Grandmothers Counsel the World
Women Elders Offer Their Vision for Our Planet
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
We are thirteen indigenous grandmothers. . . . We are deeply concerned with the unprecedented destruction of our Mother Earth, the atrocities of war, the global scourge of poverty, the prevailing culture of materialism, the epidemics that threaten the health of the Earth’s peoples, and with the destruction of indigenous ways of life.
We, the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, believe that our ancestral ways of prayer, peacemaking, and healing are vitally needed today. . . . We believe that the teachings of our ancestors will light our way through an uncertain future.
In some Native American societies, tribal leaders consulted a council of grandmothers before making any major decisions that would affect the whole community. What if we consulted our wise women elders about the problems facing our global community today? This book presents the insights and guidance of thirteen indigenous grandmothers from five continents, many of whom are living legends among their own peoples. The Grandmothers offer wisdom on such timely issues as nurturing our families; cultivating physical and mental health; and confronting violence, war, and poverty. Also included are the reflections of Western women elders, including Alice Walker, Gloria Steinem, Helena Norberg-Hodge, and Carol Moseley Brown.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In October, 2004, 13 grandmothers from around the world came together in a historic gathering, fulfilling an "ancient prophecy, known by many of the world's indigenous tribes: 'When the Grandmothers from the four directions speak, a new time is coming." This somewhat mystifying book documents that gathering, which also included such celebrities as novelist Alice Walker, feminist Gloria Steinem, former U.S. senator Carol Moseley Braun, and Cherokee Chief Wilma Mankiller, who are here called "women elders," not "grandmothers," despite their equally strong voice in the proceedings. The first half of the book consists of biographies of the "grandmothers" and "women elders," followed by "guidance for our perilous times," with sections on "prophecies," "women's wisdom," "our mother earth," "oppression," "nature's pharmacy," and "prayer." The advice is mostly valid, sometimes extreme, and generally predictable: "the imbalance of male and female energies could cause the destruction of ...the Earth;" "the human race and all of nature is really one great family" that needs to live in peace together. Readers interested in indigenous female viewpoints may be intrigued, but Schafer's writing style is so awkwardly journalistic that she makes even brilliant communicators like Steinem and Walker sound inarticulate.
