Women's Spaces Radio Show of 3/29/2021 with host Elaine B Holtz on Faith Ross being named Sonoma County Woman of the Year, our first guest Kristin Flyntz reading her "Imagined Letter from COVID-19 to Humans," and our second guest Terri Moon on Emotional Fluency

Faith Ross, founder of the Petaluma Blacks was named by Sen. Bill Dodd as Sonoma County's Woman of the Year. When presenting her the honor he said, "Faith kept a spotlight on the many contributions of African Americans and the challenges they continue to face at a time of great reckoning in our country," Dodd said in the release. "She emerged as a leading voice in our community as we strive for racial equity and social justice. I'm proud to recognize her efforts at this turning point in our history." I am proud to know and have worked with Faith on the Sonoma County Human Rights Committee. She is a dedicated community person/organizer and I agree with all Senator Dodd said about her. Congratulations Faith, you deserve the recognition. The children in our community are in a better world due to your efforts.

Shout Out To: North Bay Organizing Project's "Deep Democracy Civic" team and Sonoma County ACLU for presenting such a great panel providing information on the role the District Attorney has in criminal justice reform, the DA's job description, and tips on what to look for when voting for the district attorney. I know next year this county will be voting for a new district attorney, and getting educated about this vital position is important.

2. Kristin Flyntz joins us from Connecticut to read her Imagined Letter from Covid-19 to Humans. She shares how she came to write the letter last year and how her facebook post of it went viral.

An Imagined Letter from Covid-19 to Humans

Stop. Just stop.
It is no longer a request.
It is a mandate.
We will help you.
We will bring the supersonic, high speed merry-go-round to a halt
We will stop
the planes
the trains
the schools
the malls
the meetings
the frenetic, furied rush of illusions and “obligations” that keep you from hearing
our single and shared beating heart,
the way we breathe together
in unison.
Our obligation is to each other,
As it has always been,
even if— even though—
you have forgotten.
We will interrupt this broadcast,
the endless cacophonous broadcast of divisions and distractions,
to bring you this long-breaking news:
We are not well.
None of us;
all of us are suffering.
Last year, the firestorms that scorched the lungs of the earth
did not give you pause.
Nor the typhoons in Africa,China, Japan.
Nor the fevered climates in Japan and India.
You have not been listening.
It is hard to listen when you are so busy all the time,
hustling to uphold the comforts and conveniences that scaffold your lives.
But the foundation is giving way,
buckling under the weight of your needs and desires.
We will help you.
We will bring the firestorms to your body
We will bring the fever to your body
We will bring the burning, searing, and flooding to your lungs
that you might hear:
We are not well.
Despite what you might think or feel, we are not the enemy.
We are Messenger.
We are Ally. We are a balancing force.
We are asking you:
To stop, to be still, to listen;
To move beyond your individual concerns
and consider the concerns of all;
To be with your ignorance, to find your humility,
to relinquish your thinking minds and travel deep into the mind of the heart;
To look up into the sky, streaked with fewer planes, and see it,
to notice its condition: clear, smoky, smoggy, rainy?
How much do you need it to be healthy so that you may also be healthy?
To look at a tree, and see it, to notice its condition:
how does its health contribute to the health of the sky, to the air you need to be healthy?
To visit a river, and see it, to notice its condition: clear, clean, murky, polluted?
How much do you need it to be healthy so that you may also be healthy?
How does its health contribute to the health of the tree, who contributes to the health of
the sky, so that you may also be healthy?
Many are afraid now. Do not demonize your fear, and also, do not let it rule you.
Instead, let it guide you—
in your stillness, listen for its wisdom.
What might it be telling you about what is at work, at issue, at risk,
beyond the threat of personal inconvenience and illness?
As the health of a tree, a river, the sky tells you about quality of your own health,
what might the quality of your health tell you about the health of the rivers,
the trees, the sky,
and all of us who share this planet with you?
Stop.
Notice if you are resisting.
Notice what you are resisting.
Ask why.
Stop. Just stop.
We will help you, if you listen.
(c) Kristin Flyntz, 2019.

About our Guest: Kristin Flyntz is a writer, editor, and dreamer who lives in northern Connecticut on land that once belonged to the Algonkian peoples, including bands of the Agawam and Tunxis tribes. She is assistant editor of Dark Matter: Women Witnessing, which publishes writing and visual art in response to an age of massive species loss and environmental collapse. It is a home for dreams, visions, and communications with the nonhuman realms—especially those with messages for how humans might restore their relationship to the earth. Currently she is engaged in a grassroots global effort to save up to 1,500 elder oaks from being felled to rebuild Notre Dame cathedral. She and her musician husband live with two feline companions and teachers, Ophelia, and Zoe.

3. Terri Moon talks about the importance of being aware of more feelings of our body then our intellect with its judgments and assumptions. We need the emotional fluency to identify feelings when they arise and to express them. Feelings are our inner GPS guidance system. Terri gives us some examples and advice on getting out of our heads into our body.

About our Guest: Terri Moon is the founder of terrimoon.com, has taught effective and empowering ways of thinking and communicating for 16 years. She has 33 years' experience as a holistic health care practitioner, is an international best-selling author, and an inspirational speaker and workshop facilitator. Terri offers mediations, group communication skills trainings and private compassionate listening sessions to support authentic, artful, and aligned living. Her clients experience meaning and purpose in their work lives, joy & authenticity in their relationships, enoughness in their lives and harmony with each other and nature.

In 1980, the National Women’s History Project (NWHP) was founded in Santa Rosa, California by Molly Murphy MacGregor, Mary Ruthsdotter, Maria Cuevas, Paula Hammett and Bette Morgan to broadcast women’s historical achievements.
The NWHP started by leading a coalition that successfully lobbied Congress to designate March as National Women’s History Month, now celebrated across the land.
Today, the NWHP Now the National Women’s History Alliance is known nationally as the only clearinghouse providing information and training in multicultural women’s history for educators, community organizations, and parents-for anyone wanting to expand their understanding of women contributions to U. S. history.

March 31, 1888 - The National Council of Women of the U.S. is organized by Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Julia Ward Howe, and Sojourner Truth, among others, the oldest non-sectarian women's organization in the U.S.

March 31, 1776 - Abigail Adams writes to her husband John who is helping to frame the Declaration of Independence and cautions, "Remember the ladies..."

March 28, 1886 (1982) - Clara Lemlich, Jewish immigrant from the Ukraine, labor activist, suffragist, and consumer advocate, a leader of the Uprising of 20,000, a labor strike of shirtwaist workers in New York's garment industry in 1909.

The Opening and Closing Theme song is with permission of the Composer and Singer Alix Dobkin:

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