Letter From Jean Shinoda Bolen

Jean Shinoda Bolen has been working hard to lay the ground work for a 5th World Conference on Women - and there is now a petition on line for people to support. She will also be part of panel presentations at the CSW -

February 23 (4 -- 6:30 pm) Proposal for a UN 5the World Conference on Women, CCUN, Second floor.
February 25. (noon -- 1:30 pm) Millionth Circle: Empowering Women and Girls, Changing the World, Salvation Army Aud.
February 25. (6 -- 7:30 pm) Feminism and Ecology: Sacred Feminine, Circles, Valuing Girls and Trees. CCUN, Second floor.

I loved Jean's story of the Bamboo - how activism may take a few years, but then flourishes -
"The Chinese Bamboo Metaphor"

Those of us who have a sense of movement in the grassroots, feel the energy grow before the dream materializes. In my advocacy of a UN NGO World Conference on Women and Girls as a means toward gender equity and feminine values, I believe that the Chinese bamboo metaphor fits the situation.

If you sow seeds of this type on fertile ground, you have to be very patient. Nothing happens for years; there are no green shoots or any sign at all for the first, second, third, or fourth year. The fifth year, something green pushes through the soil, and then it grows 40 feet in one year! The reason is simple, for years nothing happens on the surface, but the bamboo is developing prodigious roots until it is ready to manifest in the world. This is what bottom-up grassroots change looks like when a critical mass is reached. Suddenly, there is support, a new attitude, a confluence of effort and energy, and if enlightened leadership also manifests, a major cultural shift can happen.
Activism is an antidote against despair; whatever you do consciously to make a difference is doing something.

It is also an expression of hope, as Vaclav Havel, playwright and first post-Communist Czech president defined it: Hope is an orientation of spirit, an orientation of the heart. It is not the certainty that something will turn out well, but the conviction that something makes sense, no matter how it turns out.

--From my new book (publication date: Earth Day 2011) Like a Tree: How Trees, Women, and Tree People Can Save the Planet.