The homepage of my website (www.jeanbolen.com) has the image of the book jacket (she's a pretty baby), description, and advance endorsements. These are "blurbs" from Alice Walker, Gloria Steinem, Isabel Allende, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Terry Tempest Williams, environmentalist and author, William Swing the Episcopalian Bishop of California, Sue Monk Kidd, Riane Eisler, Robert Muller, former Assistant Secretary-General of the UN, Marianne Williamson, Gloria Feldt (Planned Parenthood), Gerald Jampolsky, Patricia Smith Melton and Marilyn Fowler. Their support warmed the cockles of my heart and also supports my hope and belief that Urgent Message is timely.

Mother is Mother Earth, mother archetype, mother instinct, mother goddess, the sacred feminine and expresses the need for women as a gender to bring balance into the world (not all women will get this message, those in whom the mother archetype and sister archetype are strong elements in the psyche will). Men can also get and support this message. I am advocating a third wave of the women's movement as a grassroots one centered in circles of women.

The heart of the message of the book is in this poem.

Untapped Source of Peace

Untappped source of peace,
The only real hope
Is to draw upon the collective wisdom of women.
Those with direct experience of the cost of war:
The life of child, grandchild, sibling, spouse.
The loss of limb or mind of someone near and dear,
The loss of laughter, the pervasiveness of fear,
The loss of hope for the future.

Untapped source of peace,
Those who have known domestic violence
Seen the effect of bullying on sons
Seen daughters become silent
Seen light go out in their eyes
Those who know
That when every child matters,
When none are hungry, abused, or discounted,
The world will become a kinder place
For us all.

Untapped source of peace,
Women with empathy
who live in a world apart:
Are safe, loved, and fortunate.
Yet can imagine
Being helpless, beaten and raped,
Then forced to bear a child
Conceived in violence.
Women who know in their hearts
That what happens to any woman
Anywhere
Could happen to them.

Untapped source of peace,
Women who see loved ones filled with vengeance and hate,
Hyper-vigilant, fear-ridden, or afraid to sleep
Because of the nightmares.
Husbands, brothers, sons and now daughters
Home from wars,
Bearing little resemblance to who they could have been
In a peaceful world.

Untapped source of peace
Women in circles,
Women connecting,
Women together
Bringing the sacred feminine,
Maternal instinct, sister archetype,
Mother power
Into the world.

Jean Shinoda Bolen
From Urgent Message From Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World

Join the grassroots women's movement to
Petition the United Nations to sponsor a
5th Women's World Conference
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?5WWC&1