Wives importance in settling Jamestown, Va

The Jamestown Company had a serious problem. Would-be settlers were abandoning the colony and returning to England. Why? Almost every colonist was a man. They might be willing to endure famine, disease, and warfare, but many of the colonists weren’t willing to do without a wife. And, of course, a colony without women wasn’t sustainable. So, the Company knew it had to do something to lure eligible brides to Jamestown.

To make the prospect of life on the Virginia frontier enticing, the Company devised a remarkable set of incentives. Women who agreed to come to Virginia to find a husband were provided free transportation, clothing, furniture, and a plot of land in their own name. They were also given property and inheritance rights that they wouldn’t have in England. Best of all they were allowed to choose their own husband (who was guaranteed to be wealthy). Each woman was courted by dozens of eager suitors, and the Company provided her with room and board while she weighed her options and made her choice.

A man lucky enough to win the wife sweepstakes was obligated to pay the Company 150 pounds of prime tobacco. A decade into its existence, the wife-supply business was the only part of the Jamestown Company’s operations that was profitable.

Strong woman

“A strong woman is a woman bleeding

inside. A strong woman is a woman making

herself strong every morning while her teeth

loosen and her back throbs. Every baby,

a tooth, midwives used to say, and now

every battle a scar. A strong woman

is a mass of scar tissue that aches

when it rains and wounds that bleed

when you bump them and memories that get up

in the night and pace in boots to and fro.

A strong woman is a woman who craves love

like oxygen or she turns blue choking.

A strong woman is a woman who loves

strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly

terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong

in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;

she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf

suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she

enacts it as the wind fills a sail.

What comforts her is others loving

her equally for the strength and for the weakness

from which it issues, lightning from a cloud.

Lightning stuns. In rain, the clouds disperse.

Only water of connection remains,

flowing through us. Strong is what we make

each other. Until we are all strong together,

a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.”

-Marge Piercy, from “For Strong Women”

Art by Malak Mattar

She will rise

She’s finally hit the point where she’s done with it all.

She’s done with people letting her down, trying to disrespect her and hurt her.

No more.

She has been beaten down and hit rock bottom, but she’s not staying there.

She’s been lost for too long and it’s her time now.

She’s rising up from the ashes with the courage of a thousand warriors and the roar of a million lions.

No longer will she accept failure, mistakes and struggle.

She’s been trapped in the fires of life for too long and she’s choosing to become more.

She’s the Phoenix that cannot be stopped and she will rise up above those that would see her fail.

Bruises, dents and scratches won’t dissuade her from pushing forward and rising up.

Her veins are coursing with the fiery passion that fills her spirit and she won’t be denied.

She’s been denied, put off and disregarded for far too long.

She’s turning the page, setting her world ablaze and taking back her life.

Pain from her past is the fuel for her ascent and she’s on fire with an undeniable hunger to rise above, to succeed, to start realizing her dreams.

Those words that used to define her ..”can’t”, “won’t”, “shouldn’t”..those are forgotten, never to be uttered again.

The world has never seen a creature like her, with an indomitable drive to find her wings and fly higher than she ever knew she could.

She’s leaving behind the haters, the jealous, the disbelievers and anyone else that won’t stand by her side as she fights her way to the top.

She knows what she deserves and she’s not settling for anything less than what she wants.

She’s waited her entire life for this one chance to become what she was always meant to be.

No more second guessing, hesitation or questions.

She’s doing what she has to do to push through and fight for her dreams.

It won’t be easy- her life never has been..but this time, she won’t be denied.

She’s more than a warrior, a strong woman or a lioness,

She is a Phoenix rising,

And her time is now.

|Ravenwolf

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Read About Health Struggles for Millennial, Gen Z Women

New research finds that a broken healthcare system, a pandemic, toxic social media content and more is harming younger women in droves.
— Read on thestoryexchange.org/study-millennial-gen-z-women-at-the-highest-risk-of-early-death-in-decades/

Own Your Wanting

”If women trusted and claimed their desires, the world as we know it would crumble. Perhaps that is precisely what needs to happen so we can

rebuild truer, more beautiful lives, relationships, families, and nations in their place.

Maybe Eve was never meant to be our warning. Maybe she was meant to be our model.

Own your wanting.

Eat the apple.

Let it burn.”

– Glennon Doyle, Untamed

”And you will be like God” – Liz Darling Art

The Rocket Girls – Women who chartered the course to space

“In the 1940s, an elite team of mathematicians and scientists started working on a project that would carry the U.S. into space, then on to the moon and Mars. They would eventually become NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (or JPL) [in California], but here’s what made them so unusual: Many of the people who charted the course to space exploration were women.” Their story is told by author Nathalia Holt in her book, ‘Rise of the Rocket Girls,’ a timely read for this week’s Computer Science Education Week!

“‘In a time before the digital devices that we’re used to today, it was humans that were doing the calculations,’ Holt explains. ‘And so you needed these teams of people — many of whom were women, especially during World War II — and they were responsible for the math.’… Today, she says, ‘There is hardly a mission that you can find in NASA that these women haven’t touched.'”

Holt hopes that her book will inspire girls and women of all ages to pursue their interests in science and technology: “My hope is that these women serve as role models, not just for my daughter of course, but for all of the women that are interested in science. It’s a difficult time for women in technology right now. In 1984, 37 percent of all bachelor’s degrees in computer science were awarded to women, and today that number has dropped to 18 percent. And even for women that are working in science today, it’s about half of all women that leave midcareer. So I think these stories are important for inspiring and being role models that are so much needed for women today.”

“Rise of the Rocket Girls” is highly recommended for adult readers at https://www.amightygirl.com/rise-of-the-rocket-girls

To introduce kids to more trailblazing women of NASA, we recommend “Galaxy Girls: 50 Amazing Stories of Women in Space” for ages 7 to 12 (https://www.amightygirl.com/galaxy-girls) and “Gutsy Girls Go For Science: Astronauts” for ages 8 to 12 (https://www.amightygirl.com/gutsy-girls-astronauts)

For a fun doll for young space lovers, we recommend the Astrophysicist Doll for ages 3 to 7 at https://www.amightygirl.com/astrophysicist-doll

For coding kits and toys to encourage kids’ interest in programming at every age, visit the ‘Coding & Robotics’ section of our 2023 Holiday Gift Guide at https://www.amightygirl.com/holiday-guide

To listen to Holt’s interview on NPR, visit http://n.pr/1Ye6uaE

Sewing

“To sew is to pray. Men don’t understand this. They see the whole but they don’t see the stitches. They don’t see the speech of the creator in the work of the needle. We mend. We women turn things inside out and set things right. We salvage what we can of human garments and piece the rest into blankets. Sometimes our stitches stutter and slow. Only a woman’s eyes can tell. Other times, the tension in the stitches might be too tight because of tears, but only we know what emotion went into the making. Only women can hear the prayer.” ~ LOUISE ERDRICH, Four Souls

Art: Thread of Life by Jakki Moore

Women

“A little more matriarchy is what the world needs, and I know it.
Period.
Paragraph.”

~ Dorothy Thompson

“Recorded history starts with a patriarchal revolution. Let it continue with the matriarchal counterrevolution that is the only hope for the survival of the human race.”

~ Elizabeth Gould Davis

Art: Cheryl Baker, “Aveline, Mother of the Woodlanands”
Timeless Art of Cheryl Baker

#FolkTradition #Matriarch #SeasonoftheMatriarch

Winter n Women

“When winter comes to a woman’s soul, she withdraws into her inner self, her deepest spaces. She refuses all connection, refutes all arguments that she should engage in the world. She may say she is resting, but she is more than resting: She is creating a new universe within herself, examining and breaking old patterns, destroying what should not be revived, feeding in secret what needs to thrive . . .

Look into her eyes, this winter woman. In their gray spaciousness you can see the future. Look out of your own winter eyes. You too can see the future.”

~ Patricia Monaghan, Seasons of the Witch

https://www.facebook.com/patricia.monaghan.96

Art: Alla Tsank, “First Snow”

allatsankfineart.com

#SacredSistersFullMoonCircle #Spirituality #WomensWisdom #WomensEmpowerment #RedTent #Goddess #GoddessStudies #GoddessCircle #SacredFeminine #CyclicalLiving #WheeloftheYear #Mythology #Magick #Folklore #FolkTradition #BeautyTruthandLove #Winter #WinterWoman #WinterSolstice

Akiko Busch: ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ Shows Aging Has Benefits – The Atlantic

My invisibility began in my early 30’s

As they age, women experience less public scrutiny—and entertain a wider set of choices about when and how they are seen.
— Read on www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/02/akiko-busch-mrs-dalloway-shows-aging-has-benefits/583480/