Mother's Day Originated in the Peace Movement

Mother's Day was created by Julia Ward Howe, a poet and mother who was sickened by the blood spilled during the Civil War.  Like many efforts for Peace, that message has been edited from Mother's Day.  Here is a great reminder of what Mother's Day is really about, and a call to a balancing of intentions for war from those that know how to nurture and truly are pro-life.

This is an excellent video where you can hear the words of Julia Ward Howe in her original request for a day of solidarity for peace.  At the end there is an opportunity to donate to an organization that provides medical attention to injured Iraqi children.  I urge everyone to send it out instead of the usual mother's day "forwards" or e-cards.  You can even donate in the name of a mother that you would like to honor.  The historical content is great.:  http://mothersdayforpeace.com/  Or, mail the text of Howe's proclamation, which I've added later in this diary.  Let's take this back from Hallmark as much as we can!

As a mom, and a human that believes peace is the ultimate destiny for the human race despite the cynical world that we are living in, I know at a very deep level that there is a special power in the efforts that a mother will make on behalf of her own children, and on behalf of children everywhere.

The feminine, when viewed as an aspect of human nature, is represented as concerned with relationship building, and peace.  Conversely, the masculine is viewed as obstructing peace:

Feminine constructs prioritize relationships and authentic, mutual connection as a significant component of femininity. Women are not only seen as society’s caretakers; they also represent the culture’s teacher of relationships. When men reject femininity, they are also rejecting the whole notion of relationships. Specifically, they are rejecting feminine constructs and concepts of relationships. Seen from this perspective, masculine social construct challenges possibilities for peace and peaceful relationships because men are taught that these concepts are feminine.

Relational foundations are central to Perkins’ models of peace. Friendly peace relies on mutual friendship and trust. Ethical peace depends on a commitment to ethical values and justice in the form of empathy. Interdependent peace is based on mutual goals of equity and the creative merging of needs and goals. Civil peace relies on legal forms of justice and fairness, while retaliatory peace concentrates on self-harm and the balance of power.[52] With the exception of civil peace, each of these models is limited in either protection from safe-harm or universality. However, one of Perkins’ central points is that long-term peaceful relationships blend elements of each model. The relational elements of friendly, ethical, interdependent and civil peace models represent feminine constructed images of relationships. Friendly peace depends on mutuality and trust. Ethical peace values empathy and commitment to justice. Interdependent peace prioritizes mutual empowerment and productivity. In each of these forms of peace, relational values are emphasized and respected. In contrast, only retaliatory peace is based on masculinity. Thus, implicit in Perkins view is the idea that masculine ideology may be seen to obstruct peace and long term peaceful relationships.

http://gseweb.harvard.edu/...

Today, there are many groups of mother's working to end war.  Here's one international group whose members protest every Wednesday in Manhattan:

Background
Women in Black is an international peace network. Women in Black is not an organization, but a means of mobilization and a formula for action. Women in Black vigils were started in Israel in 1988 by women protesting against Israel's Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Women in Black has developed in the United States, England, Italy, Spain, Azerbaijan and in FR Yugoslavia, where women in Belgrade have stood in weekly vigils since 1991 to protest war and the Serbian regime's policies of nationalist aggression. Women in Black New York have been standing in solidarity with the women of Belgrade since 1993.

http://www.womeninblack.net/...

And so on this Mother's Day, I'm working to renew Julia Ward Howe's call for the solidarity of mothers everywhere to secure a planet where the children we love, ours and other people's children, can exist in peace.  I believe that mother's can help balance our collective human psyche and bring back reason.  I believe that every human has the capability of listening to the feminine constructs within our society, and I believe we can return to the place we were before all of this madness started under Bush.  Will you help by taking the time to spread the word?  Here are Julia Ward Howe's words, much better than mine:

Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870
by Julia Ward Howe
Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

   

This song by Tori Amos always makes me think of what it will take to end this war.  

"Mother Revolution"

Lucky me
I guessed the kind of man
That you would turn out to be
Now I wish that I'd been wrong and then
I could remember to breathe
And all along the watchtower
The night horses and the black mares
Ready themselves for the outcome
For the strange times upon us

But what you didn't count on
Was another mother of
A mother revolution
But what you didn't count on
Was another mother of
A mother revolution

Here's what Tori had to say about it:  

I’ve thought about this a lot since I had my daughter and what I find really disturbing about this global war, is you don’t see any of the world leaders sending their children to be butchered. It’s always someone else’s children, someone else’s blood. In ‘Mother Revolution’ the woman realises she cannot fight the patriarchy in the way that they fight and she can’t just turn her back either. In order to be effective she has to come up with a new solution. And sometimes the best solution isn’t to throw a bomb at a balloon, it's to pop the balloon with a kitty heel!

There are so many mothers committed to ending this war.  On this mother's day, the fifth in Bush's mad reign, I am honoring the Mother Revolution by continuing to fight right beside you all.  Happy Mother's Day and Peace upon us all very soon.