I often receive emails from Tao and Defiant Women around the country who are eager to share their latest news and adventures. And, so, in keeping with the philosophy of this being YOUR site, this Information Exchange page has been created.
Please email me your latest news and I will happily post it here.
To submit your comments about someone’s posting, simply scroll to the bottom of the page and enter your thoughts in the box provided.
Tao-Girl Danielle F. sent this to me – it’s gorgeous and has much to teach us.
Thank you, Danielle.
You Are The Result Of Yourself
Don’t blame anyone, never complain of anyone or anything
Because basically you have made of your life what you wanted.
Accept the difficulties of edifying yourself
And the worth of starting to correct your character.
The triumph of the true man arises from the ashes of his mistakes.
Never complain of your loneliness or your luck.
Face it with courage and accept it.
Somehow, they are the result of your acts and
It shows that you’ll always win.
Don’t feel frustrated of your own failures, neither unload them to someone else.
Accept yourself now or you’ll go on justifying yourself like a child.
Remember that any time is good to start
And that no time is so good to give up.
Don’t forget that the cause of your present is your past,
As the cause of your future will be your present.
Learn from the brave, from the strong,
From who doesn’t accept situations
From who will live in spite of everything.
Think less of your problems and more of your work.
Learn to arise from your pain,
And to be greater than the greatest of your obstacles.
Look at the mirror of yourself and you’ll be free and strong
And you’ll stop being a puppet of circumstances.
For you yourself are your destiny.
Wake up and stare at the sun in the mornings and breathe the sun of dawn.
You’re part of the strength of your life now,
Rise up, fight, walk, be sure and you’ll win in life.
Don’t ever think of ‘fate’
For fate is the excuse of failures.
~ Attributed to Pablo Neruda (Chilean Writer)
******
What would we be if we quit talking about aging? Read my friend, Dorothy Sander’s article on the Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dorothy-sander/keeping-up-appearances_b_1379574.html
******
The first of my articles for Women (Omni Health Media) is in their spring issue both in print and on-line.
Check out the article and go to their homepage and look around the entire, beautiful magazine!
They publish four times a year – look for the summer issue in July!
*******
January 12, 2012
I was recently interview by a journalist writing an article about women and body image for “Women’s Day Magazine”.
How cool! In the May issue I will be mentioned in her article. Let’s hear it for Tao and defiant women everywhere!
CJ
*******
December 12, 2011 – from Alexis Powers
Hi Everyone,
Yesterday was one of the happiest days of my life. For 25 years I’ve had a children’s book in my mind. MADI’S DOLLHOUSE has been published and is available in time for the holidays. Here is a short synopsis:
When Madi was born she couldn’t hear, so she didn’t learn how to talk and she didn’t make any friends. Then one day Madi met some very special little people who lived in the woods. She could hear their voices in her head and they could hear her thoughts. It was magical! But that was only the beginning . . .
Although Madi’s story is a fantasy, we hope it encourages children of all ages to learn the value of kindness, to accept the challenges of life and to believe in themselves and in miracles.
MADI’S DOLLHOUSE can be purchased from Create Space:
I wish all of you a Holiday Season filled with hope, good health and love.
Alexis
*******
August 19, 2011
Okay ladies, time for me to make an announcement of my own -
I’ve been asked by Girl Scouts of America to be one of their speakers at the upcoming 100th Anniversary National Convention, November 10-12, 2011 in Houston.
I’m very pleased and excited for at this point I know that some of the other women who have been asked to participate are Marlee Matlin, , Olympic Medalist and Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Stephanie Smith and award-winning columnist and author Robyn Silverman.
What a line-up! I am so very honored to among these dynamic and accomplished women.
*******
Host: Suzanne Taylor
From Suzanne Taylor (who we had highlighted in a recent issue of The Gathering)
Crop Circles as a Portal to Personal and Planetary Transformation.
What messages are crop circles trying to communicate to us, and are they an invitation for us to shift our worldview?
4 Sessions, Starts August 20th
Crop circles offer humanity the opportunity to make a profound collective discovery. Knowing we share the universe with others, with intelligences that actively communicate with us, could trigger leaps to the higher states of awareness and greater satisfaction that are the promise of this age of transformation.
- What are the extraordinary and subtle designs of the crop circles trying to tell us?
- What evidence proves that crop circles are not made by human beings?
- Are the circles an invitation to rethink our materialistic worldview and realize the interconnection of all that is?
- Would insight into the origin and messages of the circles open you to experience greater sensitivity and more compassion in your life?
The spiritual aspect to the circles often is ignored in discussions about how they are created and whether they are “real.” Not so for our host, filmmaker Suzanne Taylor. For more than two decades, Suzanne has been captivated by the circles, so much so that she was the force behind “CROP CIRCLES: Quest for Truth,” the first feature documentary ever made about the circles, which she served as Executive Producer. She went on to produce and direct the award-winning documentary, “What On Earth?,” which continues to bring the message of the circles to a worldwide audience. Suzanne sees the phenomenon as a spur to humanity to see ourselves as part of a bigger picture, which would help free us from the small-mindedness that leads us to be so destructive to one another and to the planet.
In this interactive video series, you will engage with well-respected, fascinating individuals who have had profound involvements with the crop circles. Featured presenters include John Martineau, Daniel Pinchbeck, Nancy Talbott, Gary Bobroff, and Jeffrey Wilson. They will offer far-ranging material related to the circles that most people are unaware of, as they present their findings and discuss their understandings and perspectives about this awe inspiring mystery. And each guest will share with you the shift of awareness that the circles gave rise to in their own lives.
You will be part of this unique online event, watching the live video stream and asking your questions directly to these inspirational pioneers. Also taking part will be major figures from the crop circle world, who bring depth and experience to the conversation.
In this course, you will discover how crop circles offer a doorway for you to find yourself in an interconnected universe that is far more miraculous, mysterious, and beautiful than most people imagine.
- Discover the connection between historic Native Americans spiritual practices and crop circles in the United States.
- Observe the sacred geometry that guides the circle design and
- Learn about the science that proves crop circles are creations beyond any technology known to humanity.
- Learn how the circles are calling humanity to move away from its materialist worldview.
- Feel the call of the circles to live in harmony with nature.
This course takes place on two Saturdays:
August 20 and 27, followed by two Sundays, September 11 and 18, 2011.
You can participate from your laptop anywhere in the world with a broadband connection.
Each session is devoted to a 90-minute presentation by a featured guest, followed by a Q & A session in which you can take part.
This will be a live, dynamic experience in which you become part of a community sharing real time with some thought-shapers who have been closely involved with the crop circle phenomenon.
*******
From Alexis Powers:
I was recently asked to sit on the Board of the Oro Valley Public Library. As a devoted Tao Woman, I am eager to make this position successful, especially since I am the new kid on the block! My position on the Board is Chair of Fund Raising and Membership. To raise much needed revenue, I have organized a used costume jewelry sale being held in October.
If any of you have jewelry, watches and belts included, that you haven’t worn in years and know your children would not be interested in, please gather it together and contact our loved leader, Caryn Golden, to find out how to send this to me. Your help is greatly appreciated.
We Tao Women must stick together to carry on the message!
Thank you in advance for helping me on my crusade.
Alexis Powers
www.alexispowers.net
The above is a review of Pigs Must Fly, a novel recently published under the pen name Edna Flannigan. Edna (Jane Curtis) has been friends with CJ for a very long time. This review also appears on Amazon.com, where the book is on sale.
Iris Haugsdahl has problems of which she is only vaguely aware. She is trapped in the body of the homeliest woman in the most socially suffocating part of the country (north-central Iowa) married to a drunken, failed farmer named Urb who has only half a penis. To make matters worse, her uppity neighbors, Netta and Forky Stimple, crow over their success as confinement hog farmers while she and Urb eke out their meager existence milking a few irritable cows.
Iris begins her transformation from ugly duckling to swan in the city of Las Vegas, where she has gone to receive the now departed Urb’s posthumous war medal at a VFW convention. While there, she comes under the tutelage of Miss Kitty Velour, who turns out to be her cross-dressing mentor and guardian angel. Kitty acts a bit like Professor Higgins to Iris’ Eliza Doolittle, only with more kindness. With the help of her big city posse composed of the foppish Francophile clothier, Napoleon, and the clairvoyant Canasta player, Ms. Nicole, the three of them transform Iris, our wild Iowa rose, into a David Austin original. Along the way Netta is exposed as a gambling fraud, Forky meets his maker in the arms of a silicon-enhanced grifter, and Iris undergoes a personality makeover to match her new wardrobe, all the while evading the amorous advances of an Idaho pipe fitter.
The wacky cast of characters is complimented by a fluid, laconic and witty prose style. It’s all quite humorous and exhausting and congratulations to Edna Flannigan for pulling it off. This is the author’s first novel, so she is in the process of blossoming. We are lucky to be witnessing the birth of a big, new, quirky talent from whom we hopefully haven’t heard the last.