Feminine Harbor

Via @latinarebels art by @emmycoletti

Excited, nervous and flattered to be joining Carla Beharry @carla.beharry and Joni Nehrita @joninehrita in this wonderful opportunity given to us by the WRDSB @wr_dsb to speak about women in leadership for their #WIEL iniative. So grateful to be in your company, ladies. #kwawesome #waterlooregion #femaleleadership #storytelling #education #ontario #femaleleadership #wrdsb

And may a new world rise... One where stories and story tellers matter, and are seen. My heart.

The Region of Waterloo is considering closing five Regional Children's Centres. These public child care centres are vital public services for local children and families and provide decent work and wages for dozens of ECEs, mostly women. In the spring these centres were the first to provide emergency child care for essential service workers. Closing down these programs, especially in the middle of a pandemic, is irresponsible. Sign our petition to send a message directly to Regional Councillors that they must vote to Save Waterloo Region Children's Centres! https://www.childcareontario.org/waterloo #kwawesome #waterlooregion #savewaterlooregionchildcentres

This was posted on Facebook by Carol Freese. Simple, direct, and it inverts the narrative to the actual source of the problem. Here. Just a thought, while millions are spent trying to control women's bodies.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Feminine Harbor would like to acknowledge that Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, and Brantford are on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, Anishnaabe, and Neutral peoples. We keep this acknowledgement at the forefront of our events and thank the Haudenosaunee, Anishnaabe, and Neutral peoples for allowing us to gather.

Every single word written in this public post, by author @annahiddashtgard and founder of @animaleadership needs to be read with open eyes, open ears, open heart and open spirit. When the human paradigm #LIGHT was created based on the acronym, Love, Integrity, Guidance, Humanity and Trust, I did so because of a need I felt to thread a conversation about love amongst people of colour, because our journeys have wounded us and mixed us. So we need to reinvent ourselves, and per...haps, reinvent love altogether, and as I have always said at the #lightstories, this #love ultimately starts with a deep understanding of #selflove which is strengthened by a sense of #integrity, nurtured by the #guidance of our mentors, self-respecting in our #humanity, and open in the #trust of our journeys. Please read her words. And then take some deep breaths and start the work that is the hardest and quietest, and one that won't win you an audience because it is far too intimate. The work of looking at the mirror and crying, understanding, forgiving and letting go. Peace. Love. #Light.

Art shapes our narrative and our ideas of what is possible or not it is what guides our neural pathways. "Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Medusa was a maiden in the temple of Athena, who was stalked and raped by Poseidon. Athena, in a rage, banishes and curses Medusa with a monstrous head of snakes and a gaze which turns men to stone. Medusa is herself blamed and punished for the crime of which she was the victim; she is cast away as a monster and then with the cruel assistance of At...hena and Poseidon, eventually is hunted-down and beheaded by the epic hero Perseus, who displays her head as a trophy on his shield. Garbati’s sculpture speaks directly to the 16th Century Florentine bronze masterpiece Perseus with the Head of Medusa by Benvenuto Cellini (1545-1554). Through this work, Garbati asks how can a triumph be possible if you are defeating a victim? This narrative of victim-shaming in stories of sexual violence echoes through time, and into the present day me too movement. In 2018, Garbati posted a photograph of his original sculpture to social media. This re-imagined Medusa went viral and became a symbol of resistance worldwide, inspiring thousands of women to reach out and share their own stories. Garbati’s Medusa questions the mythic figure’s characterization as a monster, and investigates the woman behind the myth. Medusa With The Head of Perseus will be installed directly across from the New York County Criminal Court, the location of high profile abuse cases including the recent Harvey Weinstein trial. Garbati’s Medusa stands facing the courthouse, as an icon of justice and the power of narrative." From #MWTHProject #medusawiththeheadofperseus #medusawiththehead #mwthop #lucianogarbati #NYC #artmatters #makeartnotwar #artismyweapon

A friend sent me this and I also saw it in other people's posts. Other friends who are also working very hard to maintain a sense of dignity for those of us who wish to remain human. So let me dish it out for you: when I chose to support the arts, and particularly women in the arts, and further more women of colour, is because I see a direct correlation between how killing the arts, and especially killing the arts done by women of colour, kills the most powerful mirror we ha...ve into our own humanity. Dont get it? Let me push it further: the arts are a vehicle that can shift our own self reflection of what it means to be human, to struggle, to suffer, to embrace love, to thrive despite adversity, while elevating human character. It is the only authentic human made tool we have to embrace both, our beauty and pain, while transforming it and allowing us then to transcend through our own experiences. The Arts offer us some of our most potent mirror into our relationships, our memory, and our sense of self. That is if we have a heart that is still capable of feeling, and eyes that are still capable of seeing beauty. That arts, and the artists who dare to feel, and to work with our collective, communal emotional labor are NOT commodities. They are powerful, valuable pieces of our own societal puzzle, and which can form a more humane and sophisticated creative system. Please, please fight for a system that re-attaches value to human labor. If you are in the #tech industry, break the fucking colonial life sucking extractive cycles, please. #makeartnotwar #reclaim #artismyweapon #protectartists #artmatters #arthumanizesus #humansmatter #humanities

The visibility of what is still invisible to so many. #care.

Celebrate, yes. But dont forget for a second that this could have happened many years ago. There has been no shortage of brilliant women in Science (Mary Currie anyone?). What is happening now is that the patriarchal organizations that hold power are realizing they are going to fuck up the planet and human life if power is not shared with women and if women are not ethically recognized for work that is rightfully theirs. So yeah, a long overdue win. #stem #steam #stminist #steminista

As we enter election mode in North America (national or even local, like in my town right now), here is an important reminder. #Vote with #consciousness

What a stunning cover @newyorkermag . Stunning. Thank you. #femaleleaders #femaleleadership #artmatters #envisionyourfuture #thefutureisfemale

RBG was not royalty. She was not a magical figure either with super powers. It would be easy to call her queen, or our modern version of super woman. What she really was however, is something that we all need to think harder and deeper about because it lays foundational pathways for a future that we all seem to want, but seem to be a bit lost in terms of how to get there. She was incredibly studious and inquisitive #Jewish woman. She loved to learn and excelled at an area in... which she was passionate about. And she was also smart enough to marry a man who respected and admired her intellectual curiosities, abilities and pursuits. She was devoted to her family. She was a wife, a mother, and she prioritized their well being, not however at the cost of her identity and existence. She problem solved, she found creative ways to stay loving and dedicated, while still being focused on her goals. She credited her coach several times, for being one of the most important people in her life. For keeping her healthy and strong, and her work outs were out of this world! She took her health and physical well being seriously. No matter how much power she accessed, and in all of our modern world measures, she accessed a huge amount of power and privilege, carefully constructed over a huge amount of consistent hard work over time, she was 100% committed to using that power towards the common good, and towards the improvement of lives of people with a lot less power or privilege than hers. When you mourn her today, yes, allow yourself to feel this great loss to our current world. But then I ask you for one thing: think of her not as an idol, but as a mentor. As someone who has left us with clear pathways which we can emulate, especially if what we are mourning is also all that she has done and represented, because indeed, it matters so much. Rest in power and peace, great woman. May your love, integrity, guidance, humanity, and truth stay with us. Thank you for your service, your grace, your lessons, your paths, your strength. The least we can do is to pick up from where you have left us off. #RBG #rip #loss #leaders #death #femaleleaders #womenleaders #leadership #rolemodel #light

Response to the Musée d'Orsay who refused entry to a woman with a cleavage deemed too provocative! #inconsistency #museedorsay #hypocrisy #femaleliberation #art