Needlework by Barbara Mattio

My subject will be the many aspects of the Hallmark holiday which sells so many cards in America. It is a big job in a woman’s life and one she is least prepared for. Congratulations to all the mothers out there. You have served above and beyond. My heart goes out to the women who desperately want children and are unable to have them. I respect the women who have known they didn’t want to have children and did not. This can be a awkward day for them. I respect the women who knew they never wanted to marry for whatever reason and honor their decision.

There is the pain of the mothers who have lost children. Your hearts have sustained the worst of the pain a human being can suffer. To lose a child or a grandchild is an event that should earn every mother a medal of honor; a recognition of what she has lost. I dedicate this upcoming holiday to the mothers who are no longer with us on this plane, but have left us to be welcomed home by the Divine Universe.

I am going to include the Mother’s Day Proclamation every year until we as women have been given our legal equality. Every man enters this plane via our bodies and yet we aren’t equal? I believe not. We are and we will work to that end  until we accomplish equality.

In Memory of all the Mother’s who are no longet with us and children who have been lost due to violence in the past year. Photo copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2013

Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870 – Julia Ward Howe

“Arise, the women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears!
Say firmly
“We will not have questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking of carnage,
for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We women of one country
will be too tender of those of another country
to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes with
our own, it says ‘disarm! disarm!’
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.
Blood does not wipe out dishonor
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
whereby the great human family can live in peace,
each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Ceasar,
But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
that a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient
and at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
to promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
the amicable settlement of international questions,
the great and general interests of peace.”

We are connected to all life now and always.