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Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.
is a
psychiatrist, Jungian analyst in private practice, Clinical Professor of
Psychiatry, University of California Medical Center, and an
internationally known lecturer. She is the author of;
Goddesses in Older Women,
The Millionth Circle,
The Tao of Psychology,
Goddesses in Everywoman,
Gods in Everyman,
Ring of Power, Crossing to Avalon, and Close to the Bone, and
More...
You may know me as an author, a Jungian
analyst, or an activist.
Since the publication of Urgent Message
From Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World, I’ve been a Message
carrier. It has led to the formation of 5WWC.org to spur a 5th women’s
world conference in 2010. Over forty of us will be at the United Nations
when the Commission on the Status of Women meets to inspire and lobby
for this. My earlier book The Millionth Circle was the seed idea for
millionthcircle.org: when a critical number of women’s circles form, a
tipping is reached and peace becomes possible.
"The journey of spiritual
beings on a human path holds major questions that have to do with the
big picture at each major transition fork in the road.
What did I come to
do? What is my purpose? What did I come to learn? Who did I come to
love?
From a psychological viewpoint, those questions can only be answered
from deep within."
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No matter what the cause, every time death comes to others, whether
gently or like a Tsunami and we are spared, there is an inner felt
affirmation that “I am still here.” Even in grief and mourning or guilt
that “it should have been me,” there is this reality, “I am still here.”
The challenge is to find or have the sense that there is meaning and
purpose to being alive. If we are - as I believe - spiritual beings on a
human path, it means that there is still more for us to experience, to
do, to learn, or to love if we are still here.
Implicitly believed is that each of us has a soul. This
means that something immortal has become embodied in each of us for a
relatively short time. Each of us arrives as a vulnerable, dependent
infant into the world, which is imperfect, dysfunctional, sometimes even
terrifying. Encountering disappointment, betrayal, abandonment,
limitation, is to be expected: suffering of one sort or another comes
with life. Power to inflict pain on another or take advantage of another
comes our way as well.
The Human Experience
While this is so, the human experience offers
opportunities to love and be loved, to feel awe and be moved by beauty,
to make mistakes, to choose how we respond to what happens to us, to
grow in compassion and wisdom, and to contribute by who we become to the
sum of human potential.
The magnus opus each of us has is the life we have. Like
a canvas, a manuscript, or music being improvised, while we are still
here, the work is not yet finished. To be human is to intuitively know
or to live with the possibility that we have some significance in a vast
visible and invisible universe. Living from this premise, I believe that
what we do here does matter and that someday, we will know.
WHY I PERSEVERE IN ADVOCATING
A UNITED NATIONS 5TH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN
By Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace
Prize recipient and Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of
South Africa, wrote: “Jean Shinoda Bolen’s
Urgent Message from Mother is a book whose time has come.
Our earth home and all forms of life in it are at grave risk. We men
have had our turn and made a proper mess of things. We need women to save
us. I pray that many will read Bolen’s work and be inspired then to act
appropriately. Time is running out.”
Women who stand together for justice and
peace are a moral force. The United Nations now has moral authority
greater than any government or institution. This is an alliance that may
save us, especially with America’s support. This is a time
to be an advocate for a 5th United Nations World Conference on Women,
which would be the most influential and far-reaching women’s conference
ever held. If the decision to hold it were made in 2009, it could take
place in 2012, and be the first with widespread use of the internet and
other 21st century technologies. In the three years it takes to plan,
there would be local, national and regional meetings. Interest would grow
in the conference and the possibility of going or being represented could
be generated in all of the 192 countries of the UN.
Whenever possible meet in circles:
Circles are an egalitarian form that helps people know each other, and
fosters trust and authenticity especially when the circle has spiritual
values such as compassion and wisdom, or moments of silence for prayer or
reflection. Each circle is also an archetype that contributes to
collective consciousness and morphic field. When a critical number of
people change an attitude or perception, what was resisted becomes normal.
This is how consciousness-raising groups became the women’s movement and
brought personal, political and economic changes for American women in the
1970s. The tipping point is the metaphoric “millionth circle,” the one
which added to all the rest, balances masculine and feminine, circle and
hierarchy.
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