Manna and don't forget the beer!

 Yes, I am pre-posting these days.

When I had a chance to sit down in air conditioning, when my cough and my tremorous fingers were calmed, and when I wasn't moving at 70 miles per hour down the interstate towards the west!

Well, only a little of that has already happened. The trip doesn't start till next week actually.

But I figure I'll have dinged somewhere on my body packing or moving things around...and will wear at least one bandage. Yes, I left them out till last to be sure to have them available for my thin skin which tears so easily.

There are extra precautions when moving at 83-11/12ths years of age!

Last week I stopped at my favorite bakery and picked up the loaf of sandwich sourdough bread, and day old cookies, which promptly went in the freezer. Snickerdoodles and chocolate chip. Mmm, "manna" never looked so good. And what about that almond croissant? Well it was gone in 30 minutes while  reading blogs and Substacks.

Did I post this before? Probably. A neighbor had a little U-Haul just like the one we're going to load up next week. They got volunteer Mormon missionaries to help. The hardy young men were out in the 90 degree heat moving furniture, wearing their customary uniforms of white shirts and ties. No kidding. Ties tied. Shirts sticking to their backs. And they wouldn't probably get to enjoy a few beers afterward. 

Which reminds me to stock up on some beer next week for my friends who will move many boxes and load them also.

Wait wait, my son says no beer. And he wants to just drink whatever water might be available at gas stations etc. He doesn't care about all the different microbes as we cross the country. But I do.

I'll bring a couple of gallons of filtered water along, with my own microbes. I know once I'm in Colorado I will acclimate to their waters. But hey, he's young and my son likes to make some of these decisions. (I will also get a case of the Orange flavor LaCroix that he likes) Maybe. Or just take him grocery shopping the evening before loading the truck. Maybe... We have a small cooler to take my yogurt and some fruits. He's not sure he wants anything in it.

---------

Still packing...

A rock or two that is not going to be lugged across the USA.

Yes, I must keep the Buddha, and probably the soap dish I made. They were packed into one or another box with bigger things. It will be so funny to find treasures in with mixing bowls or socks. And my friend Suzanne is willing to take the rocks to add to her garden! So happy, because she has a couple of my goddess figures already. I believe she has the female Ent.

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

Speaking of females who know their way around the world...

Wonder how our lives would be different had she not caught pneumonia the last weeks of her campaign and somehow so many women voted against her!!

And another woman who could have certainly done a better job than tRump's fiasco!

What's wrong with you people?

OK, nothing is wrong with people who're reading this, because you probably (I hope) didn't vote for tRump. But the millions who did? And so many of them women? HEY THERE! You are CRAZY, or just drank the Kool-Aid!

So if you voted for tRump, I will not ask again, "What's wrong with you" I will just encourage you to forgive that lapse and move on to support anyone else who comes along (besides Vance or Johnson), preferably a Democrat or a Democratic Socialist.

Or you can  expect more of this (taken Jan 6, 2024)

OK, calm down again...de-stress-i-fy. 

Breathe deep.

Resist. 

Breathe!

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

Peace is an invitation in daily life to breathe deep, right here, in the uncertainty.

MORGAN HARPER NICHOLS

The Great Mother March: A Women’s Empowerment Pilgrimage • A Return to Balance 🌸 March 21st to April 22nd, 2026

FaceBook kind of announced this today (Friday, March 20.) But it was harder than heck to find the description of the event...where are they going?

I finally found it under "discussion."

Sure I support this. Not going to take part unfortunately, due to health. Great to share about it, and I wish them well. Hope they have as much success as the Buddhist Monks.

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

 The Great Mother March: A Women’s Empowerment Pilgrimage • A Return to Balance 🌸 March 21st to April 22nd, 2026

Asheville, NC to the U.S. Capitol - a sort of "walk-a-thon" to empower women & men. The destination is intended to replace what comes to mind now when someone says U.S.Capitol with the love & compassion of the empowered, loving feminine.

Welcome to the official community space for The Great Mother March — a powerful 32-day pilgrimage rooted in love, creativity, and co-creation. We are walking for unity, for healing, for balance, and for the flourishing of all people and our planet.

✨ This is a movement of inspired action — grounded in compassion, art, wisdom, joy, and ancestral connection.

It is a humanitarian, creative expression, with women & men collaborating to BE the change we desire in our world.

Together, we are embodying the return of the wise, empowered feminine, walking hand-in-hand with the healthy masculine, to seed new patterns of peace, possibility, and mutual respect.

💗 This group is for:

Those curious about joining the March in spirit, in steps, or in support.

People passionate about women's empowerment, community connection, and collective transformation.

Artists, organizers, spiritual leaders, creatives, activists, and allies ready to co-create a future that honors all life.

We march for the Earth.

We march for our children.

We march for creativity, freedom, love, and the reclamation of feminine leadership.

Let this be a container of hope, courage, and collaboration — where we focus on what’s possible when we come together in sacred purpose.

Join us at greatmothermarch.com for more details, resources, and to find your place in the circle.

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

The web site gives this:

We are walking alongside the Appalachian Mountains, the oldest mountain chain in the United States, weaving the mutual respect, unconditional love, reciprocity, and radiant self-expression of the Great Mother through rural communities in NC and VA. 

Perhaps the march along the “spine” of the U.S. is symbolic of the awakening to the natural balance of feminine and masculine? 

Perhaps, just like our own spines, the healing and transformation will ripple out from this pathway. 

We are intentionally walking through communities, not mountain pathways, to make the Great Mother, her frequency, visible. We intend to BE the change we desire, one step, one community, at a time. 

---

We kick off The Great Mother March with a music & arts event at Pack Square in Asheville, NC on March 21st and begin our pilgrimage of devotion and celebration on March 22nd. 

• Nights one through six, take us to Black Mountain, Old Fort, Marion, Linville, and Boone. 

• Then, we make our way to the Peace Pentagon, outside of Independence, VA via Todd, West Jefferson, the River Country Campground along the New River.

• We walk into Galax, VA on April 1st, then Hillsville, Floyd, Ferrum and Rocky Mount, arriving in Rocky Mount on April 5th. 

• Then, we make our way to Lynchburg, arriving on 4/9, up Hwy 29 to Waynesboro, arriving 4/12.

• We arrive in Charlottesville on 4/13 and spend the day of 4/14 at IX Art Park, resting and preparing for our final leg to D.C. There, you will be invited to learn our fun & simple dance moves for the FLASH MOB we will be expressing as we enter into D.C. SO exciting! 

• From Charlottesville, we plan to spend nights in Barboursville, Orange, Culpeper and Warrenton. We arrive in Manasass on 4/19, then Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, VA, and Alexandria, VA, our last stop before arriving in D.C. on April 22nd, Earth Day! 

It is an aggressive time frame and there is zero pressure or expectation that everyone will feel called to walk every step of the way. TOGETHER, as a community, we will allow our steps to kiss the ground, our voices to bless the waters, our hearts to create connection and understanding, compassion and a softening, everywhere we go. 

If you are familiar with any of these towns, have contacts, suggestions for sponsors, etc, please comment below or email us info@greatmothermarch.com

Please consider end of year donations to The Great Mother March. Tax deductible donations can be made from our home page at GreatMotherMarch.com or mailed to our 501c3 sponsor. Click HERE to access the Sponsorship Deck in our Google Drive. 

There is no charge to join the March. It is purely volunteer led. Monies go to ensuring safety and health along the way, basics like port-a-potties, our HQ tents, drinking water (ZERO plastic water bottles on the March), signage, costs around our stopovers (campgrounds, event venues), sound equipment for our Flash Mob, and all the miscellaneous support items that are required to facilitate the best possible pilgrimage for ALL!

 --------------------

A Manifesto for the Great Mother

We are walking.

Not away from something—but toward what we know is possible.

We walk not as individuals seeking power, but as a community remembering our wholeness.

We walk because we are ready to embody the world we long for. A world where:

• Care is currency and compassion is strength

• Earth is not a resource, but a living relative

• Feminine wisdom is honored in all its forms

• Communities thrive through collaboration, not competition

• Diversity is celebrated as sacred design

• Leadership flows from empathy, vision, and integrity

• Action is taken out of love, not fear

• Change is not a concept—it is a practice. And that the future is not waiting for us—it is asking to be co-created through us. Step by step. Breath by breath. Together.

We walk in devotion to the feminine principle—not as a gender, but as a sacred intelligence that
lives in all of us, regardless of identity:

The power to nurture.

The courage to feel.

The wisdom to listen.

The resilience to care, create, include, and imagine.

We honor the feminine not by excluding the masculine,

but by restoring the harmony

between doing and being,

action and reflection,

striving and surrender.

We gather to reconnect—with the Earth,

with each other, and with the part of ourselves that remembers we belong.

This is not a protest—it is a living prayer.

This is not a spectacle—it is sacred work.

This is not for them to fix—it is for us to become.

We march for justice, for healing, for regeneration.

We march for the mothers and the waters,

the teachers and the trees,

the future generations and the ancestral wisdom

that still lives in our bones.

We believe in practical magic—shared meals,

shelter offered, feet sore from the road.

We believe in circles over hierarchies.

In conversation over competition.

In art as medicine and movement as truth.

We are not waiting for permission.

We are not counting on existing structures.

We are moving & creating as one—

a body of many hearts,

in service to life, love,

and the Great Mother who lives in us all.

This is how we rise.

This is how we remember.

This is how we walk the way forward.

Join us. Walk with us. Embody LOVE.

A Walk for LOVE.

Calling Wild Women

 

Some photos of art from WeMoon Calendar of 2020
 

A friendly little pup visited the Dripolator Coffee Shop when I was there. She liked my croissant flavored fingers.

Sharing with Saturday’s Critters

We need to encourage ourselves to look deeply into all things in our lives to see the inherent goodness of everythin 

——————————-

Both the US Men's and Women's Hockey Teams won gold at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, and while the men celebrated in Miami with a water cannon salute and a night on South Beach, the women's team had not yet had their moment.

That changed when rapper and longtime Team USA supporter Flavor Flav posted on social media offering to host the gold medal winners in Las Vegas. "If the USA Women's Hockey team wants a real celebration and invite, I'll host them in Las Vegas," he wrote. "Do some nice dinners and shows and good times. I'm sure I can get a hotel and airline to help me out here and celebrate these women for real for real."

Alaska Airlines saw the post and wasted no time, replying on social media with two words. "Let's talk." Shortly after, Flavor Flav confirmed the deal was done. "Alaska reached out and we are good to go," he said.

The support kept rolling in. Resorts World Las Vegas offered to provide hotel rooms, meals, and spa treatments for the entire team. StubHub jumped in with free tickets to Vegas shows. Brands like Liquid I.V., TOMS, and BÉIS Travel also showed up offering to help. What started as one social media post turned into a full celebration backed by major companies.

The women's team accepted the invitation. Flavor Flav, who previously sponsored the US Women's Water Polo Team, sent a formal invite and said the offer was real and the timing was flexible.

——————-

If you like hearing stories about women who not only survived, but created beautiful things, check out today’s Aunt Liddy story on Open Yesterday’s Pages.

Maybe the Angry Women - 9 - Rebecca Traister

Edited (a bit) from FB page What an Amazing History:

Rebecca Traister is naming a pattern that masquerades as respect.

She's a journalist who's covered American politics and women's issues for over two decades. She's watched patterns repeat across campaigns, newsrooms, and institutions.

And she's identified something crucial: endurance is treated as virtue when institutions are unwilling to change.

Women are applauded for surviving conditions that should never be normalized.

Persistence becomes the substitute for reform. Praise replaces responsibility.

This framing is not accidental.

Rebecca Traister grew up watching politics. Born in 1975, she came of age during an era when women were fighting for visibility in spaces that had excluded them for centuries.

She studied at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, then started covering politics and culture in New York. By the early 2000s, she was writing for publications like Salon, New York Magazine, and The Cut—documenting women's experiences in politics, media, and culture.

In 2008, she covered Hillary Clinton's first presidential campaign. She watched how Clinton was scrutinized in ways male candidates never were. How her voice was called shrill. How her ambition was treated as suspicious. How she was expected to be warm but not too warm, strong but not too strong, experienced but not threatening.

And she watched how the narrative around Clinton focused on her resilience. Her ability to endure. Her strength in the face of endless attacks.

The praise was genuine. But it was also convenient.

Because celebrating Clinton's endurance meant never having to examine why she faced attacks that male candidates didn't.

Celebrating endurance shifts attention away from the source of strain.

If women can withstand imbalance, the system avoids examining why the imbalance exists. If women are strong enough to survive hostile environments, institutions never have to ask why the environment is hostile in the first place.

Strength becomes an expectation. Relief becomes optional.

In 2016, Traister published All the Single Ladies—a book examining how women's increasing independence was reshaping American society. She documented how single women were building lives outside traditional marriage, creating economic power, demanding political representation.

The book was celebrated. But Traister noticed something troubling in the response: many people praised women for their resilience in navigating systems that weren't built for them—rather than questioning why those systems hadn't changed.

Women were applauded for "having it all"—career, family, independence—as if juggling impossible demands was an achievement rather than evidence of structural failure.

Women were celebrated for breaking glass ceilings—as if the existence of glass ceilings was inevitable rather than constructed.

Women were praised for their strength in enduring discrimination—as if endurance was the goal rather than elimination of discrimination.

Traister's observation exposes the trade being made: endurance is individual. Change is structural.

Applauding the former often delays the latter.

It allows inequity to continue under the banner of resilience. It lets institutions off the hook—because if women are strong enough to survive broken systems, why fix the systems?

Meanwhile, the conditions that demand endurance remain intact.

In 2018, Traister published Good and Mad—a book about women's anger in America. She traced how women's rage at injustice has been policed, pathologized, and dismissed throughout history—and how that rage has also driven every major social change.

The book came out during the #MeToo movement, when women were finally being heard about harassment and assault they'd endured for years.

What Traister insists on is recalibration.

Women do not need more praise for surviving broken systems. They need those systems to stop breaking them.

Recognition without reform is not progress. It is management.

It's a way to contain frustration without addressing causes. It's a way to celebrate individuals without changing institutions. It's a way to maintain power structures while appearing to acknowledge their problems.

Traister has spent her career documenting this pattern across American politics and culture.

In 2020, she covered another presidential election—this time watching Kamala Harris become the first woman vice president. The celebration was real and meaningful.

The question is no longer: How much can women endure?

It's: Why has endurance been demanded in place of change for so long?

Rebecca Traister is now in her late forties. She's covered politics, culture, and women's issues for over 20 years. She's written books that shape national conversations. She's documented patterns that most people miss.

Because endurance is not a solution. It's evidence of a problem.

And until we stop celebrating women for surviving conditions that should never exist, those conditions will continue to exist.

Waiting for the next generation of women to endure them too.

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

Jan 31, 2026 in Virginia

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

ICE and Border Patrol victims:

Keith Porter
Alex Pretti
Renee Good
Silverio Villegas Gonzáles
Heber Sanchaz Domínguez
Victor Manuel Diaz
Parady La
Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz
Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres
Geraldo Lunas Campos

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

On considering systems changes I've posted some of the steps that were taken by intelligent people in the past over on Opening Yesterday's Pages. Today I posted about Eleanor Roosevelt and the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

Maybe the peacemakers - 3

 As of 2025, there have been 20 women who were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The heroines of peace – the 16 women awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize before 2014 (1901-2014)

These are women who received their prizes after the above photo collage.

• Narges Mohammadi (2023)
• Maria Ressa (2021)
• Nadia Murad (2018)

And in 2025 Maria Cordoba Machado of Venezuela won... (see my blog, Maybe the Angry Women - 4)

I plan to give you brief (yes an intention) biographies of these other Laureates. 

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

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

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

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

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

"Please join me and many others in making the six compassionate vows of: environmental sustainability, gender equality, socioeconomic justice, participatory governance, cultural tolerance, and nonviolence and peace."

(Thanks, Robertson Work, for this invitation.)

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

I've clipped a lot of information on Baroness Bertha von Suttner, available on Open Yesterday's Pages. I had no idea she had been instrumental in Peace movements before WW I. See Open Yesterday's Pages for a lot of information (just half of what's available!) As an early peace activist she may have influenced Nobel to make a Peace Prize! 

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

Last week, Bruce Springsteen wrote: “I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.” You can read the lyrics below.

Through the winter’s ice and cold
Down Nicollet Avenue
A city aflame fought fire and ice
‘Neath an occupier’s boots
King Trump’s private army from the DHS
Guns belted to their coats
Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law
Or so their story goes
Against smoke and rubber bullets
By the dawn’s early light
Citizens stood for justice
Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets
Alex Pretti and Renee Good

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

Trump’s federal thugs beat up on
His face and his chest
Then we heard the gunshots
And Alex Pretti lay in the snow, dead
Their claim was self defense, sir
Just don’t believe your eyes
It’s our blood and bones
And these whistles and phones
Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

Now they say they’re here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight

In chants of ICE out now
Our city’s heart and soul persists
Through broken glass and bloody tears
On the streets of Minneapolis

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

-----------

The song as he sang it was included on my post earlier. But sometimes people want to read the lyrics too. 

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

My son in Columbus OH sent me a text while he and his wife were protesting ICE on Saturday afternoon. My son in Tampa FL was a security guard for the Gasparilla Parade that day...in very cold and windy conditions for his Mustang Sallie's Krew on their float, throwing out beads. I posted some snow photos before the day was over of Black Mountain's snow.