20 Women Who Are Transforming the World by Dorka Keehn
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Foreword by Julia butterfly Hill PhoTography by Colin Finlay Eco Amazons 20 Women Who Are Transforming the World by Dorka Keehn Acknowledgements Birthing a book is no small undertaking and ECO AMAZONS advice: Adrienne Arieff, Lorrae Rominger, April Bucksbaum, Kirby would not have come into existence without the enthusiasm, Walker, Randy Rosenberg, Claire Greensfelder, Marianne Manilov, participation and support of so many people. I am indebted to Adam Browning, David Shearer, Miss Jackie and Hunters Point everyone below for sharing in the vision. Family, James Cochran and Sandy Brown and Swanton Berry Farm, Steven Scholl-Buckwald and Pesticide Action Network, To the twenty women who grace the pages of this book, I offer my Sandy Saeteurn and Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Charles deepest appreciation and admiration. These eco-warriors joyously This book is dedicated to the memory of my father, Grant Keehn, who passed away Higgins and Slide Ranch, Patrick Lampi, Amy Deavoll and eSolar, took time from their critical work to share their lives and knowledge in June 1982. While born in 1900, he raised me to believe that as a woman there was Ben Carlson and Doug Lybeck and Friends of the Urban Forest, with me. no mountain I could not climb, no dream I could not manifest, no struggle I could Father Lawrence, Marion Abney, Deborah Munk, and John Jurinek. not overcome. Colin Finlay is an honorary Eco-Amazon. Unflinchingly, he scaled Colin and I were privileged to have the talented Unnikrishnan toxic mountains, almost faced arrest, and physically endangered Raveendranathan as our photography assistant. He worked on the himself to capture the remarkable images so integral to telling images as if they were his own. these stories. I could not have asked for a more intrepid, creative, or talented cohort. ECO AMAZONS could not have been realized without the generous support of the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund and the When ECO AMAZONS was just in its embryonic stage, Julia Goldman Environmental Prize, and The Charles Evans Foundation, Butterfly Hill responded with a resounding “Yes!” when asked to and with additional funding from The Baum Foundation and The write the forward. Her prose is a clarion call for us all. Fred Gellert Family Foundation. Thank you for understanding the As a first time author, I was blessed to have second eyes throughout power of storytelling as a means for inspiration and change. the process of developing the book. My undying gratitude goes At powerHouse, I was fortunate to have two open-minded to Marta Salas Porras who contributed her design expertise and publishers, Danny Powers and Craig Cohen, and to collaborate with significantly influenced the look and feel of ECO AMAZONS. Rachelle Somma on the design of the book. And I am most appreciative of Leslie Jonath and Robert Forte’s thoughtful editorial feedback. And special thanks to my agent Jessica Papin who believed in this project from the moment it crossed her desk. Along the way, the following people generously helped me with everything from access to their programs, to providing invaluable I am humbled to have traveled on this journey with all of you. Forward We stand on a precipice. Behind us, tremendous triumph and and destroys the Earth right out from underneath our feet and “We are ancestors of the future. It is time we started acting like it! Not that we have inexhaustible resources of anything including tremendous tragedy. Before us, a chasm so huge many of us wonder our future. WOMEN are leading in turning tiny micro-loans into What do we want our legacy to be?” time. But the feminine principals remind us that we have been doing how and if we will cross. We face a question that is possibly more transforming their entire communities. Women are coming up with “Bigger, Better, Faster” for a while…. And our beautiful Sacred “Belief Creates Our Reality” a sign I recently saw said. Well, if only all encompassing, relevant, and prevalent than ever before in the brilliantly beautiful solutions to design questions and problems. It world and Planet is in peril. Something is definitely out of balance. one half of the story is the main story being told—that of the male history (and HERstory) of humankind. We are facing the question is WOMEN who are directly linked to the rhythms and health of As we reclaim and shine the light on the stories of WOMEN, maybe, views and experiences, what kind of reality are we shaping through of whether or not we, as a human animal species, get to keep living the natural world. just maybe, we will create a belief so powerful, that our reality will those beliefs? on this beautiful, tiny, potently powerful yet powerfully fragile begin to shift before our very eyes and become one that once again What we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves. And the destructive planetary home, spinning in space, we call, “Earth.” We are facing This book is in no way anti-male or anti-masculine. If anything this remembers that the Earth and all Her beings are Sacred. side of that can be seen in the alarming rise in breast and ovarian not only, “Will We Survive?” But asking even deeper, “Is it actually book is a narrative that invites and embraces the fullness of who cancers, birth defects, and other mental and physical challenges that And that Women play a vital, inspiring, and moving role in possible to THRIVE with all the challenges we face and seemingly we are through shining the light on the stories of just a microcosm children are being born with that are relatively new to the timeline transforming our world from one of deep, deep suffering, to one disparate threads we have to figure out how to re-weave?” of the women who are transforming, healing, and protecting our of our human family and more and more being directly linked to where each and every one of us –regardless of gender, can look back world. Not by hating or destroying the masculine—because that There are no easy answers. There are no easy paths. There are the way we have polluted our Planetary Home. We desecrate the and say, “WE did it!” Thanks be to all that we know and all the would only perpetuate the Disease of Disconnect that is at the root however, many, many paths of courageous, loving commitment Earth; we desecrate Woman and all she brings forth. We heal and Great Mystery that we don’t know for the miracle of every breath of EVERY problem facing our world. But rather by bringing and carved into action through the lives of people who have answered restore our connection with the Earth and with Women; we heal we take. We ARE ancestors of the future. It is time we started calling forth the stories whose times have come. Whose stories are the call of the S.O.S. (Save Our Species)—and much of that is and restore the human family through our relationship with Women acting like it. And it is past time we told the stories that change already SO alive and potent in the world. It is only that we are just through WOMEN. Women, whose stories, mostly go untold and in and the vital roles Women play in this web of life. our beliefs from ones of despair to one of Love in Action! And now catching up. the doing—or un-doing as is sadly so often the case—leave a gaping WOMEN, yes, women are leading the way. We can now send people (and finally that includes women!) to the wound into the window of believing, knowing, and supporting that Each and EVERY one of us are ancestors of the future and we are Moon… and to Mars. But the questions and research we really Yours for a healthy, loving, thriving, today, tomorrow and always, a healthy, thriving, peaceful, loving, just, and sustainable world is family and community of TODAY! What do we want our legacy need to be asking and doing is can we truly uncover the profound not only possible, but it is happening. Right now. to be? The answer to that lives in how each and EVERY one of and great mystery that is the connection of humans to the Cosmos? us—male and female lives every moment, every choice, of every day. Right now, as you read these words, WOMEN are producing a Not just can we “conquer” it? But can we live and thrive and Julia Butterfly Hill majority of the world’s non-industrialized food sources; WOMEN support it as we dance the powerful and unscripted interdependence May this powerful and poignant book remind you –regardless of are the main, and often only, caregivers and providers for their dance with it? your gender or gender identity that if not NOW? When? And if not families. WOMEN are leading the direct action movement of you? Who? Telling the lesser-told stories—the stories of WOMEN Incredible friend and ally of Women and the Earth, Drew Dellinger restoring the damage caused to the Earth and standing up against leading the way remind us that the Impossible is absolutely possible… has a poem that says, “It is a tiny planet spinning in space. It is time the push towards supposed “progress” that continuously rapes it might just take a little longer…which is a feminine principal. we started acting like it.” I have been saying for quite some time, Frances Beinecke Defender of the Earth When I was young I lived in the moment.