Friday, May 21, 2021

Sande Hart - Innovator and Activist

I'd like to introduce you to Sande Hart whose generosity of spirit includes all the world's women.


In her own words....  
On Sept 11th, 2001, as I was trying to make sense of what was happening in NY,
the moment the 2nd plane hit I heard, 
“gather women’.  I did not know where I was to find these women or who was whispering in my ear. I had no experience of being in circle. I was the youngest of 3 sisters, missing out on what “sisterhood” looked like since they were a generation older. So I clearly had no idea what to do with the women once I gathered them.  Regardless, I had my marching orders. I found the women, opened my front door, and got out of the way. We named her S.A.R.A.H., as in the Mother of All Nations. We gave her the acronym Spiritual And Religious Alliance for Hope, and when the IRS incorporated us years later, they inadvertently added “The” in front of our name, which affirmed our sacred task.

 



We spent the first 13 years addressing the communal fear and distrust through dynamic programs that were very localized to Southern Ca, yet now we are entirely focused on global and universal problems and international in scope.  In that way we can, with integrity, think locally and act globally.


All of our programs tug at the roots of systems of domination and patriarchy. Along with Ann Smith and LauraSa Ava, we developed our signature initiative; The General Congress of Women to honor the Mothers Day Proclamation, which calls for “…a general congress of women, without limit of nationality to convene and address the great and general needs of peace”. S.A.R.A.H. fit the bill, and the Beijing 12 Critical Areas of Concern distinguishes our “great needs”.  We hold the vision for existing and/or new circles joining us and applying S.A.R.A.H.’s Four Essential Elements; Circle Principles, Agreement of Care and Caregiving, Financial Wholeness, and Recognizing the Ecosystem of our Interdependence; the very elements that S.A.R.A.H. can declare as our claim to success. If these accelerate an existing circle’s efforts or appeal to a woman to start her own circle, we will have realized our goal of growing sustainable circles.



Everyone has their healing work to do, and mine is to surround myself with women I can trust and with whom I can play and create projects and initiatives to move mountains.  This requires us to recognize our contribution to perpetuating domination systems and offer dynamic and creative ways to hold one another accountable, and support each other to show up with new bodacious and creative ways. We feel this is what our Mother Earth is asking of us; to show up in our glorious unique ways. Sisterhood in circle is our answer


 https://www.sarah4hope.org/general-congress-of-women.