I opened up the window this morning and took a handful of morning dew and placed my face in my hands. Much more than wanting to retain any beauty, it meant a rebirth. An entrance into warmth, light, and certainty.

‘Traditions are not free from gender issues. All our traditions from virginity to the supra are beneficial for men, and most are unfair for women.’ - Mariam Gagoshashvili

Interview with feminist art studio founder Mariam Gagoshashvili in Tbilisihttp://www.georgiatoday.ge/article_details.php?id=7036

"Speaking for me when I did not ask you to actually takes my voice away. It is oppression just the same when a feminists does it as when, for example, a man speaks for a woman without her consent. " - Fatemeh Fakhraie

The Dos and Don'ts of Defending Muslim Womenhttp://www.altmuslimah.com/a/b/a/3171/

I don't know if Man has a Soul, but if he does, then it follows in the wake of his Ship, like an albatross or frigate bird. I do not believe that he carries it within him like a shadowy shape of himself inside himself, and that is the reason his Soul is nowhere to be found at death, for it does not keep its residence in a man's body, but in his purpose. As I go forward my Soul comes after me to see what it is that I do, for there is a curiosity there, like that of a seabird, that ploughs the wake of a ship and then flies away no man knows where.

Early Indian tribes referred to the Red River by the pronoun the "he." They said that "he" is sluggish and apathetic but given to fits of periodic rage.

For three months, representatives from Gender Media Caucasus attentively read and analyzed two Georgian papers – ‘ Svobodnaia Gruzia’ and ‘Alia’. They published their findings in Women’s Opinion in Mass Media: Monitoring of national newspapers in countries of South Caucasus and Central Asia. Below is an excerpt from the section on Georgia -- “Publisher Orders the Music – Ladies Either Dance or Leave the Stage”. * * *

‘Alia’ also interviews - and why not? – female parliamentarians. One of these interviews have been taken from Maggie Gotsiridze, a deputy of the parliament.An excerpt from the interview:

‘Alia’: A number of time I notived, that at parliamentary sessions you are chewing gum

M.G.: Yes, I do! I don’t’ consider it in bad tone, but I’m sorry, I will do not do it again!

‘Alia’: You can even blow bubbles, can’t you?

M.G.: I can’t blow bubbles.

‘Alia’: How many kilograms do you weigh?

M.G.: 100

‘Alia’: Do you watch porn flicks with your husband?

M.G.: {half audibly} yes

‘Alia’: Have you confessed to this sin?

M.G.: No

‘Alia’: Do you ever confess to a priest?

M.G.: No. I believe in God, go to church, but I don’t confess to a priest.

‘Alia’: Say, if one of the male-deputies embraces you and in the evening you husband sees that on TV, will there be a scandal in the family?

M.G.: Let him hug me and tell me a complement, my husband I not jealous, so there will be no problem. But nobody notices me in the parliament

Things are always want they seem. People aren't either, even the ones you have known for years.

By Patrick Phillips

Touched by your goodness, I am like

that grand piano we found one night on Willough

by that someone had smashed and somehow

heaved through an open window.

And you might think by this I mean I'm broke

nor abandoned, or unloved. Truth is,

I don't know exactly what I am, any more

than the wreckage in the alley knows

it's a piano, filling with trash and yellow leaves.

Maybe I'm all that's left of what I was.

But touching me, I know, you are the good

breeze blowing across its rusted strings.

What would you call that feeling when the wood,

even with its cracked harp, starts to sing?

By Garrison Keillor

Sep. 10, 2008

So the Republicans have decided to run against themselves. The bums have tiptoed out the back door and circled around to the front and started yelling, "Throw the bums out!" They've been running Washington like a well-oiled machine to the point of inviting lobbyists into the back rooms to write the legislation, and now they are anti-establishment reformers dedicated to delivering us from themselves. And Mayor Giuliani is an advocate for small-town America. Bravo.

They are coming out for Small Efficient Government the very week that the feds are taking over Fannie and Freddie, those old cash cows, and in the course of a weekend 20 or 50 (or pick a number) billion go floating out the Treasury door. Hello? Do you see us out here? We are not fruit flies, we are voters, we can read and write, we didn't just fall off the coal truck.

It is a bold move on the Republicans' part -- forget about the past, it's only history, so write a new narrat ive and be who you want to be -- and if they succeed, I think I might declare myself a 24-year-old virgin named Lance and see what that might lead to. Paste a new face on my Facebook page, maybe become the Dauphin Louie the Thirty- Second, the rightful heir to the Throne of France, put on silk tights and pantaloons and a plumed hat and go on the sawdust circuit and sell souvenir hankies imprinted with the royal fleur-de-lis. They will cure neuralgia and gout and restore marital vigor.

Mr. McCain has decided to run as a former POW and a maverick, a maverick's maverick, rather than Mr. Bush's best friend, and that's understandable, but how can he not address the $3 trillion that got burned up in Iraq so far? It's real money, it could've paid for a lot of windmills, a high-speed rail line in Ohio, some serious R&D. The Chinese, who have avoided foreign wars for 50 years, are taking enormous leaps forward, investing in their economy, and we are falling behind. We're wasting our chances.

And the Republican culture of corruption in Washington hasn't helped. And a former mayor of a town of 7,000 who hired a lobbyist to get $26 million in federal earmarks is now running against the old-boy network in Washington who gave her that money to build the teen rec center and other good thing s so she could keep taxes low in Wasilla. Stunning. And if you question her qualifications to be the leader of the free world, you are an elitist. This is a beautiful maneuver.

I wish I had thought of it back in school when I was forced to subject myself to a final exam in higher algebra. I could have told Miss Mortenson, "I am a Christian and when you gave me a D, you only showed your contempt for the Lord and for the godly hardworking people from whom I have sprung, you elitist battle ax you." In school, you couldn't get away with that garbage because the taxpayers know that if we don't uphold scholastic standards, we will wind up driving on badly designed bridges and go in for a tonsillectomy and come out missing our left lung, so we flunk the losers lest they gain power and hurt us, but in politics we bring forth phonies and love them to death.

I must say, it was fun having the Republicans in St. Paul and to see it all up close and firsthand. Security was, as one might expect, thin-lipped and gimlet-eyed, but once you got through it, you found the folks you went to high school with -- farm kids, jocks, the townies who ran the student council, the cheerleaders, some of the bullies -- and they are as cohesive now as they were back then, dedicated to school spirit, intolerant of outsiders, able to jump up and down and holler for something they don't actually believe.

But oh Lord, what they brought forth this year. When you check the actuarial tables on a 72-year-old guy who's had three bouts with cancer, you guess you may be looking at the first woman president, a hustling Evangelical with ethics issues and a chip on her shoulder who, not counting Canada, has set foot outside the country once -- a trip to Germany, Iraq and Kuwait in 2007 to visit Alaskans in the armed service. And who listed a refueling stop in Ireland as a fourth country visited. She's like the Current Occupant but with big hair.

If you want inexperience, there were better choices.

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."* If you grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, you're a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack, you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.* If you name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

* If you graduate from Harvard law School, you are unstable.

* If you attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system, while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

i'm back in georgia and will be working with JSI doing a lot of the same work i was doing before the conflict. i will return to kutaisi next week and get back to work.

thanks for all your notes of concern and please keep in touch. daniel and i will be going to minnesota over the new year and hopefully will get to see a good bit of you.

x

Who we are? We are a group of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers are bringing their experiences in Georgia back home to raise funds for Georgians affected by the recent conflict with Russia. Throughout our time as Peace Corps volunteers, we developed strong relationships with the Georgian people and the country. We want to give back.

What we are doing? In response, Returned Peace Corps Georgia Volunteers are initiating a fundraising campaign – The Megobari Project – throughout the United States, Israel and the United Kingdom. Four Georgian nongovernmental organizations have been chosen as recipients of these funds – Charity Humanitarian Center “Abkhazeti” (CHCA), Abkhazintercont (AIC), The Gori Education Fund, and the Information Education Center Kartli XXI. These organizations serve different communities in Georgia.

Why are we doing this? Since August 8, 2008, Russia has launched attacks on Georgia, damaging both military and civilian areas throughout the country. In Tbilisi alone, 278 more collective centers have opened to house 28,000 internally-displaced persons (IDPs). Overall, Georgia has seen an increase of 150,000 IDPs on the already 220,000 from previous conflicts.

Where will donated money go? Donations to The Megobari Project partners will be used to purchase beds, mattresses, hygienic kits, and university materials for identified organizations. Much of the funds will go to collective centers where living conditions are less than ideal. For instance, 200 IDPs are residing in an Auto Technical School building in Kutaisi, the second city of Georgia, without a single bed. As cold weather approaches, poorly insulated building and thin tents will not provide adequate shelter. No donations will go to overhead costs.

How can you make a donation? To make a donation, please go to The Megobari Project's website at www.themegobariproject.blogspot.com for more information, including wire transfer information.

After they decreed the end of lovemaking, we thought only of sleeping.

Under our covers, each as a separate masthead at sea, we practiced dreaming.

For it was the source of our only comfort, our only ties with emotions hazy as deceased uncles.

Now we dreamed desperately.

Those who couldn't remember their dreams became insurance risks, showing up frequently in the papers as suicides or crime statistics.

We were advised to look for mates that appeared to be affluent dreamers: heavy eyelids, an avid indifference to appearance, lights out early, very early in bedroom windows.

You may be surprised we took mates at all, but we still grew lonely and wanted something to touch,even if it vanished when we opened our eyes.

Those who excelled at dreaming were chosen to represent us.

The forty hour week was replaced by the forty hour sleep.

It was through our "sleep experience" that we earned advancement at work.

New television series featured dream phantoms to replace late night horrow shows, falling dreams instead of daily soap operas, and flying dreams for children.

Who succumbed to the old feeling of helplessness when paraphernalia for heroism was stored in every brain?

Soon even our buildings were designed to resemble pillow and our young ones judged intelligent not by how soon they spoke the hackneyed "Mama" but by how accomplished they were at sleeping.

Intelligence tests were given to test what they could sleep through and our prodigies withstood avanlanches as easily as cracking of porcelain thimbles.

As with all major changes in civilization, the historians were at first puzzled.

Many had retired to rest homes where they dreamed the rebuilding of the Roman Empire, the finding of a lost continent, the absence of Hitler.

We had lost all sense of nationalism and all instinct for aggression.

One man, one pillow became the slogan and even the most impoverished seemed satisfied.

Some even awoke even part of the day suspected that the government had foreseen the outcome.

Certain extremists refused to dream, claiming their unconscious was a tool in a scheme more diabolical than Manifest Destiny.

But from the solid white buillding that stood as impalpable as a dream image of a building, we heard no denial of the charges, just the assured snoring of men in serious pajamas.

I was recently told that if I don't wear socks, I won't be healthy enough to get married and have children. On this bright and shining day, I stopped to consider the consequences that until now, I had never taken into account. I simply said "I guess" with a smile and walked away.

As I ran my errands in the market, I was running as fast as I could through the different scenarios in my head. There it was on a silver platter -- a moment where I could have summoned my feminist demons (or angels) and brought a revelation to this woman. Maybe I would have said, in a very resounding voice, "But there is more to life than babies. There is more to life than marriage." Maybe I would have spoken of travels and careers, and independence and living alone. But alas, "I guess" was the only wisdom I could conjure.

What happens if a woman doesn’t want to have children? What if a woman can’t have children? What if a woman doesn’t meet someone to have kids with?

It makes you look at the world differently. I know plenty of women here who I hold on a pedestal, I stand in awe of their competency and accomplishments. They start organizations, networks, women's groups, flourishing projects -- they work all day and go to classes in the evenings -- they have families and husbands and dear friends. But as I eat my lunch in the park, I see many who don't get the chance. How do some survive and other's don't?

For me to be a feminist, it's easy. I grew up in a culture of opportunity -- if you work hard, you will see results. I had a supportive family, driven friends, and the accessibility to every resource. I could have been a doctor, a lawyer, an politician, a professional volleyball player. (note: I'm a Peace Corps volunteer). I respect the way that has been made by the many women who fought before me. However -- there is still a long way to go in America. Women are still paid 77 cents to a man's dollar. Women are still victims of gender-based violence. 3 out of 4 women will experience some extent of sexual assault in her life. A woman's reproductive health rights are constantly being challenged at all levels. Our work is not finished.

However, it is inspiring to see feminists here in Georgia. It is inspiring to see woman fighting for other woman, fighting for the opportunities that they know they deserve. These women take risks within their own cultures and they are the true feminists.

Last Saturday we organized Celebrating Healthy Women, an International Women's Day event, that brought women’s organizations, medical professionals and individuals together to learn about issues important to women in Zugdidi and throughout Georgia. The event focused on issues of healthy living, ranging from relationships to reproductive health. In addition, Celebrating Healthy Women offered a free breast self exam training to attendees, a crucial method of early detection of breast cancer.

CHW took place on Saturday, March 15 in the auditorium of School #1, Aghmashenebeli Street, Zugdidi, Georgia - on the Abkhazian border.

I will be uploading photos over the weekend for the event and they will be posted on my website at www.picasaweb.google.com/joholtan.

Mary Todadze, my counterpart from Fund Orthos, and I at the Orthos booth.

Every season is likeable, and wet days and fine, red wine and white, company and solitude. Even sleep, that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life, can be full of dreams; and the most common actions—a walk, a talk, solitude in one’s own orchard—can be enhanced and lit up by the association of the mind. Beauty is everywhere, and beauty is only two finger’s-breadth from goodness. So, in the name of health and sanity, let us not dwell on the end of the journey.

Virginia Woolf

The Common Reader “Montaigne”-Ch. 6

I recently packed up my life (for the 12th time since departing Juniata in 2004) said my goodbyes to my host family and moved into an apartment in the center of Kutaisi. It's a three-room flat with wonderful balcony right on the "high street" of Kutaisi. In the mornings, I make my coffee too strong, head out to the balcony and watch the world wake up. It's amazing how we adapt to our situations, and from my past record, I only realize in hindsight how limited (and unhappy I dare say) I was with certain situations. Hopefully this will allow me to make Kutaisi and my experience in Georgia more my own.

I joke with others that I crave a wall to put my artwork on, and for the time being I have found that. This flat will also be a wonderful kingdom for a cat -- so I continue to search the streets of Kutaisi!

x

this a bit late but wanted to post some photos from my birthday supra and my trip to istanbul my birthday. it was refreshing to go to an art museum and walk the streets of a city again amidst great restaurants, shops and much style.

istanbul

sunset from our room

daniel and i at the blue mosque

my birthday supra

INTRODUCTION: WORRIED ABOUT SECURITY

Excerpted from INSECURE AT LAST: Losing It in Our Security-Obsessed World by Eve Ensler.

Security watch. Security clearance. Why has all this focus on security made me feel so much more insecure? What does anyone mean when they speak of security? Why are we suddenly a nation and a people who strive for security above all else?

In fact, security is essentially elusive, impossible. We all die. We all get sick. We all get old. People leave us. People surprise us. People change us. Nothing is secure. And this is the good news. But only if you are not seeking security as the point of your life.

When security is paramount you can’t travel very far or venture too far outside a certain circle. You can’t allow too many conflicting ideas into your mind at one time, as they might confuse you or challenge you. You can’t open yourself to new experiences, new people, and new ways of doing things. They might take you off course.

You can’t not know who you are; it’s more secure to cling to hard-matter identity. So you become a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew, you are an Indian, or an Egyptian or an Italian or an American. You are heterosexual or homosexual or you never have sex or at least that’s what you say when you identify yourself. You become part of an US, and in order to be secure, you must defend against THEM. You cling to your land because it is your secure place, and you must fight anyone who encroaches on it.

You become your nation, you become your religion. You become whatever it is that will freeze you, numb you, and protect you from change or doubt. But all this does is shut down your mind. In reality, you are not a drop safer. A meteor could still fall from the sky, a tsunami could rise up next to your beach house, someone could fly a plane through your building.

All this striving for security has in fact made you much more insecure. Because now you have to watch out all the time. There are people not like you, people you now call enemies. You have places you cannot go, thoughts you cannot think, worlds you can no longer inhabit. So you spend your days fighting things off, defending your territory, and becoming more entrenched in your narrow thinking. Your days become devoted to protecting yourself. This becomes your mission. This is all you do. You collect canned goods or bottles of water. You ?nd ways to get as much money as you can, and food and oil, in spite of how much you have to take from other people or the methods you have to devise in order to take it. You submit to security systems to check your pockets and IDs and bags. Every object becomes a potential weapon. One week it’s tweezers, the next week it’s rubber bands.

Of course you can no longer feel what another person feels because that might shatter your heart, contradict your stereotype, destroy the whole structure. Ideas get shorter—they become sound bites. There are evildoers and saviors. Criminals and victims. There are those who, if they are not with us, are against us.

It gets easier to hurt people because you do not feel what’s inside them. It gets easier to lock them up, force them to be naked, humiliate them, occupy them, invade them, kill them—because they do not exist. They are merely obstacles to your security.

How did we, as Americans, come to be completely obsessed with our individual security and comfort above all else? What do we think we mean when we talk about security, and what do we really mean? Whose security are we talking about? Is it possible to live surrendering to the reality of insecurity, embracing it, allowing it to open us and transform us and be our teacher? What would we need in order to stop panicking, clinging, consuming, and start opening, giving— becoming more ourselves the less secure we realize we actually are? How has the so-called war on terrorism given rise to this mad national obsession for homeland security, which has actually made us much more insecure at home and in the world?

In this book, I have gone back to chart the events that have personally and politically led me to ask these questions. I grew up in a middle-class family and neighborhood in the United States. I had plenty of food, clothes. I had my teeth straightened. I took ballet classes. We went on vacations. I had a good education.

This security did not come for free. It was my father’s money and he created reality. From early on, my emotional and psychological well-being were sacrificed for this economic security. My father was a raging alcoholic. His anger permeated and infected my world. His fists, his hand, his belts, marked my young body and my being. I was always ready to be hit or yelled at or erased. I was told over and over how lucky I was to have a nice house, to live in a good neighborhood. So early on, I came to equate my economic security with violence.

I never dreamed of growing up and getting married, having children. Never. It simply didn’t occur to me. There were many reasons. One, I was born in the early fifties and my consciousness was shaped in the sixties. I was a hippie. I gravitated toward drugs, free love, non-monogamy, communes, and anything that had to do with escaping the nuclear family. That nuclear unit was just that for me: nuclear—an atom bomb that annihilated my self, my worth, my confidence, and my identity. My father’s rage, his power, his opinion, his money, his moods, controlled and determined all of us, including my mother. Our house, our family, was his empire. I was his subject. Or his tortured prisoner.

I never dreamed of growing up and getting married and having children because I never dreamed of growing up, living that long. I could never imagine life past thirty, and I came close to making sure I didn’t get there. I never dreamed of having children, as I was so scared of repeating what had been done to me. I was so scared that I had my father in me. And in fact, I did. I held his rage, his impatience, and his judgments for many years.

It is not surprising that I have grown up to become nomadic. I was unable to have a dining room table until my early fifties, as it was the set piece of so much humiliation and violence. Until my late thirties I kept my bedroom out in the open in my living room so no one could get me. My dreams were limited, simple. All I wanted was to grow up and not be hit or molested. I lived as a survivor. Happy every day not to be screamed at, ridiculed, beaten, terrorized, or thrown out. I did not care about a career. I did not think what kind of a person might be right for me. It was all about what was not happening, all about the pain stopping, all about safety, security. I wanted a man or a woman who would not hit me. This, as you can well imagine, is not the greatest prerequisite for a relationship. Not a very high standard. And it’s broad. And, to be honest, until you have gone back and retraced and experienced and purged and transformed that initial violation, it is impossible not to keep being attracted to what you are trying to escape.

I think you have several options when you experience enormous terror and violence as a child. You can shut down completely, you can pretend it didn’t happen, you can become violent yourself, or you can create situations that mirror your initial situation in an attempt to understand and master it. I have, at some point, embraced all of these. My life has been a journey to find a way to make sense of violence and terror and make peace with insecurity.

In the last ten years I have traveled to many places—more than forty countries. Looking back, I see that a pattern emerges. I see how I was consistently and compulsively drawn to that which I feared, to those situations that seemed utterly incomprehensible. I see how this search to understand brutality and violence began as a search for logic and security but became the journey that freed me of the false need for these protections, dissolving my moorings, undoing my falsely constructed notions of security.

I have spent time in refugee camps, war-torn countries, battered-women and homeless shelters, prisons, border towns, and postdisaster sites. I have lived through a near plane crash, an almost bombing. I have left a fifteen-year relationship. I have embraced a weeping fifty-year-old man in his burnt-out backyard in Kosova. I have held the hand of a woman whose face was melted off by acid in Islamabad, Pakistan. I have clung to the body of an Afghan woman in the middle of a seizure as she remembered the torture and murder that took place in a stadium in Kabul. I have stood face-to-face with a raging member of the Taliban, his whip in hand as he prepared to flog me. I have watched the World Trade Center towers fall in my beloved city. I have sat with thousands of women from Srebrenica in a stadium as they wailed in grief over their lost men. I have spent days in dusty Ciudad Juárez, Mexico searching for bodies of dead women, and in the hot sun of Crawford, Texas, as Cindy Sheehan stood up to President Bush.

I live alone today after cohabiting with partners for more than thirty years. Many of the vestiges that tied me to the ground, to one person, to one place, are gone. In fact, I have become a traveler, a woman who exists in motion, a nomadic being, a citizen of the world. I have been fortunate that the work I do has literally taken me around the planet. But travel is by no means a prerequisite to getting lost. We are able to cross and dissolve all kinds of borders if we are willing to go to the political, emotional, and spiritual places we most fear and resist.

I write and perform and I love my friends all over the world. I work to stop violence against women. I work to prevent and stop war. I sometimes have anxiety. I have bouts of terrible low self-esteem. I feel lonely on occasion, but mainly I feel alive, free. I feel myself.

This may or may not appeal to you—this moving, this nomadic existence, and this nonattached life. I am not suggesting we all leave our relationships and homes and children. Not at all. I am proposing that we reconceive the dream. That we consider what would happen if security were not the point of our existence. That we find freedom, aliveness, and power not from what contains, locates, or protects us but from what dissolves, reveals, and expands us.

* * *

Excerpted from INSECURE AT LAST: Losing It in Our Security-Obsessed World by Eve Ensler. Copyright © 2006 by Random House Inc. Reprinted by arrangement with The Random House Publishing Group.