Gather the Women for the 5th Women's World Conference

The message to all women of the world is, "Wake Up! Arise! Do not ask for permission to gather the women. What cannot be done by men, or by individual women, can be done by women together. Earth is Home."

The quotation above comes from the book Urgent Message from Mother: Gather the Women and Save the World. It is an urgent message and an empowering one. "When women are strong together, women can be fiercely protective of what we love."

Author Jean Shinoda Bolen, M. D. is a psychiatrist, Jungian analyst, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco, a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and recipient of the Institute for Health and Healing’s "Pioneers in Art, Science, and the Soul of Healing Award". She is a former board member of the Ms. Foundation for Women. She also authored the following books: The Tao of Psychology, Goddesses in Everywoman, Gods in Everyman, Ring of Power, Crossing to Avalon, Close to the Bone, The Millionth Circle, Goddesses in Older Women, and Crones Don't Whine.

Urgent Message from Mother is a call to activism. Other well-known figures and writers have also heard the call and have responded to the message in the book. Here are some of those responses:

"Jean Shinoda Bolen's Urgent Message from Mother is a book whose time has come. Our earth home and all forms of life in it are at grave risk. We men have had our turn and made a proper mess of things. We need women to save us. I pray that many will read Bolen's work and be inspired then to act appropriately. Time is running out." Desmond Tutu

"This is the most inspiring and optimistic book I've read in years. It tells how women working together can bring us peace and save the planet. Jean Shinoda Bolen invites us all to join the next, most powerful wave of the women's movement. Count me in!" Isabel Allende

"Always urging us into circle and into peace, the healing power of Jean Shinoda Bolen's work and thought transforms all who will allow encounter. Jean never tires of wanting, and working for, our freedom, our healing and our health." Alice Walker

"Jean Shinoda Bolen shows us how the cult of masculinity is endangering us all. Women and men are equally human and fallible but at least women don't have our masculinity to prove — and that alone may make us the main saviors of this fragile Spaceship Earth." Gloria Steinem

"Urgent Message from Mother is a heart-shaking book which offers a powerful vision of why the world must change and how such a pivotal undertaking might be accomplished. In these compact pages Jean Shinoda Bolen courageously brings us to the brink of an erupting and necessary wisdom and to a feminine spiritual activism whose time is here and now." Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Mermaid Chair and The Secret Life of Bees

"Never have we needed the wisdom of Jean Shinoda Bolen more. This book brought me back to my spiritual center reminding me how much we need the stories of women to restore empathy to the world. Bolen has given us all an assignment: Gather, circle, act. Mother Earth is asking for our help. How can we not respond?" Terry Tempest Williams, author of The Open Space of Democracy

In her own effort to answer the call from Mother, Jean has been diligently working towards influencing the United Nations to sponsor a Fifth Women’s World Conference (5WWC). The first four conferences were sponsored by the United Nations. The last was held in Beijing in 1995 and produced the Beijing Platform for Action, which if fully implemented on a global scale would make the world a safe place for women and children. This will be possible only when violence of all kinds—from domestic to war, is no longer acceptable.

Jean states that she believes in the "necessity for a UN 5th Women’s World Conference to implement principles and goals already stated in the Beijing Platform for Action, UN Security Council Resolution 1325, and the Millennium Development Goals. There is no need to create further documents. There is a huge need to mobilize the women of the world without which, there is a lack of motivation and resources needed to bring about gender balance or take care women, children and the planet. Unless it is a UN sponsored conference, women from many developing countries will be unable to get visas and support."

Now at the beginning of the 21st century with the state of the world as it is, it is a crucial time for women to come together to make a difference. This conference would be the first since the Internet made worldwide communication easy and would likely be the largest and most effective gathering of women ever held. It would accelerate reaching a tipping point. What this means is that when a critical number of people change how they think and behave, the culture will also, and a new era begins.

Meeting in small circles, women changed the face of our culture in the 20th century. Women in small circles grew into the Women's Suffragette movement and women in consciousness-raising groups led to the women's movement of the 1970s. The Millionth Circle is a movement led by women to change planetary consciousness. It is believed that the inclusion of women circles from around the world would create an influence that would be a major step toward a change in planetary consciousness through the active involvement of women at every level of society.

In Jean's own words "Women who stand together for justice and peace are a moral force. The United Nations now has moral authority greater than any government or institution.We need each other and the world needs us to come together for there to be peace. We need a UN women’s conference so that the Beijing Platform for Action and Resolution 1325 will become an implemented worldwide women’s agenda.We need to gather the women, save the world."

Now is the time for action by all women and all women circles around the world. There is hope that in 2009 the UN will make a decision to support the convening of the 5th Women's World Conference. If planning begins now the goal will be to hold the conference in 2012.

One action everyone can take is to sign the on-line petition in support of convening a 5th Woman's World Conference. You can access the on-line petition by clicking here. Or if you prefer you can print one out to share with your circle of friends and family and then mail it in. The directions are on the bottom of the form. Click here for the printable version.

If you would like to read more about this subjext please visit the web site for the 5th Women's World Conference by clicking here. If you would like to learn more about Jean Shinoda Bolen and the Millionth Circle you can do so by clicking here.