To build a society based on human need, with love of all beings as its guiding principle, the reproductive needs of women have to be included in the center of the foundation. The feminine aspects of life, heretofore treated as peripheral, marginal, or unimportant, must be given their rightful status as central to the human…
Category Archives: Psychology
Writing for My Life
I’ve decided to be kinder to myself when I feel sad I’ve decided to be grateful for all I ever had… This morning I woke up in a foul mood. It wasn’t unfamiliar, nor was it strange. It was all too common, and it demanded my attention. I stepped out of bed and into an…
Abortion Teaches Us to Let Go Like the Trees of Fall
If we are to survive as a species, human beings are going to have to accept that our bodies and the body of the Earth are one and the same. We must engage consciously with the life cycles—the coming into being and going away of life through death—and respect those individuals who are put in…
The Beauty of Counseling
Underneath the many valid reasons for having an abortion—reasons prompted by necessity and life circumstances—is the pulsing of a new way of being in our lives, a way based on self-respect, autonomy, safety, and equality. — Life Choices (p.11) The word that best sums up what I see in my counseling work is beauty. The beauty of… — engaging…
The Book Tour, The Conversation, and Vital Services
We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. These words are from Molly Ivins, quoted today at RH…
Perspective About Abortion is Important
If Life Choices is about nothing else, it is about perspective, and perspective about abortion is important. Women are caught in the crossfire of the currently overheated abortion wars. An epidemic of distorted legislation is spreading across the country in the form of bills that would give “personhood” to the fertilized egg in pregnancy, and more…
Abortion Healing, Feminism, and the Earth
I’ve heard from a good number of women and men since Life Choices came out in September. Sometimes it’s about their own abortion healing, and sometimes it’s about their desire for more depth, clarity, and kindness in the public dialogue about abortion. Everyone I speak with expresses alarm and sometimes disgust about the current political battles…
A Special Thank You
Today is the birthday of my dear friend and spiritual teacher, David LaChapelle (Oct. 8, 1952-July 21, 2009). David served the world through deep heart teachings and an extraordinary ability to perceive psychological, spiritual, and scientific—especially ecological—phenomena, often simultaneously. The result was an intriguing mix of usually separated truths joined with a poetic sensibility when…