A note from Paul Hawken

Ethical MarketsGlobal Citizen, The Power of Yin

We—you who are reading this—support Women’s Earth Alliance not because it goes to the root of the problem, but because it goes to the heart of the solution: women and to women’s culture. As James Hillman wrote, “Nature dies because culture dies.” To address resource shortages WEA is enlivening the greatest and most abundant resource on earth, the spirit of women. Most proffered “solutions” to our problems come from the same thinking that caused them, perfectly expressed in the idea that we can slap a Chinese made solar panel onto the rooftop of our lifestyle and think we are green. What is needed is remembering who we are. To remember ourselves we go to back to our source, to food, water, trees, children, nourishment and women.

All of us have unique ways of seeing the world, of receiving information, and assessing what is happening. Despite those differences, there is a global consensus. People see a broken and wounded earth, a mythic time of destruction and creation, the moral and literal bankruptcy of trusted institutions. The entire political and economic system is in question. The viability of civilization is at stake here. We are seeking terra firma, our ground of being, how to redefine our culture, to reimagine what a civilization should be. This involves environmental justice, food security, human rights, climate change, water, population, women’s health, literacy, fisheries, biodiversity, forest cover, and so much more.

The dangerous and precarious crises we see and know are not imposed upon us; they are our own creation. We precipitated the chaotic world that surrounds us. And we can heal this. To do so we must turn to what is true, timeless, and constant. Those constants are embodied in what we take for granted: women. Not women as a gender or noun, but what women eternally represent, what they hold within their being and express with devotion, the capacity to hold life within and to nurture it without. It is tragically absent in our institutions, companies, and governing systems.

What WEA is doing is phenomenal and personal at the same time. It is one woman at a time. One becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes eight and millions. All great things start small. WEA is no longer small, but it is great and needs us in every way. In the same way that birth of all beings starts as an invisible cell, the path forward arises in the small organizations who need exactly what any living being requires: love and nourishment. Please love WEA and support their work this year.

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Paul Hawken
WEA International Advisor