Anchors and Masts
  • Recent conversations

    • Barbara: I echo H.M.’s appreciation for your honest self-awareness and confess to being quite the workaholic...
    • towanda: (((tess)))
    • H.M.: Ouch. I admire your willingness for honest self-examinatio n. And I certainly do relate to this. I wish I...
    • The Green Witch: Tess, I laughed like a drain when I read this! I’ve been on both side of this one. Currently...
    • Heyjules: Hahaha. Yeah, that happens to me sometimes, too. I go home with the bigger paycheck but wondering what life...
    • lucy: i love you, tess…work aholic or no :-) maybe it is as sue says, “the protestant work ethic...
  • Activism

    World Water Day March 22, 2008 Support Amnesty International
    Peace Direct

    Cost of the War in Iraq
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  • Women

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    Of the body

    Monday, April 21st, 2008


    Renoir’s Odalisque
    I have a lot of issues with my body. There’s too much of it, so I try occasionally to starve it, or indulge in extreme regimes then give up, and then sometimes I stuff it too full of food to compensate, and to punish it.
    It’s tedious to reach middle-age and still spend time thinking […]

    Sunday Collection: International Women’s Day

    Sunday, March 9th, 2008


    Photograph by Babasteve
    Because yesterday was International Women’s Day, it was easy for me to decide on the theme of today’s collection.
    Those of you around my vintage will remember the second-wave feminist movement that began in the 1960s. We read classic polemics such as Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique and Greer’s The Female Eunuch, we attended consciousness-raising […]

    Choicemaker

    Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008


    When you see yourself as a choicemaker, you take on the role of protagonist in your life story. You know that what you choose to do, or not do, has an effect. You learn that when circumstances are unavoidable or even terrible, then how you respond inwardly is a choice that may make all the […]

    Elderwomanspace

    Tuesday, November 20th, 2007

    I’m delighted and proud to be one of the foundation members of a new social networking site for elder women set up by Marian Van Eyk McCain, the inspirational writer I’ve previously linked to here and here.
    Marian’s network is for those of us who are at various stages of the ageing adventure… women growing old […]

    Sunday Collection - strong women

    Sunday, November 18th, 2007


    No, no, no, that’s not what I mean by strong women! But come to think of it, doesn’t she look joyful and strong and brimming with life?
    I’m currently reading The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd (which Lucy recommended to me). The book’s subtitle will tell you what it’s about: A Woman’s […]

    September Collection - Autumn

    Sunday, September 23rd, 2007

    Today is the autumn equinox: the hours of light and of darkness are equal. I’m told that at the two equinoxes, if you stand an egg on its narrow end it will balance, just as the earth hangs on a point of balance between life and death. (Although darkness can be comforting, and death is […]

    Mary

    Wednesday, August 15th, 2007

    Today is the feast day in the Catholic church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
    This refers to the belief that at the end of her life, Mary was transported body and soul into heaven. Narratives enshrining this belief have existed since the early centuries of the church, although it was only declared as […]

    Acceptable sinners

    Friday, August 10th, 2007

    The other day I had a conversation with a man I know who described to me his visits to a lap-dancing club. (Yes I know, but he’s a business contact in my non-blogging life. I have to be polite to him. It wouldn’t occur to him that there’s anything wrong with lap-dancing clubs or talking […]

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