Jun 21, 2005 by Naomi.

Each day I face a challenge of choosing sessions to attend. The program of the 9th International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women in Seoul, Korea, includes many choices ranging from “Politics, Representation, and Translation” to “Alternate Therapy” with catch words like activism, gender, empowerment,and transformation. The possibilities cover 15 pages just for today. Because there is one session before lunch break and two sessions before dinner, I can only attend three sessions. Imagine my frustration. Oh what a dilemma!

In my final choices I learn beyond the content of the paper. I see into the presenter’s personality and dedication and most of all - passion. Passion is blatant with no apologies. This passion is inspiring and later activated in each listener’s home area, city or farm, and change is eminent.

But that is not surprising. The same burst of passion - energy - comes after every conference. Every meeting of women who want change, women who seek change, inspires women to create change. This is a fact and does not only apply to international conferences. It applies every time like-minded women gather where ever they get together.

What a good thing to unleash upon the earth!

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Jun 21, 2005 by Naomi.

Seoul, capitol city of the Republic of Korea, in the shadow of a horrible diplomatic foopah, holds a meeting that will change world policies. Meetings revealing human issues have changed world politics drastically in just the past fifty years. To know the sacrifice and ridicule people suffered for those actions is critical to finding the courage to continue the progress.

Here and now, in June of 2005, thousands of women from 90 countries are pouring out their hearts and research with the expectation that to know every person’s struggle will inspire a deeper search for solutions. Is it necessary to know the violence and horror experienced by women in every nook and cranny of our earth? Yes. It opens the opportunity for bonding and then action. So much is unbelievable but we need to hear how powers in the world keep women in fear, bondage, and submission using the same simple techniques.

Only if women and the men they love understand that the tragedy of humans exists everywhere and no individual needs to stand alone, can they go forward with determination to create necessary actions. Women now know they can think bigger, achieve higher, and influence wider. Women have no greater capacity than men to create a safer world. But women do have language skills and managing abilities to implement change. Gertrude Mongella, in the keynote address, told of her rise in influence as she knew she could do the greater tasks she pushed for herself. She didn’t believe she could do the jobs - she knew she could. And it is that kind of knowing - the basic thinking - this conference inspires.

Corporate greed changed the world scene and it helps women. The demand for better technology gave us tools for instant communication and easier travel. And this meeting of intelligent minds urges digestion of reality so action can be defined. Women are embracing the earth. Some do not know exactly what they promise to embrace. Some think that embracing the earth means embracing people, but people are the problem so solutions from other aspects of human life must be put into expectations. Only by striving toward great expectations can change occur.

Change is happening. And the opposition knows it is losing. We see greater violence as proof of their impending loss. We will keep pushing and we will win.

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Jun 21, 2005 by Naomi.

My poster presentation is over. Visitors admired my posters and shook heads in agreement with the concept of women making their identity through their brain with thoughts and experiences. My audience came because I had spoken up at a previous presentation by professors who debated the need for religion classes in a women’s studies curriculum. The poster presentations were in a hall far removed from other meeting rooms on the campus and beyond the free shuttle route so the traffic by the one hundred posters was unusually light. The afternoon was humid and I decided to take another “ten minute” walk up the campus mountain to Hanwoori Hall, my dormitory. I was sweaty as I ever had been in Minnesota on a sultry August day shocking grain in the field - a goofy trip down memory lane if there ever was one! Imagine being nostalgic about sweat.

One charming elderly Korean lady asked me where I was going and insisted it was too far and too steep to walk and advised me to take the bus. Well I wouldn’t have refused the bus but I calculated the distance to the bus stop was greater than the uphill distance to the dormitory so I plodded along in my best alpine climbing mode. It worked in Nepal for 50 kilometers, too, so a thousand yards would be piece of cake. A young lady worried also about my climb. I let her help me off with my jacket and plugged on my way.

I was rewarded by the sounds of birds - at first there was a magpie - not my choice of a songbird, but it has feathers and the gift of flight. I hesitated and stood still until it passed, remembering January, 2001, in Canberra, Australia, when one pesky magpie dive bombed me under a tree, coming close to retrieving my eyebrow for its nestlings. The other songbirds I heard were too high in the trees to be identified but definitely birdsong, much to my delight after the lack of such animals the day before.

There were hollyhocks and coreopsis and roses and topiary to admire along the curving roadway. Three gardners were snipping at the growth of pines near the dormitory. They had been at work when I left early this morning so I’m not surprised at the appearance of many such trimmings beside the streets and buildings. Every shrub so lovingly tended deserves an audience too.

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