Today, August 2nd,
is Global Forgiveness Day.

A way to participate:

Set an alarm for 2 pm today.

At 2 pm, pause for 2 minutes.

Bring your attention to the present moment.

Now, breathe in the Divine Mother’s Blue Hope & Healing.

Breathe out stress & tension. Relax.

Breathe in again.

Let go with the Mother the pains of the past.

Forgive with the Mother’s Help

Feel Her Lightness of Being

Her Peace – Your Peace.

Forgive but not to forget.

We do not want to re-create the past.

Time for the Divine Feminine Peace to rise in everyone. . .

Excerpts from the latest Battered Women’s Support Services newsletter, July 31, 2023:

In Canada 2022, 184 women and girls were violently killed due to their gender – an average of at least 1 person every 2 days.

This represents a 27 percent increase when compared to 2019.

For 5 consecutive years, rates of reported family violence and intimate partner violence have also been increasing.

Last year, federal, provincial, and territorial governments endorsed a 10-year National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence.

Gender-based violence is a state of emergency in every community in this province, and local governments have an important role to play.

We are calling on every local government to implement a whole-of-government, multi-stakeholder, and intersectional plan to end all gender-based violence.

This includes ensuring adequate housing, transition services, and wrap around supports for women, gender-diverse, people, youth, and children fleeing violence.

We need action from our local governments because the lives of many survivors depend on it.

Join us in calling on your municipal government to implement an immediate and concrete action plan to end gender-based violence.

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If this is a calling, a template letter
for local gov’t representatives: here

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This is part of the latest newsletter from The Elders by Graca Machel:

Dear friends,

On our shared planet of 8 billion people, we must never forget how interconnected we are.

This awareness of our shared humanity, so often lacking among leaders now, was what Nelson Mandela and I had in mind when we co-founded The Elders in 2007.

In South Africa, this concept of belonging to each other is called Ubuntu.

More than 15 years after our group first came together, and in the face of grave existential threats, Mandela’s wisdom is needed more than ever.

Last month, on his birthday, we celebrated his vision as the continued driving force behind all our work.

Mandela was guided throughout his life by his unwavering commitment to equality, justice and compassion.

He believed deeply in human capacity for kindness and change.

Now, it is up to us to live his legacy. . .

. . . It is shameful that out of 195 countries in the world, at the start of this year only 17 countries had a woman Head of State, and just 19 countries had a woman Head of Government.

. . . Leaders must recognize that our own survival as a human family, and the prospect of living in societies of equity and prosperity, hinges on female leadership.

It is high time for more women to lead.

While the challenges we face are grave, and while women’s rights are under increasing attack, we can never let injustice and impunity win.

There is always hope for a better world – through every crisis, through every storm.

We must hold onto it. It is up to all of us to keep pushing for change, to keep demanding better from leaders, and to rise up until the future is safe and just.

With thanks for your ongoing support,

Graça Machel