I’m a big fan of trees. I love to admire their beauty in all seasons. My admiration for trees started when I was about 16 years old. A caring teacher used a tree as an example of standing tall and confident, quite unlike my cowering, shy self, afraid to bring my gaze up. So I…
Big Ocean Women promote a life culture. We have an opportunity and duty to not only embrace life, but to do all in our power to preserve it. I’ve discovered a satisfying way to do just that. In recent years, I’ve been drawn to know more about my ancestors—not just facts and dates and records,…
Spring beautiful spring! This time of year we are witnessing rebirth, new growth, and fresh energy all around us as the Earth and our lives come out of wintery slumber. It’s a gorgeous season. I’m writing this on the first day of spring. It’s raining and already the ground is responding with bits of beautiful color.…
It were a foolish and ridiculous arrogance to esteem ourselves the most perfect thing in this Universe. —Michel De Montaigne. “In Wildness is the Preservation of the World.” —Henry David Thoreau Yesterday it rained, a soaking rain that saturated the soil, sinking deep into the starving earth, and the air seemed to smell of deep…
The concept of environment is one that has always felt very concrete for me. Until recently, when I heard that word I would think of things like recycling, Earth Day, whales, oceans and paper bags. I respect the environment, but I wouldn’t consider myself an environmentalist. However, when examining this month’s tenet, the idea of…
The journey through existence is always teaching us lessons. If we are observant, we can learn so much just from our personal experiences and those of the people around us. Interesting creatures that we are, people are often inspired by the stories of other people and their struggles and triumphs. Dramatic productions have entertained people…
Eve and I found a tiny bird egg while digging underneath a Blue Spruce this week.She carefully rolled the white egg over in her small grubby hands, tenderly inspecting each minuscule speckle. Then, looking to me for answers, she asked, “Where mommy-daddy bird go?” I could tell she was deeply troubled that the egg was…
April Tenet: “We live and promote a life-culture within the womb, the home, and our ecological environment. As women, we have the wonderful inborn capacity to create and therefore protect human life. We have the instinctive understanding that ALL life is unique and intrinsically valuable. This is our maternal power! Our simple yet refined model…
Our capacity to create and sustain human life is a tremendous power from which society can recognize and then begin to organize around.This framework challenges the current predominant social assumption that the sexed female body is less than fully human and therefore an inferior existence. Those words on the Big Ocean Women website stood out…
It was Barbara’s first child, and no one can tell the story better than she. “The pregnancy was a normal one. I was staying with my parents in New York while my husband, Sherm, was stationed in California in the Marine Corps. I woke up in the middle of the night. My parents took me…