"Out beyond ideas
of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.
I'll meet you there." --
Rumi "If ever
the world sees a time when women shall come together purely
and simply for the benefit of mankind, it will be a power
such as the
world has never known." --Matthew
Arnold, British Poet, 1822-1888
The Lysistrata Project is an educational resources portal dedicated
to peace and the transformation of consciousness
necessary to create it.
Begun in June 2002
in the wake of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and the
retaliatory bombing of Afghanistan, The Lysistrata Project rose
initially as a resource against war. In the widening spiral
of escalation gripping our world, it was recognized that each
act of violence, blamed on the previous one, necessarily
must beget another. "An eye for an eye," said Gandhi,
"leaves the whole world blind."
That truth has deepened
in growing numbers of those in the peace and social justice movements.
The habitual stance of opposing, making "other", feeds
the anger and separation within and between us and limits
the field of what we can conceive as possible. "No problem
can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created
it", said Einstein. We must act.
In what manner, then, shall we act? As Thoreau pointed out,
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to
one who is striking at the root."
Since the events of
2001 our world has experienced a significant leap in consciousness
--of which the election of President Barack Obama is one
reflection. This shift is accelerating. Daily many more of
us are dawning to the realization of our interdependence
and inseparability. There is no "other".
The Lysistrata Project
recognizes that it is our moment-to-moment choosing of Peace that
transforms our world. We hold the vision of a shared reverence
for Peace, for our Earthly home and for all its beings whom we
now recognize as sacred.
We offer grateful thanks to all who contribute to its pages.
"For every
woman who can be named
there are a hundred who speak.
For every hundred who speak
there are a thousand who know.
For every thousand who know
there are ten thousand who do not yet know,
because their truth lies still deeper
than all those who speak and know and can be
named.
And every one us of is needed now." --Sherry
Ruth Anderson
NEW YORK CITY and SAN FRANCISCO--January 26, 2003 (OTVNewswire)--Two
distinct ventures, each inspired by the iconoclastic heroine of
the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata, are taking bold and unique
initiatives to help galvanize the peace movement.
Aristophanes wrote Lysistrata in the third
century BC. The play tells the story of Athenian women who, fed
up with the Peloponnesian War, barricade themselves in the Acropolis
and go on a sex strike to force their husbands to vote for peace
with Sparta. The name of the play's heroine, Lysistrata, means
"releaser of war."
Yes, the forces behind each Lysistrata
Project are women, and though their respective projects were launched
independently of one another, they are spiritually linked - and,
in fact, digitally hyperlinked on their websites.
LysistrataProject.com
The Lysistrata Project (New York City)
is coordinating the first worldwide theatrical event for peace.
On March 3, 2003, actors and other theater professionals are donating
their time and talent to mount live stage readings of Lysistrata.
As of today, more than 150 readings in over 15 countries are planned,
from Argentina to Singapore.
LysistrataProject.com
In the United States alone, just about
every state is represented. Many will have readings in more than
one city; and in several cities, actors plan to hold the event
in more than one venue.
Two New York actresses, Kathryn Blume and
Sharron Bower, hatched the idea for the Lysistrata Project earlier
this month. Blume, who earlier had contemplated writing a screenplay
adaptation of Lysistrata, was inspired to create the project at
New York's Theaters Against War (THAW) in December 2002 as the
Bush war machine against Iraq was accelerating.
Kathryn Blume is a long-time actor and
environmentalist. In addition to appearances Off-Broadway, in
regional theater productions and movies, she has worked for environmental
organizations such as the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and
Forest Watch. She's also taught yoga, acting, Shakespeare, and
public speaking in schools and venues across the country. Blume
toured Macedonia with a Balkan music group, works as a Life Coach,
and is an ordained Minister with the Universal Life Church. She
divides her time between New York City and Vermont, where she
shares a home with her husband and their emotionally needy cat,
Toast.
Sharron Bower attributes her steely resolve
to coordinate the Lysistrata Project to her politically active
mother, adventurous father, and the strong women she's often portrayed
on stage who stood up against injustice. Since moving to New York
almost four years ago from the American South, she's worked in
television, independent film and theatre. She's also a volunteer
camp counselor, and the Resident Casting Director at The Mint
Theater in New York City. Before attending graduate school in
Texas, Bower worked as an editor at an advertising firm, where
she met her husband, graphic designer Mark Greene.
Less than a month after launching the website,
their project has already snowballed into what promises to be
an international cultural event for world peace. As Blume and
Bower eloquently state, "By its very nature, live performance
fosters not only open communication, but compassion: We see ourselves
reflected in a play, and the emerging human truths remind us how
like one another we all are."
New York's Lysistrata Project is a call
to action, actively encouraging both professional and amateur
actors - and the general public -- to join them on March 3, 2003
by producing or attending a reading of Lysistrata locally, in
every part of the world. Contact Kathryn Blume for planning productions
in New York City (Telephone: 802-233-5856) and Sharron Bower for
planning productions elsewhere (Telephone: 917-655-0926).
LysistrataProject.org
Lysistrata Project (San Francisco)
is 3,000 miles away from New York's Lysistrata Project but the
two undertakings share the same ideals, if not the same modus
operandi. This West Coast venture is an amazing Internet resource
combining the collective energy of three powerful, contemporary
social movements: Women, Spirituality and World Peace. It's the
brainchild of Lisa Dollar, a writer, poet, spiritual activist
and schoolteacher.
LysistrataProject.org
Simply put, Lisa looked at the state of
the world following 9-11 and realized she had to do something.
After a nine-month gestation period - many sacred creations seem
to take 9 months, don't they? - she decided "to construct
something, rather than act in opposition." That "something"
would become LysistrataProject.org.
So in the summer of 2002, Dollar went to
school, but this time as a student. She enrolled in a web design
course at a local community college to learn the bits and bytes
of the Internet. Last fall, she set up her website; and almost
immediately it struck a chord that resonated in the hearts and
minds of like-minded souls around the world.
Dollar's Lysistrata Project calls for an
"heroic alliance" among the millions of men and women
who are helping to create a world of "people over profit,
a woman's full worth over controlled reproductive function, partnership
over dominance." The immediate challenge, however, is to
resist America's pending war in Iraq and current assault on our
civil liberties.
Lisa Dollar was born in Nicaragua and moved
to San Francisco at the age of five. She graduated JFK University
and earned her Masters in Education from the University of San
Francisco. In 1984, she spent two months traveling through Africa
and came back "a changed person, after meeting the generous,
giving people of Malawi, Botswana and Tanzania." In 1990,
she went to the testing grounds at Semipalatinsk in the former
Soviet Union as part of a 3-week international anti-nuclear protest.
In 1991, America's Gulf War "built
up a lot of anger" in her, so in 1992, Dollar went to live
in a small town in Costa Rica through World Teach. There she tutored
English, studied Buddhism, Plato -- even the Bible, the latter
"only out of curiosity," she's quick to add. "Like
the Dalai Lama, my religion is kindness."
The Lysistrata Project (San Francisco)
is today both a catalyst for action and a magnet for some of the
most compelling original content on the web. Written by both men
and women, the articles, action alerts and inspirations bridge
interfaith spirituality with social and political activism.
"Lysistrata is an archetype, an emblem
for women to stand up and be counted," Dollar said in explaining
her website's namesake. It reflects "the huge swelling of
women stepping out, speaking up and beginning to take action in
one way or another. From that, women and men will be more in partnership."
You can contact Lisa Dollar at the Lysistrata
Project (San Francisco) via Email.
And Finally, Kudos to
the Playwright
Lest we forget, the writer who first put
pen to papyrus to create the story of Lysistrata was Aristophanes
who, along with Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, is considered
one of the giants of Western theater. Born in the 440s BC, Aristophanes
is the most famous writer of Greek comedies. He lived in Athens
through the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) and died in the 380s
BC. Of the 44 comedies he wrote, eleven survive, including Lysistrata,
from which its protagonist speaks the following lines:
"We need only sit indoors with painted
cheeks, and meet our mates lightly clad in transparent gowns of
Amorgos silk, and perfectly depilated; they will get their tools
up and be wild to lie with us. That will be the time to refuse,
and they will hasten to make peace, I am convinced of that!"
And that, dear friends, is the Heart of
the matter.
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Bobby Heart is a contributing writer
and editor at Oasis TV. Title
illustration is by Barbara Watermann Peters. The bust of Aristophanes
is from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. Photo collage created
by Humberto Robles from various sources.
Morning Meditation
This flame I light symbolizes the fire of love that burns eternally
in the heart of all creation. One and the same is the flame I
tend within myself and the All of whom I am. As this smoke rises
upward, so also my dreams, prayers and aspirations ascend and
disperse, coloring the universe.
As I fill my lungs, breathing deeply, I am filled with Spirit,
from whose breath I was first given life. I am one with the
Source of all being, the Life Force animating all of creation.
Dissolved the veil of division that is my limited human perception,
I radiate my True Essence. I am All and Everywhere.
I am one with the Earth, my terrestrial mother. Having seen your
glistening fertile orb from the vantage point of the Moon, and
experiencing your cosmic movement among the Sun, planets and stars,
I'm filled with love and gratitude for your beauty, wisdom and
stability. I cherish your grasses and trees, your canopy of blue
sky, your clouds that bring nourishing rain, your oceans and mountains,
rainforests and flowers. I abide in your fruitful abundance.
I am one with the animals, the four-footed ones and the winged
ones, those who crawl on their bellies and those who inhabit the
waters. I delight in your multitudes. All you creatures of every
description, you are my brothers and sisters, my teachers, my
allies, and the key that springs open my most tender heart.
I am one with all the tribes of humankind, those in the distant
past, those living now, and those yet to be born. We are seekers
of meaning and its creators. Endowed with the
gift of self-reflection and the power of choice, we hold up for
each other the mirror of the Integral Human, the Integral Society.
In this eternal Now we stand ever on the brink of our own becoming.
I am one with the Beings of Light whose energies suffuse and
surround us, loosening our ego-grasp, enlivening subtle senses
to other realms. One with the numberless Bodhisattvas serving
among us in humble and familiar forms. One with the essence of
master teachers... Jesus, way-shower of the compassionate heart...
Buddha, of the quiet mind... Lao-tsu, of the ineffable way. One
with the serene Presence who embodies and lights up my earthly
self. I am and have my being in this Luminous Awakeness... this
Resplendent Aliveness.
My heart swells with love and gratitude for living this union
of spirit with matter. To this One-Consciousness I offer this
day. Use me. In every moment incline my human mind to the higher
choice. Help me to persevere upon the path that my deepest knowing
would have me travel. Fill my heart with patience and compassion.
Let me recognize sacredness in the face of everyone I encounter.
Speak through me and let me say the words that would touch each
human heart. Into every situation let me bring understanding,
generosity and peace. Let me ever be mindful I am an instrument
in the quickening of our global awakening.
For the benefit of all I particularly remember __________.
I turn inward, to the flame that burns within...
--Lisa Alfaro Dollar
Prayer of Thanksgiving for All This
How good it is to be here, in this moment, One,
this Numinous One,
this One Breath animating all of Creation,
infusing every ripple of space, every cell of every blade of grass.
this Overflowing Radiance of Be-ing
that has no form... This, I Am.
My human heart swells with love and boundlessness and gratitude
at being & expressing this One.
I give thanks for my miraculous body,
home to galaxies of intelligent cells orchestrating,
balancing my every bodily process, just as I–
one cell in the greater body of Earth & the infinite body
of the One–
am co-creating this dance of conscious evolution.
I give thanks for my wondrous heart,
touchstone of the Sacred,
receiver & transmitter of the most tender of feelings,
energetic vortex transmuting gratitude, passion, intention into
form,
vessel of Incandescent Love.
I give thanks for the gift of my life,
this grand adventure in realizing the magnitude & the privilege
of living this union of spirit with matter,
this gift of relishing the feel of my roots
in the gritty-slippery clay of my beloved Earth
all the while that my soul, formless & free as the wind,
is moving in & through & as all that is, seen & unseen.
Every breath I take teems with this Mystery,
The One embodied in me... breathing me... shining through me...
savoring Life as me... exploring... experiencing... expanding
because of me.
Marveling through my eyes at the radiance of Itself in every being.
Holy & Precious is Creation... Holy & Precious am I.
And so it is.
--Lisa Alfaro Dollar
"The motivation underlying our activism for social change
must be transformed from anger and despair to compassion and love.
It is not to deny the legitimacy of noble anger or outrage
at injustice of any kind. Rather, we seek to work for love, rather
than against evil. We need to adopt compassion and love as our
foundational intention, and do whatever inner work is required
to implement this intention. Even if our outward actions remain
the same, there is a major difference in results if our underlying
intention supports love rather than defeating evil."
Will Keepin, Satyana Institute
A Hopi Elder Speaks
"You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh
Hour,
now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour.
And there are things to be considered ...
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader."
Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said,
"This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now
very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the
middle
of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water.
And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally. Least
of all,
ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and
journey comes to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we've been waiting for."
In mid October, after Congress voted the
unelected American President
extensive war powers to inflict the nightmare of modern technology
on
Iraq, a dream taught me that spirits are real. A woman's face
appeared above me, her features perfect, her polished skin the
color
of olive wood, her face serene. You are a "peacemaker,"
she said.
"Yes." I answered, "but I don't know how to do
it. Will you guide
me?" I needed more than the theory and techniques of peacemaking;
I needed hands-on direction.
This month, I have been grieved by the
amount of mail that I have
received that has chronicled arguments between people and
organizations who have fallen into bitter disagreement about one
issue or another though sharing at least one passionate point
of
affiliation on behalf of peacemaking and/or the environment. Reading
these letters, I thought back to the dream and wondered how a
peacemaker might respond?
If we are going to save anything, we must
give up our insistence that
we are the righteous and good ones, must relinquish our reflexive
intention to gain, win, protect or impose our own position and
truth.
We must give up our reflexive defensiveness and its inevitable
hostilities. We cannot continue to favor our own survival, safety
and self-preservation over the survival of all. We cannot. We
must
not. This is the time for constant and repeated self-scrutiny
in order
to see where we are inadvertently contributing to the hostilities,
and
so losing sight of the essential places where we are in agreement
and
are inter-dependent. I am speaking now about our behavior as
individuals as well as our behavior as a nation. Not, "I
want" or
"I believe," but "How do we work this out?"
We will be more
successful when we begin to think consistently and reflexively
in
terms of mutuality, alliance and cooperation.
A respected friend said, "The bottom
line is the earth, the
preservation of the natural world." She could have easily
said, "The
bottom line is peace for everyone and all beings and what contributes
to it." The power of alliance will come to us when we can
agree on
these bottom lines while very honestly recognizing that each of
us
has been given a different but effective vision of how to accomplish
them. This is not the chaos described by the legend of the tower
of
Babel. This is the visionary wisdom of ecological models. In order
for an ecosystem [and a human system] to survive and function
extraordinary diversity is required. Vitality depends on each
diverse
eco-niche combining with all other diverse eco-niches to form
the
single piece of music we might call the natural world.
My colleague, Valerie Wolf, a dreamer in
the Nez Perce tradition has
also dreamed the advent of peacemaking spirits, as have others
we
know. What distinguishes these dreams is that they do not announce
the appearance of a messiah, but offer individuals the role and
responsibility of peacemaking.
Her dreams have led us to study the tradition
of White Buffalo Woman,
who brought the Sacred (Peace) Pipe and its practices to the Sioux.
The Pipe ceremony enjoins us to pray for others, to be at peace
with
all things and within ourselves. The ceremony of the Pipe initiates
one into peaceableness.
The question behind peacemaking is: How
be consistently peaceable
within oneself and with others? As a nation, we have a mistaken
idea
that peace can be achieved through the diplomatic efforts of
intrinsically argumentative, belligerent people. We strategize
peace
without living it. We thrive on debate and conflict. We honor
competition and winners. We define others as losers. Some of these
ways are seemingly innocent but their far-reaching consequences
are
grave.
The cliché regarding American's
fascination with violence obscures
its horrific reality. Violence is imprinted on each of our interactions.
The media is saturated with it. Our economic, political and military
policies systematically undermine all indigenous and wisdom traditions
devastating peacemaking traditions everywhere. Despite our spurious
rationales, we have made our lives, and lives all over the world,
grotesqueries. We are responsible. That a nation, even the United
States, 'legally' declares war or insists on the righteousness
of extreme
'defense' policies does not justify anyone's participation in
such hostilities.
International law, as established in the Nuremberg Trials after
World
War II, asserted the primacy of individual responsibility.
As a child, I was taught that the Messiah
would come when everyone
was ready, that is at peace and living an ethical life. Being
peaceable,
a most difficult spiritual practice and way of life, is more difficult
and
demanding than warfare. Among other qualities, peaceableness accepts
diversity. We need to awaken our hearts to other ways of seeing
and
being.
There is still time to change the trajectory,
but no Messiah will
save us though peacemaking spirits or peacemaking intelligence
will
probably appear to guide whomever volunteers his or her life.
To
have peace, we must have peaceable cultures and hearts first;
to
achieve these is a challenging inner adventure.
Cultures develop from the integrity of
the innumerable lived details
that underlie what is believed, taught, enacted, from the art
created
and the ways all beings are treated. At this time in human history,
each individual's original, daily, on-going contributions and
commitment are critical.
***
As I was about to post this, I focused
again on the heartbreaking
divisiveness in our communities and realized that such behaviors
occur when people are terrified, exhausted and hopeless or when
they
are traumatized. We are all being driven mad by the tension of
the
war mongering, the incitement and exaggeration of terrorism, the
valorization of torture and destruction, the horrific possibility
that
the US might make pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons, the horror
of the erosion and destruction of our democracy, and what all
of this
might mean for each of us, our families and the people and beings
in
the rest of the world. So, in addition to everything we must do,
let
us be very kind to each other and forgiving and understanding
of each
other's fears. Let us awaken our hearts to other ways of seeing
and
being.
If we ground ourselves in the future, rather
than in history,
decidedly imagining a vital future that includes the natural world
and all of us, the task becomes easier. We see the future in our
mind's heart and we take the small next step that will enable
us to
get there together. This is the activity of radical hope.
Peace and Blessings,
Deena Metzger
[An expanded version of "Where
Peace Begins, Local Activists Speak
Out," The Whole Life Times, Issue 248, December 2002.
While the war was still
in progress, I was visited by a sudden feeling
of the cruel and unnecessary character of the contest. It seemed
to me a return to barbarism, the issue having been one which might
easily have been settled without bloodshed.
The question forced itself
upon me, "Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in
these matters, to prevent the waste of that human life of which
they alone bear and know the cost?"
I had never thought of
this before. The august dignity of motherhood
and its terrible responsibilities now appeared to me in a new
aspect,
and I could think of no better way of expressing my sense of these
than that of sending forth an appeal to womanhood throughout the
world, which I then and there composed:
"Arise, then, women
of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
whether your baptism be that of water or of fears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have
great questions decided by irrelevant agencies.
Our husbands shall not
come to us reeking with carnage,
for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be
taken from us to unlearn all
that we have been able to teach them of charity,
mercy, and patience.
We women of one country
will be too tender
of those of another country
to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
From the bosom of the
devastated earth a voice goes up with
our own.
It says, 'Disarm, Disarm!' The sword of murder
is not the balance of justice!
Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken
the plow and the anvil at the
summons of war,
let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great
and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the
dead.
Let them then solemnly
take counsel with each other
as the means whereby the great human family can live in peace.
And each bearing after her own time the sacred impress,
not of Caesar, but of God."
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A
parable for our times
A man approached the gate of an unfamiliar
city. As he reached
the gate a magician standing there said "Wait! You shouldn't
go in
there without a weapon! Demons lurk there!"
The man said "I need
no weapon and have nothing to do with demons."
The magician drew a sword
from the sheath he held; as he drew it
a frightful demon appeared, but the magician was able to kill
it with
the sword.
"Now will you take
a weapon?!?", he said, but the man still refused.
"Are you blind?",
said the magician, "Do you see the sword
I drew killed the demon?"
"Are you blind?"
the man responded, "Do you not see that the sword
you drew created the demon?"
And he walked on into the
city, armed only with the clarity of his mind
and being.
(Adapted
from Leonard Jacobson)
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~~~Pledge
of Allegiance to the Family of Earth~~~
I
pledge allegiance to the Earth,
and to the flora, fauna
and human life that it supports,
one planet, indivisible,
with safe air, water and soil,
economic justice, equal rights
and peace for all.
— Women's
Environment and Development
Organization of the Women's Foreign Policy Council
Who
is Lysistrata?
In
413 B.C., Aristophanes, the most inventive comic dramatist of
ancient Greece, mounted his latest in a series of plays exposing
the folly of war. Its fiery heroine Lysistrata (meaning "releaser
of war") called together not only the women of Athens but
of Sparta, which Athens had long sought to conquer. What she proposed
left the women initially aghast --that they should refuse to have
sex with their husbands and lovers until the men made peace. In
the play, the women are victorious. In reality, the Athenian city-state
continued its warmongering until the unthinkable occurred. 404
B.C. saw the once mighty Athens --weakened from long-running war
and internal strife-- defeated by zealous Spartan rebels.
