September 24th 2009

"There is no greater agony, then bearing an untold story inside of you."

Maya Angelou

I first need to express my deepest gratitude to my friend, producer and traveling companion Beth Black for her beautiful gift of communicating her feelings and observations through out this journey with her words on this blog. At times I find it incredibly difficult to convey my thoughts and emotions the next day after speaking and I am so grateful for her strength and courage to tell it like she sees it!


Change is calling. This is what I have been experiencing during our time in Taos and what I have witnessed over and over again on this trip. Individuals and groups standing up to express the need for change in the ways we treat each other. Yesterday was an amazing tapestry of how this change can take place. Starting the day with on air interview at KTAO Radio listening to Lani and Steve from MEN (Men Engaged in Non-Violence) share their stories on a day when it was announced that New Mexico ranks 7th out of the top ten states for women murdered by men in 2007, with ten times as many women murdered by men they knew. (We were told later that day they New Mexico used to rank 3rd or 4th so there is change happening.)

Later in the morning watching Lani speak intimately and honestly to a class of new or expectant mothers at Taos High School about respect and the responsibility each of them has to love, support and protect their children, and to teach them to be kind and compassionate human beings. And the dawning recognition that each of these young women had about how important it was to talk to the baby’s father, to understand his family history as well as her own, and to stand tall in their own struggle for respect in a culture that does not necessarily encourage it. Each of the girls acknowledged the jealousy that they deflect from their boyfriends, as Lani gently shared from her own life examples where that jealousy can lead if not confronted early on. For each of these girls that in itself was a first step toward change.

In the afternoon witnessing a conversation between Lani and Dora McQuaid, herself a survivor, who in 2003 was awarded the Fifth Annual Pennsylvania Governor's Victim Service Pathfinder Award, and was recognized by the Pennsylvania Senate for her use of original poetry, performance and public speaking as activism and advocacy on behalf of survivors of domestic and sexual violence, and for her commitment to community development of these programs throughout the state. She has since moved to Taos and I was very grateful to experience the heartfelt sharing that took place between two women who had survived more tragedy and trauma than I could possibly imagine and yet sat there asking, even as they shed tears and managed to laugh as well, what else they could do to help others not have these same experiences.

And then the finale to this one amazing day, a gathering of two groups in Taos that work with people young and old to continue the quest for a non-violent state in a non-violent country in a non-violent world. I met Crispin, the head of MEN, who came to this work on the tail of a nine-month walk across the United States in 2000 for Peace. He read us the amazing email that he had sent to Lani in August (scroll down the blog to read it for yourself) in his passionate, soft-spoken way, and affected us all more than we could even have imagined. And Denise from Girl Time and the Taos Young Mothers Program, who is tenderly supporting young women in whatever ways she can, women and girls who are at the precipice of adulthood, confused, sometimes desperate, raising children while still in childhood themselves. And teaching them through example the compassion and kindness that they themselves will hopefully pass on to their children.

There were wonderful people in that room who all shed tears last night, who found themselves in Lani’s stories, and gathered around, at the end of the evening, one young woman who was completely overwhelmed by the truth that she could actually break out of the violence in which she was living, and found willing and compassionate women and men last night to advise her and help her to do just that.

I was also struck by one young man in the room, a survivor of terrible violence as a youngster, who I conversed with for several minutes, grateful for his gentle sensitivity and his desire to possibly mentor other young men. Had I not been told later of his background I never would have known the struggle that he came from and that in itself was perhaps the greatest lesson for me yesterday. I am beginning to believe that domestic and sexual violence is the least spoken about, biggest problem out there.



And the need for conversation is so great … be it on a large scale or simply person to person. We all have stories to share and a willing ear, a willing heart of someone to listen to it is with out a doubt the greatest gift we can give each other. It simply amazes me how much time we will spend, myself included, listening to heartbreaking stories on television and in the movies, and how little time we actually spend listening to those that we really can help. Help if only by letting them speak their secrets and their shame and their pain. How great a gift it is to simply hold someone in their pain and let them know that they are ok.

We head off next to Oklahoma City to visit the memorial there to the bombing that took place in 1985. I have to admit I have never quite understood the need to build memorials to tragedy and so I went online to research it. And again, my preconceptions were completely altered as I read the intention for the memorial and what has come out of that horrible loss of life. A large part of this on-going remembrance is dedicated to Called2Change, a program about respect and responsibility, designed for middle school students, but adaptable for grades 5-12. Called2Change reaches students at a critical point in their lives, when peer pressure, growing responsibility, and the need to belong are at their peak.

Schools that have implemented this powerful program have seen marked improvement in their school environments, including dramatic decreases in office referrals and fewer physical disagreements among students.
Called2Change strives to help students...
• Understand that every life has meaning and importance.
• Communicate that there is far more good than evil in the world.
• Realize how an individual act can contribute to violence.
• Identify ways that individuals can contribute to serving others.
The curriculum includes 8 principles that the children are taught, through personal stories and exhibits, that can stand alone for all of us as a guide to a better world:
• All people are valuable. No person has more value than someone else.
• No one is perfect. We all make mistakes.
• In some ways, we’re just like everyone else. We can share the same feelings.
• In some ways, we are different from everyone else. Each of us has a unique personality and appearance.
• All people — no matter who they are, where they come from, what they believe, how they act, or what they look like — deserve respect and compassion.
• Each of us is responsible for our actions.
• To be happy and secure, we need other people in our lives.
• We should treat other people the way we want others to treat us.
I know that I have always believed and trusted in these principles, and yet, all of these experiences, faces ad stories along the road, have encouraged me to step into my own work on this planet with greater commitment and intention, to show up more as a budding elder (after almost 52 years of wonderous life) and become even more the change that I wish to see in my life and in the lives of all around me.
And I am so thankful for each and every one of you who walk this path with me, whether in sorrow or joy, pain or serenity. We are all in this together, in more and more ways I discover each and every day.