Happy Women’s History Month!

In my career as a photographer, I have had the honor of photographing incredible women from all around the world, from India to Australia, Indonesia, Myanmar, China, Tibet, the USA, France, Brazil, Colombia, and many other countries. I am grateful to my photographic journeys for bringing me closer to these women who have not only served as great sources of inspiration but also been teachers of important life lessons. 

In all these women, I have seen one form of Devi or another. And the truth is this: ambitious women have had few leaders to follow in their footsteps. History, thus far, has shared more stories of war and male leaders than of women gathering or grandmother's tales. Most indigenous stories were oral, passed down from one generation to the next through stories and time spent with the elders. Now, as we move away from the land we were born on, that old way of passing traditional knowledge has been lost. Many women don't get to grow up with their grandmothers. Women don't need to be like men to thrive in this world, this we all understand, but when separated from their communities, their tribe, and their grandmothers, who do they turn to to get the knowledge and wisdom of how to be a woman? The world is too big for women to stay in the place where they were born. For this reason I am very grateful for the women teachers who have come in my path and women authors who make these truths accessible to all. 

Women these days are either creating history or rewriting it. Bringing teachers and teachings to the West, advocating for other women, breaking the gender norms especially in the corporate world, giving back to the Earth, sharing vulnerable experiences more openly with the world, or sharing their deep wisdom with those who need it. 

RECOMMENDED READING

I have put together a list of words I have come across over the years in the books I read that are worth reflecting on everyday really, but using this day as an excuse to especially pay extra attention to them. 

“When women lose themselves, the world loses its way. We do not need more selfless women. What we need right now is more women who have detoxed themselves so completely from the world’s expectations that they are full of nothing but themselves. What we need are women who are full of themselves. A woman who is full of herself knows and trusts herself enough to say and do what must be done. She lets the rest burn.” 
— Glennon Doyle

“Women belong in all places where decisions are being made.”
– Ruth Bader Ginsburg

 “There is a danger in the repudiation of the feminine when the daughter who rejects the aspects of the negative feminine embodied by her mother also denies positive aspects of her own feminine nature, which are playful, sensuous, passionate, nurturing, intuitive, and creative. Many women who have had angry or emotional mothers seek to control their own anger and feelings lest they be seen as destructive and castrating. This repression of anger often prevents them from seeing the inequities in a male-defined system. Women who have seen their mothers as superstitious, religious, or old-fashioned discard the murky, mysterious, magical aspects of the feminine for cool logic and analysis. A chasm is created between the heroine and the maternal qualities within her; this chasm will have to be healed later in the journey for her to achieve wholeness.” 
― Maureen Murdock, The Heroine's Journey

“So many women having taken the hero’s journey, only to find it personally empty and dangerous for humanity. Women emulated the male heroic journey because there were no other images to emulate;” 
― Maureen Murdock, The Heroine's Journey

 “I've seen women insist on cleaning everything in the house before they could sit down to write... and you know it's a funny thing about housecleaning... it never comes to an end. Perfect way to stop a woman. A woman must be careful to not allow over-responsibility (or over-respectabilty) to steal her necessary creative rests, riffs, and raptures. She simply must put her foot down and say no to half of what she believes she "should" be doing. Art is not meant to be created in stolen moments only.” 
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves