Jean Shinoda Bolen - Moving Toward the Millionth Circle: Energizing the Global Womens Movement

No one has done more than Jean Shinoda Bolen to awaken the global heart. With Moving Toward the Millionth Circle, she continues to inspire and direct the spiritual uprising of women around the world.

Marianne Williamson

I believe that heart-centered feminine activism can change the world, and I agree with Jean Bolen that now is the time to do it. In her book, she describes how every woman can be supported by a circle of friends with a sacred center, and how circles multiply their spiritual and political energy toward a tipping point.

Isabel Allende

My personal tribute to Dr. Bolen for highlighting the need for implementing the UN Security Council resolution 1325 adopted in 2000 which recognizes how women would contribute to peace and security. I wish a wider readership and deeper absorption of the wonderful contents of her book. Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen has contributed substantively to the ever-increasing focus of recent years on women's empowerment and equality and the importance of their participation at all decisionmaking levels. Her rich personal experience, perception, and perspective have made the book truly engaging.

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, Former Under-Secretary General of the United Nations

OTHER BOOKS BY JEAN SHINODA BOLEN, M.D.

The Tao of Psychology

Goddesses in Everywoman

Gods in Everyman

Ring of Power

Crossing to Avalon

Close to the Bone

The Millionth Circle

Goddesses in Older Women

Crones Don't Whine

Urgent Message From Mother

Like a Tree

First published in 2013 by Conari Press,

an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

With offices at:

665 Third Street, Suite 400

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.redwheelweiser.com

Copyright 2013 by Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

ISBN: 978-1-57324-628-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

available upon request

Cover design by Jim Warner

Cover photograph: Yellow Leaf Circle Martin Hill

Interior by Jane Hagaman

Typeset in Minion and Trajan

Printed in the United States of America

MAL

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992 (R1997).

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I think the Cherokee approach to life is being able

to continually move forward with kind of a good mind

and not focus on the negative things in your life

and the negative things you see around you,

but focus on the positive things and try to look

at the larger picture and keep moving forward.

Wilma Mankiller, the first woman chief of the Cherokee Nation

The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time.

Terry Tempest Williams

PREMISE

I THINK OF Moving Toward the Millionth Circle as a sequel to The Millionth Circle (1999) but with a different focus. The Millionth Circle was a guide on how to create and sustain women's circles with a sacred center, which I called Zen and the Art of Circle Maintenance. It proposed nothing short of bringing humanity into a post-patriarchal era via the proliferation of women's circles through a principle that can be intuitively grasped: when a critical number of people change how they think and behave, the culture does also and a new era begins. The millionth circle is a metaphoric number for the tipping point. This second small book was inspired by being at the United Nations during meetings of the Commission on the Status of Women each spring where several thousand activists from grassroots non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that help women and girls present panels and workshops, sharing information and meeting each other. I realized how their effectiveness and numbers would grow exponentially through a world conference on women, and how circles with a sacred center would support women who work for change in their lives and in the world. I became an advocate for a UN conference, not as a goal in itself, but as a huge step toward reaching the tipping point.

Moving Toward the Millionth Circle is especially meant for heart-centered activists who are motivated to act by compassionate action, a sense of sisterhood, or fierce mother-bear protectiveness which is a combination of love and outrage. It is for women wherever they are, who are activists because of a promise made to others, to divinity, or to themselves. It may have been a calling or is the result of one step leading to another. It may be a vow to stop a multi-generational pattern of family or institutional or political indifference toward abuse or injustice. It may be a deep conviction that this is yours to do. Activism is a personal choice. It is a passion for a cause expressed through actions, funding, communication, as well as prayer, rituals, and art.

I have been a persevering advocate for a UN 5th World Conference on Women and women's circles because I see the potential for transformative change when women come together in common cause. A world conference would energize a global women's movement by raising consciousness about what needs doing and can be done once political will is mobilized: implementing the Beijing Platform for Action and Security Council Resolution 1325 about women, peace, and security are examples. The vision of a world in which women's rights and human rights are one and the same needs to be kept alive, which a global conference would do.

I hope my words will reach younger women who want to get involved in the millionth circle vision and that when there is global conference that they will come and support others to be there. I see possibilities for inter-generational, international mentoring at this conference as a two-way experience that will give to both and change the world. In the late 1960s, consciousness-raising groups formed in the United States and appeared to be just women talking to each other about patriarchy and equality. They validated each other's reality and potential for action. They took their perceptions seriously and with support from their sister-activists whom they did not want to let down, individually and in groups took actions that added up to make history. These circles were the basis of the Women's Movement that changed the world for American women in the 1970s and led to four UN World Conferences on Women between 1975 and 1995.

I am convinced that we can contribute by what we do to how history will turn out. I believe that empowered women in sufficient numbers can truly influence the course of humanity at this time in history and fulfill Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Sun Kyi's vision about the ability of women to contribute to peace. She was under house arrest for fifteen of twenty-one years between 1989 and 2010 for her opposition to the military junta's seizure of the democratic government of Burma. In her opening keynote via videotape to the 1995 NGO Forum on Women at the Fourth UN World Conference on Women in Beijing, she said: