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Women's Legacy Project > Blog > KNOW > How To > Publish & Preserve > Artifacts > Girls Dream, Women Plan

Girls Dream, Women Plan

Written by: womenslegacy
Published: March 12, 2015 -- Last Modified: March 12, 2015
2 Comments

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Girls dream of their weddings and begin a planning process that can last for decades.  We think about becoming a wife, mother, walking our education and career paths, where we want to travel, and where we live. Our wants have lots of planning and dream time.  As we write the book of our lives we sometimes forget that we actually can do the writing, recording and create and frame our own lives to be whatever we want.  Sometimes we spend decades planning the wrong things.  But as the first group of women to be creating our life stories in this digital information age with its instantaneous global communication we can collectively publish the information our mothers, grandmothers, and their foremothers were unable to collect and preserve.
I am so thankful to be alive at this time.  It has never been easier to wrap up a big beautiful present and give it to ourselves and the people we love.  We are the first generation of women to mature during the Age of Information.  Yes, it is a heady process to create the path a thousand generations will walk, but is it not the most glorious act of universal love and trust to be given this opportunity to shape a process?
We are writing our history the history of women for the very first time.  When this awareness dawned on me I was absolutely awestruck.  Women have never had a history.  History is most often the chronicle of lines drawn and battles waged.  The names of men who planned and waged the battles or drew the lines are writ down in the story and on rare occasion a woman’s name is salted into the mix when she, often as a last gasp effort,  maintained the lines or held a territory when no proper male was available to do so.  Elizabeth the 1st comes to mind as does Joan of Arc, perhaps even Kuan Yin.  These were not and are not insignificant female entities!
What amazes me most about this new process is that people are not aware of how life, and indeed planet-changing, this process is.  The most minute efforts dedicated to building a love-filled future that draws on the experiences and wisdom of women will have tremendous influence over our collective future.
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This may seem a bit esoteric and that is okay, because, like a mother’s love, building a history exists at many different levels.
Let me share an example from my own life.  I grew up hearing stories about Aunt Kit, my Great Grandmother’s sister.  These stories were mainly associated with items in my mother’s house. A pie safe and a school bell were some of my mother’s treasures.  She gave them to me early on in my early adulthood.  I am unsure whether she gave them to me to insure they would travel along our matrilineal family tree, or whether I wanted to see them travel along with our mitochondrial DNA through time and asked if I might have them.
I am so glad I did this when she was in her seventies and I was young.  It would not have worked out later.   The intentions of my mother for her earthly possessions were shattered and scattered through mishandling by those in charge of her legal and medical affairs at the end of her life and her estate after she passed on.
But I have the beautiful tones of a bright, clear brass school bell and the hand-crafted safe-house for generations of pies and cakes.  Education and nourishment.  My feminine biological ancestors.  These are treasures because they embody and evoke stories and love over and through generations.  They keep the connections with us and help us tell our stories so that our future daughters, and sons, will have the best of us as well as those who have come before to draw upon as they journey through life.

Categories: Artifacts

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Comments

  1. Pam

    April 2, 2015 at 11:29 pm

    I find it interesting that women’s legacies were often discussed in the kitchen, with cooking related items taking center stage. I would like to be around for our daughter’s daughter’s view of what is worth sharing with her daughter.

    Reply
    • Nancy Hill

      April 3, 2015 at 8:55 am

      Exactly. But we won’t be, so we need to add to the information base and create multiple channels where information can flow upon demand.

      Reply

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