

"Let us then try what love will do, for if men did once see we love them we should soon find they would not harm us. Force may subdue...but love gains, and he that forgives first wins the laurel." George Fox