Half the Sky

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In Buddhism, satyagraha is the enacting of truth, as the Dalai Lama, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.......and especially the heroic women of our world  so powerfully exemplify.

Robert Thurman, in his foreword to the Dalai Lama's book, My Appeal To The World.

Women Hold Up Half the Sky

Chinese proverb

In the footsteps of our 

mothers and grandmothers,

we walk,

doing the work of nesting, nurturing,

chopping wood, carrying water,

children on our backs,

their future in our eyes and hearts.

There is work to be done,

and the children must be fed,

so we roll up our sleeves.

We do less talking about truth

than living it.

We suffer under oppression

until we grow strong enough to fly,

and then

live free under the limitless sky.

We do the work of the world, unseen,

and largely unappreciated.

In poverty,

we find a way to feed our children.

In wartime and famine,

we bundle our rags and our children

and walk a thousand miles 

seeking refuge.

As grandmothers,

we look at the world 

with wise eyes,

seeing clearly

what it took a lifetime to learn,

that the young are too youthful to hear. 

Enacting truth and loving beauty

is what we offer to our villages,

for the women of the world

hold up half the sky.