If we would listen to the universe, we would notice that it’s always whispering messages to us through songs, dreams, numbers, animals, coincidences and thoughts.

These invisible threads connect us all. Yet, we have forgotten that nature is not just our environment, but who we are at our core.

This poem is a song to the sisterhood of the earth, driven by the young women and girls I have mentored personally and through my work with UNESCO and UNICEF. It is Mother Earth whispering a message of awakening to her daughters. It is my sacred prayer for all of those rising up for the regeneration of our world.

It carries the fragile flame of my soul after waves of heartbreaking losses and a perpetual journey of healing. It is my rage against the dying of the light, and an homage to my beloved professor, the greatest Gandhi scholar alive, Dennis Dalton, who taught standing room only at Barnard College at Columbia University. This poem is the blossoming of the seeds of nonviolence he planted in the hearts of so many of us through his impassioned teachings of the great thinkers—Plato, Gandhi, Malcolm X, and King. It is the weaving of Eastern and Western thought, and my love of notions like ahimsa, respect of all living things and the avoidance of violence toward others, and satyagraha—holding onto truth, or “truth force.”

This poem is about the light within each of us—the power we possess to do the deeply personal work needed to heal ourselves and our dying Earth. These verses seek to stir you on this journey of remembering as you rise in your power, replacing competition with compassion and fear with love.

Spirit Daughter

I did not birth you with my body.
I imagined you in my dreams,
sweet daughter of destiny,
made of moonbeams.
Surrender to the waters of fate
without being clouded
by what others dictate.

I am not concerned
with your radiant beauty
or glowing skin,
for the beauty I seek from you
lies only within.

Generations before you
have hidden their shame,
passing their pain
through
our bloodlines,
our bellies,
our breast-milk.

Rising and falling,
repeating cycles of life,
The “Sisterhood of the Lotus”
has gathered in secret
to heal all our strife.
Anger, jealousy,
division, and hate;
nothing more
than worthless weight.

You are Love,
sweet star.
Feel this truth,
swelling in your chest.
Know I never lie to you,
and that you are blessed.

Call it truth,
call it fate,
nothing is more real
than your natural state.

Separation, you see,
is but an illusion
created to divide—
to elicit confusion.
Ego wants you
S e p a r a t e
from our entire existence;
D e s p e r a t e,
Passive Resistance.
I want you
whole,
please forgive
my persistence.

Uncover
seeds of
wisdom.
Seek
your own truth.
This letter,
little lotus flower,
is my gift
to you in
your youth.

Look for no shaman,
guide, or preacher,
for your body is
your temple,
and nature,
your only teacher.