Critters and International Women's Day

 "For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment." This is International Women's Day.

 

First to share my critters:

Dear old friend "The Duke" and puppy "Brandy" get along well on a warm Saturday afternoon a week ago. Residents sit around on the deck and chat, and I joined them while my laundry was tossing around in machines in the nearby laundry room.

----------------

WOMEN'S DAY

Here it is again, while I'm honoring 30 women throughout March over on my other blog "Open Yesterday's Pages" there's one day set aside for all women! Actually I made a list of those I have learned from, and those others have proposed that I need to learn more about....over on that blog today.

.

Recently posted when considering the attempt for kinghood in Washington, by Virginians, perhaps of French descent (hailing to the Victory picture from French independence.)

Various 'Venus' figures, all made before the mythology of Venus came along, belonging instead to early goddess/matriarchal cultures which probably venerated a female source as life giver.

As a second wave Feminist, from the 1960s to present, I am well aware of all the disparities that still exist for women. And I celebrate all those who have worked to further the rights of women.

From the first wave of Feminism, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and so many women who started a movement leading to suffragists who won women the vote finally in the US in 1920 by the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

2017 when women (and men and children) of the world marched for women's freedoms and rights. All the pink hats were pussy hats worn to combat the masochistic attitudes of then president Trump who said he could "grab them by the pussy".

For all of us to consider - this is what almost all of our mothers had to accomplish when we were born through their birth canals (also known crassly as pussies!) except for those who had a Cesarian Section surgery. This shows 10 cm. dilation of a woman's cervix of her uterus during birth.

-----------------

Today's quote:

Instructions in Magic

You don’t need candles,
only the small slim flame in yourself,
the unrevealed passion
that drives you to rise on winter mornings
remembering summer nights.

You don’t need incense,

only the lingering fragrance

of the life that has gone before,

stew cooking on an open fire,

the good stars, the clean breeze,

the warmth of animals breathing in the dark.

You don’t need a cauldron,

only your woman’s body,

where so many of men’s fine ideas

are translated into life.

You don’t need a wand, hazelwood or oak,

only to follow the subtle and impish

leafy green fellow

who beckons you into the forest,

the one who goes dancing

and playing his flute

through imperial trees.

And you don’t need the salt of earth.

You will taste that soon enough.

These things are the trappings,

the tortoise shell, the wolf skin, the blazoned shield.

It’s what’s inside, the star of becoming.

With that ablaze, you have everything you need

to conjure up new worlds.

Dolores Stewart, from The Nature of Things

Thanks to: Beyond the Fields blog

---------------

Today's art:

By Lisbeth Cheever-Gessaman

______________

Today's quote:

Kindness expands the light within us and reaches out to touch the light in others as well.

---------

Today's art:

by Emily Carr Forest, British Columbia (1932). It’s interesting that much of her style was defined by portraying foliage as sheets of cloth with folds and wrinkles.

------------------

Family album sharing:

Middle son Russ, on left, oldest son Marty on r, 2023.

----------------------

Sharing with  Saturday's Critters.