March 22, 2025
Today I founded, or maybe co-founded, a new organization, or movement, or loose confabulation of fabulous women and a few men, who will create mischief, mayhem and miracles in support of a true lasting peace and ecological harmony in the world.
It started ten years ago, or was it 20, when I had a feeling of just gathering the amazing people I love from many lands – from Madagascar (ok, no I don’t know anyone from Madagascar), Hayward, Holland (I hope to forgive them for bringing Shell into the world), Finland, France, Indonesia, Zambia and more. I felt it so strong last night, our convening together of fierce feminine spirits, calling out wrongdoing, speaking up for their voices, their friends' voices, calling for tending to our collective well-being.
She’s called the grassroots – the roots literally of peace – in our united spirit of nations. It’s a spirit of kinship among us; an earlier generation would have called it brotherhood. A sense of protection enveloping all of us – not military protection but strength in numbers and spirit.
Why not here? The United Nations was founded here many moons ago, well, exactly 80 years ago. Melanie, a Kafenia friend, revealed a secret participant in the United Nations Charter agreement – the Redwoods. They were apparently having trouble reaching consensus so they went to the woods to see if they could agree. And that’s where the official United Nations was born, in Muir Woods, along with a parallel, more hidden united nations of peoples. Just like the roots of the redwood trees weave together to help “redwood groves” withstand rains and wind, so do we weave together. The redwood has no predators, except humans and climate change.
A new friend of mine from grad school said she found the study of war far more interesting than the study of peace. It seemed kind of wimpy, weak. But there is nothing more powerful than the peace of a redwood grove, or a group of kids playing in the park, or swimmers traversing the channel. Peace is in our markets, it’s in our dreams, it’s in our bedrooms, it’s in our work.
I realized this morning, in the middle of yoga, that the people far outnumber our leaders. There are perhaps 500 people, or perhaps 5000 who have the major say over what happens here - whom we attack and kill, what laws we have and don’t have. This is so few relative to the 340,000,000 who live here, it’s .000001 %. So if our leaders across the world are not protecting us, caring for us, hearing us, looking out for us, perhaps we can look out for ourselves. Not in a defensive sort of way, but in a defiant sort of way – sort of taking a hippocratic oath with each other t2o do our best to do no harm.
And have a great time in the process! Music, dance, poetry, freedom, fun – what an amazing panoply of souls we have across the world. What is possible when we unleash our creative energies for good?
And it starts today, with our newly inaugurated, grassroots “you”nited nations. So be it.