Anti-war poem shared with Women Against War by Oriethyia.

Oriethyia is a poet, healer and radical feminist. She has offered to share her poem with Women Against War as an inspiration and also for use as a fundraiser if we wish. At the moment, Mabel Leon is working on some note cards that will combine Oriethyia’s poem, written on the eve of “Shock and Awe” in 2003 with appropriate images. We hope to sell them at the Annual Dinner during the silent auction on the evening of Wednesday, November 19th. But right now her poem serves as a reflection and a call to action to try and stop the re-victimization of the people of Iraq.

Yazidi refugees in Iraq in 2014

A Call To Women of Spirit All over the World

Enough!

I call on Women of Spirit in every part of the world:

Too often it is the women of the world who watch their loved ones die in bombings and massacres and combat, high-tech, low tech, or no tech.

Too often it is the women who are in the line of fire, the line of retreat, or the path of the victors.

Enough!

For centuries, women of spirit have been divided by rules and views and politics that declare one method of prayer acceptable and others damnable.

Enough!

Today I call on every Woman of Spirit, however you define yourself, however you pray, however you chant, however you connect to the Divine:

I Pray You, Do This: Connect to the Divine.

Do it for minutes. Do it for hours. Do it alone in a room or a shelter or a cathedral or on a mountain top. Do it in pairs, in thousands, in multitudes.

Connect to the Divine, however you define Divinity.

And Pray for peace.

Or Chant for peace.

Or Dance for peace.

Or Stand for peace.

Or Sit for peace.

Pray for peace in silence. Pray for peace aloud. Gather in boardrooms, bathrooms, basilicas. Pray for Peace with your body in any way it can move. Or dance for peace in utter stillness letting only your lungs breathe and your heart beat.

Pick a time, any time. And pick an interval ï¿½ a minute, an hour, a day.

And pray for peace at that time for that interval.

Every day.

Until this war is ended.

Until War is ended.

Until the wars against women
And all that are born to women
and all that love women
and all that are loved by women
Are ended.

Pick a time. Pick a place. In droves or alone. Aloud or in Silence. For years or centuries or this heartbeat to the next.

Until there is peace.

Until there is compassion.

Until we learn what all our prayers teach us.

Until

It is

Enough.