soothemysisters productions

04/19/2022

soothemysisters is now building our Board of Directors as a NFP. Interested? DM us!

09/05/2021

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give
other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

07/20/2021

My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.

Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.

We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.

What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.

Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.

The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.

By Clarissa Pinkola Estes

American poet, post-trauma specialist and Jungian psychoanalyst, author of Women Who Run With the Wolves.

Image: Stormwatcher by Daniel Eskridge

07/07/2021

"We began our search for the wild, whether as girlchildren or as adult women, because in the midst of some ardent endeavor we felt that a wild and supportive presence was near. Perhaps we found her tracks across fresh snow in a dream. Or psychically, we noticed a bent twig here or there, pebbles overturned so their wet sides faced upward... and we knew that something blessed had passed our way. We sensed within our own psyches the sound of a familiar breath from afar, we felt tremors in the ground, and we innately knew that something powerful, someone important, some wild freedom within us was on the move."

~Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves

And 'Wyld" calls to us once again...

06/27/2021

Throw back in honour of Pride Month. soothemysisters productions began writing “The Burning” in October of 2011.

In the same month of 2012 in the dark moon, we finished our first and true working draft. Initially, our team thought we were writing a modern “Crucible”. As the script progressed, we talked specifically about the hysteria inspired at the time of the Salem witch trials and more generally about the horrifying events which spanned a four hundred year period in Europe. We spoke about the terror associated with the ideas behind the trials and could not fathom that such a comparable madness might still exist.

That year, a young woman and practising pharmacist in the Middle East was put to death for being ‘a witch’. The word still had resonance.

As we clarified our subject we closely scrutinized:
• The issue of same s*x relationships within the frame of a Catholic school, (ours specifically)
• The destruction/betrayal of the sisterhood, (its history) and the alliance between that and the vilification/demonization of our s*xuality as womyn
• Our own cultural/religious overlays that permit and advocate homophobia

Simultaneously, the writing team began to look at instances of bullying, specifically how women bully in groups and why they do so. In most cases, the bullying is s*xual in nature. We pored over newspaper articles about the murder of Reena Virk by the “shoreline six”.

As we continued that year, new laws also surfaced in Uganda which would condemn a person to death if they were ‘caught` in a same-s*x relationship. Although intuitively we understood that contemporary homophobia and the witch trials as the same energy, it was a journey to give it voice and story.

We began to call the human propensity to hurt someone-in the name of ANYTHING ‘the stick’. At every point, we asked the question why and began to gather a loose filament between bullying and one of the most sacred gifts given to us by the Universal Mother, Father God.

Even in its first stages of writing we were being edited by our school administration. Their own fears about such a show, considering the context of our school board, (TCDSB), the influence of the Council of Canadian Bishops in 2010/11 on the LBGST groups “permitted” in our schools combined with the school board’s conflict with the provincial government made this a hot topic. We were determined to keep writing.
More powerful than the response to the same s*x relationship that underpins this story is the response we’ve had to the character of Hayden who identifies her spirituality as Wiccan. In our story, Hayden asks the Goddess in a spell for love for her friend Abigail. The word “witch” in our story becomes the cover for the group who bullies. They are smart enough not to use ‘dyke’ or ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ but terrify their conservative community with this “spiritual righteousness” and in the end, drown Hayden’s partner Tara,

Shortly after we started auditions in October, a parent in our community who requested anonymity came to the principal and asked why a Catholic girl’s school was doing a show about le****ns and witchcraft. In fairness, our principal was brand new, (first year), and the potential for media attention around this show-which seemed, in her conservative eyes, a contradiction of the principles of the Catholic Board, was terrifying.

The parent accused me, through her, of a political agenda. The principal asked me if I was prepared to ‘put my head on a chopping block’ for this project and said that the script was an ‘apologia’ for witchcraft. It was challenging for all of us to remain emotionally detached, and navigate the principal’s requests that we allow the parish priest and another Catholic drama teacher, (both men), to determine the show’s ‘appropriateness’ for the Sears Ontario Drama Festival.

Ultimately, the priest called the show a brilliant modern morality play. We continued to come up against a number of other parents, [even during show week], before we left the building to mount the show at a high school festival in February. The Burning was also mounted at BCurrent’s Uth Daze Festival in May 2013.

To all our sisters from those times and even now: we encircle you with love and honour your journey.

soothemysisters productions, formerly of Notre Dame High School, Toronto

01/05/2021

A nonprofit has identified 2,000 works by women artists that had been stashed in Italy's public museums and damp churches. It's also supported restoration of 70 works from the 16th to 20th centuries.

12/04/2020

A little after our anniversary Sir John A. Macdonald Building in Ottawa. "Minotatemiskatowin" will be re-mounted as part of soothemysisters productions new company focus. Stay tuned!

12/03/2020

And don’t think the garden loses its ecstasy in Winter. It’s quiet, but the roots are down there riotous.” [Rumi]

BIG love to all my sis-stars. IF YOU'RE WONDER WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH SOOTHEMYSISTERS PRODUCTIONS 1) We are: birthing a Not for Profit company. 2) We are dreaming/praying/working/ towards our first fund raiser for sistering.org with Stella Circulo Theatre featuring Alex Vermey's GORGEOUS show: "Prism". We may appear to be a little quiet at this time, HOWEVER, we are in perfect alignment with The Earth Mother. More to come soon! xo🥰

11/19/2020

11/16/2020

Eliška Junková-Khásová, born Alžběta Pospíšilová and also known as Elisabeth Junek, was a Czechoslovak automobile racer. She is regarded as one of the greatest female drivers in Grand Prix motor racing history, and is the first woman to win a Grand Prix event. One of her monitors was: Queen of the Steering Wheel. HAIL Kween!

09/24/2020

Reclaim the Wise Woman
Crone, hag, and witch once were positive words for old women. Crone comes from crown, indicating wisdom emanating from the head; hag comes from Hagio meaning holy; and witch comes from wit meaning wise.

Crones, hags, and witches frequently were leaders, midwives and healers in their communities.

The meanings of these three words, however, were distorted and eventually reversed during the 300 years of the Inquisition when the male-dominated church wanted to eliminate women holding positions of power.

Women identified as witches, who were often older women, i.e. crones and hags, were tortured and burned, and the words witch, crone, and hag took on the negative connotations that continue in our language. The Crone Movement, however, is re-claiming the positive meanings of these words.

Illustration: Nicola Bayley.

09/10/2020

I have always been a likkle bit in love with her.

Become a Member for exclusive perks and videos: https://bit.ly/ButtonMember Denice Frohman, performing at WoWPS 2013 in Minneapolis, MN. Help us decide which...