Lea Sovran created the word she'alahn, meaning peace, harmony, strength, courage, and compassion in the Life Force. It is a greeting, a farewell, and the "So be it" and "Amen" at the end of meditations.

She'alahn, Volume One is based on the real experiences of women. The first section, The Book of Woman, presents imagined letters shared among women across several decades that include strategies for solving common problems women face. The Book of Woman>/i> helps you believe that virtually anything may be possible for you and that you are not alone in your concerns. You are capable of changing the world and of working miracles.

The second section, Th e Doctrine of the Faith of the Life Force, offers women spiritual support without male gods, without being treated as second-class citizens, and without indebtedness to "Higher Powers"-a faith for responsible, concerned women. The primary injunction of this faith asks us to be more accountable for our actions so we have greater power to heal the Earth.

She'alahn, Volume One aims to uplift and encourage women to share ideas with other women, debate them, and begin changing the world for the better.

She'alahn, Volume One

The Book of Woman, Volume One: Secret Writings (a Novel Idea)/The Doctrine of the Faith of the Life Force, Volume OneBy Lea Sovran

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Lea Sovran
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-3783-3

Contents

Dear Readers, Dear Friends,..................................................................................................17The Book of Woman, Secret Writings (A Novel Idea), Volume One:...............................................................17PART I: MISCELLANEOUS........................................................................................................37The first letter in mother's box.............................................................................................37Call to Action...............................................................................................................39"ARE THESE JUST MORE 'ANGRY FEMINIST' LETTERS?"..............................................................................43HOW DID THE OPPRESSION OF WOMEN COME TO PASS?................................................................................45What in Faith is the Matter with Men?........................................................................................47STATISTICS THAT DISPELL ILLUSIONS............................................................................................54The Good Wife-Hooey!.........................................................................................................58"The Good Wife's Guide" from The Homemakers' Journal, May, 1955, Ontario, Canada.............................................59What We Women Are Taught about Ourselves.....................................................................................63Many Women Blame "The Woman" When a Marriage Goes Wrong......................................................................65Liking Men, Hating Male Dominance............................................................................................69Please, Don't Call Me Sister.................................................................................................74Yin-Yang.....................................................................................................................75PART II: WOMEN AND RELIGION..................................................................................................81Miracles.....................................................................................................................81Consider Christianity........................................................................................................83The Virgin Birth-A Woman's Re-Write..........................................................................................91Extreme Biblical Condemnation versus a Couple of New Testament Quotes........................................................95Crazy, Crazy Book-Stopping Some "Fun" Religious Types from Using the Bible (Torah, Koran) to Hurt Others.....................102Loaves and Fishes ... Women Are The Miracle..................................................................................104CHRISTIANITY AND VIOLENCE-A SUDDEN REALIZATION...............................................................................108"Is There Any Good in Any Existing Religion?"................................................................................112I Wonder If There Really Is A Need for A Woman's Alternative Faith...........................................................113The Good Little Woman........................................................................................................115Walk Yer Talk: Visible Religion..............................................................................................117PART III: WOMEN AND SEX......................................................................................................120Religion and Women's Sexual Entrapment.......................................................................................120Myths of Romantic Love and Sex...............................................................................................122Men and Masturbation.........................................................................................................126Young Men, Masturbation, and Condoms.........................................................................................129Birth Control, Such as It Is.................................................................................................130Abortion.....................................................................................................................133Fertilized Eggs..............................................................................................................139Menstruation and Sex.........................................................................................................140Premenstrual Syndrome and Menstrual Pain.....................................................................................142Hysterectomies...............................................................................................................144Menopause....................................................................................................................146Breast Cancer................................................................................................................148Promiscuity..................................................................................................................151Women and Homosexuality......................................................................................................153Sex, Sexism, and Words.......................................................................................................156PART IV: BIRTH AND CHILDREN..................................................................................................160The Rich Get Rich and The Poor Get Children..................................................................................160What Children Aren't.........................................................................................................162Teach Your Children How to Cope with Bullies and Abusers.....................................................................167Am I Disciplining or Abusing My Children?....................................................................................179Wrenched Hearts: Shared Custody..............................................................................................185PART V: MORE WOMEN'S LESSONS.................................................................................................192Trust and Lying ... and Nicole...............................................................................................192Hello, Life Force Women, Emily here, again:..................................................................................205Note from Lea on Nicole's story from Emily...................................................................................206HOW TO DEAL WITH MALE CHAUVINISTS............................................................................................207Family and Family............................................................................................................214Overcoming What We Have Been Told about Women................................................................................220A Sample of What Some Women Were Taught about Women..........................................................................221DEPRESSION AND SUICIDE.......................................................................................................222WOMEN AND DOCTORS AND NURSES.................................................................................................229Lessons of the Doctor/Nurse Stories..........................................................................................233WOMEN AND LAWYERS............................................................................................................237WOMEN AND THERAPISTS OR COUNSELORS...........................................................................................241The Good Partner; The Bad Partner............................................................................................242Fear of Failure, Fear of Success, and Fear of Riches and Power: Practice Being Rich and Powerful.............................246Diet, Exercise, Appearance, Bulimia, Anorexia, and Stuff.....................................................................250WOMEN'S SURNAMES.............................................................................................................254PART VI: LEA SOVRAN'S CLOSING ESSAY..........................................................................................261Chapter 1: YOUR FEMALE FRIENDS AND MALE PARTNERS.............................................................................261Chapter 2: CAN MEN HELP US?..................................................................................................264Chapter 3: THE MYTH OF SISTERHOOD............................................................................................264Chapter 4: THE MEANING OF SARAH'S STORY......................................................................................267Chapter 5: WHY WOMEN IN POWER CANNOT BE TRUSTED..............................................................................267Chapter 6: TOTAL EQUALITY IS AN ILLUSION.....................................................................................268Chapter 7: DOES THIS MEAN WOMEN MUST BECOME LIKE MEN?........................................................................269Chapter 8: DON'T WOMEN EVER GET A BREAK?.....................................................................................271Chapter 9: SO, WHAT DO WE WOMEN DO?..........................................................................................272

Chapter One

PART I: MISCELLANEOUS

The first letter in mother's box

Dear Lea,

Although you may not read this until after I die-and although I wish I'd had the strength to tell you all I thought you would need to know while I was alive-I write this for you, now. I hope you will find in it all the love I am sending you.

Here is the fundamental dilemma for women. The quality often called "human nature," the tendency to fear the unknown, are among the greatest obstacles for women, for all those who are seeking emancipation from the chains of antiquated attitudes. This has been true for all groups who've needed to create some form of rebellion to improve their condition. I see this hesitancy in you from time-to-time, no matter how frighteningly fearless you usually are.

Here is an example from the lives of others. It was astonishing to me to learn that very few American slaves were willing to rebel against their owners and masters to end their slavery. Over roughly two centuries, there were about 250 slave rebellions. Think of that! Only a little more than one rebellion a year for over 200 years! Apparently, most of those wrongly-incarcerated and abused people had been taught much too well to fear the consequences of daring to seize freedom. We all know that they truly yearned for, wanted, and cherished freedom, but the perceived-price was, for most, too high to risk.

Similarly, I was horrified to read that the vast majority of the six million Jews killed by the Nazis in World War II went to the death camps without overt uprising.

From 1917 to 1950, Stalin sent millions to be executed in Russia, largely without mass rebellion.

Learning this, I found myself puzzling, Why didn't these people fight back?

I thought about women, all over the world for many, many millennia who were and are oppressed, held down, beaten, even killed by "their" men, and I realized that "fighting back," however essential, has never been an automatic or easy response.

Because of these realizations, here is what I most want you to hear, Lea: First, it is men who benefit from the oppression of women. Men as a mass, men whom we may love. Men pose the greatest threat to the full freedom of women.

But the second impediment to women asserting their power is women themselves. Most women currently prefer security to power, choice, and the burdens of true freedom. "Better the devil we know than the unknown devil" seems to be our attitude. And, of course, as long as we are relatively comfortable, as long as we're not the focus of the worst oppression happening in the world around us, we can say to ourselves "better them than me" to justify doing nothing about our oppression or the oppression of others.

There is nothing sinister about our feelings. These attitudes are human, common, and absolutely wrong! People who accept oppression are not bad-they are weak. And every ruler, every tyrant, every master, employer, or oppressor throughout all human time has counted on this stupid, fearful acceptance of the status quo in order to keep the oppressed masses subservient.

But you, dear, and your female friends must surprise the oppressors (and even yourselves) by refusing to accept such destructive herd-like behavior. You younger women must stand up for yourselves, individually, and for each other, collectively, in every instance, and insist on humane and egalitarian treatment. You, my dear, must stand up and fight. I know my time is coming to an end, so I pass the task, the torch (as it were), and She'alahn to you! Peace, harmony, strength, courage, and compassion!

Women must choose to live bravely, beginning now! In this material, I offer you another tool, another source of power: Draw your strength from the Life Force, dear, and know always that I love you, always and forever, in all my transformations in and of matter and energy.

Your mother,

Eleanor She'alahn! September 13, 2002

Call to Action

London, England, 1893 Dearest Sisters,

Awaken! Clear your vision! Attune your ears to women's voices and to the thoughts and feelings of your own sacred hearts and minds.

I know that I am not the only woman on this remarkable Earth who may feel a powerful need to commune with other women, to seek the support and comfort of women. If women knew where to begin and how to proceed, if we had encouragement, there would be so much good that we could do to uplift our lives and the lives of those around us.

While the industrialized machines of society bring us mechanized manufacturing, steam engines, and even electricity, the lot of most women and children and the lot of the poor, the scrabbling existence of the majority of humans is generally quite wretched and becomes more unbearable each day as more become destitute while a mere handful of men prosper.

We women must not continue tolerating such inequity. We must work together, sharing our support, using our collective strength and our individual determination to salvage our lives, all the while struggling to end the injustices that virtually all women suffer. We cannot wait for others to teach us where to begin and how to proceed. We must determine these things ourselves, as we encourage one another.

I am writing this letter for those of you who will, I believe, assist each other in healing our world, making it a more humane place for all to live.

Please, listen. Please, share.

Women, we are remarkable human beings. We have strengths that are most amazing: mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual strengths. Despite our skills, our superior attributes, our abilities, and our grace, all over the world women are treated as possessions, as inferiors, as servants, as slaves. In virtually every culture, women are given demeaning work in all trades and are paid far less than are men, if paid at all. In addition, women must bear with the challenges of pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, and child-rearing while performing their slave labours. Yet, despite these disadvantages and burdens, the great majority of women endure with courage. We women, all women, have dignity in the face of obstacles that would daunt men; but we persevere undaunted.

Women have virtues in abundance; and our virtues exceed those of men, except as regards the following issues. We women often seem to lack the courage to oppose men's oppression of women, and we fail to acknowledge our participation in that oppression. We deny our part in the destruction of our physical world. We avoid the important tasks we must assume in order to help save the people, creatures, fields and forests, rivers, lakes, and oceans of this Earth. To speak plainly: although we are victims, we also have assisted our tormenters.

In order to alter these circumstances, we must accept the challenge of improving the world in three important ways.

Firstly, we must learn to act bravely and to take responsibility for our unwitting collusion in our own oppression. We must stop thinking that we somehow deserve the abuse that has been heaped upon us. We must stop feeling that we have brought unfairness upon ourselves. We must no longer accept circumstances as they have been as the circumstances that are inevitable. We must begin believing that our individual action can and will make a difference, that it can alter society. We must stop telling ourselves that there is nothing we can do to improve our lot, when there is so much that must be done, must be improved, must be corrected. Morally and ethically, we may no longer accept our passivity, our inaction. We must take responsibility and act. Our efforts can change the world.

Secondly, we must admit our part in the destruction of the social and physical world in which we live, whether that destruction be ignorant and unintentional or active and purposeful. We, women and men, are damaging our precious Earth in so many ways: through the fouling of air, water, and land; through the thoughtless extraction of minerals; through the mindless overuse of soils and rapacious cutting of forests; through the slaughter of irreplaceable animal species; through the oppression, abuse, and murder of other human groups; through burgeoning populations; through all forms of warfare. We women cannot expect men to heal these damages because men have directly caused most of them for their own self-serving purposes. Men will not repair what they have harmed. Women must act.

Therefore, thirdly and finally, we women must guide the healing of our planet ourselves. We must do whatever work needs to be done to repair and nurture our fragile vessel, Earth, and to preserve its precious cargo. We must work energetically to protect, preserve, and restore not merely the human cargo but also the mineral, the plant, animal, and the insect cargo as well.

I have read the thoughtful writings of women. The ideas and actions of these women have encouraged, guided, and sustained me. All women, however, need more encouragement. We need, for example, to share the books and letters that sustain us, and we must also contribute our own thoughts and experiences, communicating them with one another. Then, we can use that shared information to help ourselves achieve the three goals of acknowledging our part in our own oppression, of clearly seeing and stopping the dangerous destruction of the earth, and of leading humanity to healing.

I call the writings that we may share in this quest "The Book of Woman." These writings will also become the core of A New Woman's Faith, "The Faith of the Life Force," a faith not controlled by male leaders, by male values, by wonton male destructiveness, by temperamental male gods, or by the omnipresent belittling of women found in so many faiths.

By sharing our insights and thoughts, we women will make one another more aware of the unacknowledged dangers of oppression in our lives. We will become more cautious about men's roles in subjecting women to belittling. In addition, these writings may help women to see the ways in which they are oppressing themselves, so that they and other women may cease their unwitting cooperation in such destructive activity. This material and all that we will contribute in the future will guide our work in saving the Earth. "The Book of Woman" and "The Faith of the Life Force," as they build and grow, will give women a new creed, new principles, and new guidelines for women's work as leaders. These words, and those we share subsequently, will help all women find strong new pride, courage, and wisdom within themselves. We will exchange writings and take action to right the wrongs wrought by men. In so doing, we will create hope for the future of the world. We will create a miracle.

In these many shared and evolving essays and letters, we will deliberate about a long struggle, across generations. Yet this struggle is also one that, however peaceably, must happen with the speed of revolution in order to save ourselves, humanity, and our Earth Home. This will be a miracle, this slow-and-yet-fast revolutionary-evolution in world culture.

A miracle is merely that which happens beyond our ordinary powers to comprehend. The miracle of the power of women will be such an event: a change so fundamental that it will be accomplished even before most realize it has begun.

One way we may choose to find each other is through the use of our symbol for "The Book of Woman" and "The Faith of the Life Force." It is the scientific sign for "women" blended with the mathematical sign for "infinity." The result is an Arabic numeral "8" with a "+" suspended in the lower loop. This represents the infinite strength and power of women. It means peace, harmony, strength, courage, and compassion.

Over the years, as we share our wisdom through our writing, this compilation will grow and evolve. It will become the writings of the women's miracle. When we women say, "We will!" the miracle will unfold as we begin the process of saving ourselves and of striving to save Life on Earth.

Take on the responsibility! Accept the challenge! Begin to act now!

I have taken a new name for myself in this cause, a name that represents effectiveness and power. My new name is "Lea Sovran." "Lea" represents the woman's name "Leah" (my courageous grandmother's name), the middle syllable of my mother's name, "Eleanor." "Lea" means an open meadow with potential for grazing and for growing crops, and it is also a homonym for the seafaring word for "protective shelter," for that which is out of the wind, hidden in the "lee." It is succinct and yet lyrical, with nurturing meanings of protection, growth, and potential. "Sovran" is a deliberate phonetic representation of the word "sovereign" with connotations of both independence and leadership.

I do not, however, want to be to be seen as the individual leader of this movement. Instead, I desire that we women see ourselves as powerful and responsible co-leaders within our own hearts and minds. Even when we find ourselves unable to take public action, we must be aware of our potential influence on the events of the world around us. In this manner, we women may all well become self-ruling leaders: "sovereigns."

Please freely use my symbolic new name for yourselves if it will give you strength.

With love and affection, with admiration for your courage, in the full and energetic flow of the Life Force, very respectfully yours,

"Lea Sovran" Ne Ellen Finch, self-recreated in my renewed power as a woman

"ARE THESE JUST MORE 'ANGRY FEMINIST' LETTERS?"

Des Moines, Iowa 12/85

Hey, does anyone have any idea what I can say to my friend who said, "Uck! No! Not more angry feminist letters!"???

I tried to share some of my Book of Woman with her, but I knew there was no use arguing with her. She's one of those, once she's set down on a rock, won't move until the flood waters rise-and maybe not even then. And don't try to persuade her, because, if you say it's white, she's likely to say it's black, just to be contrary. I did finally get her to listen to one of the funny letters, but she still won't read. Acts as if she'll catch cooties or feminism if she touches 'em herself-I'm open to suggestions.

Me, personally, I don't think that this is just a bunch a' angry stuff-my collection isn't anyway.

I mean, these are hopeful pages-at least, they are for me. They give me strength. They give me good ideas. I think they're supposed to help women-to help everyone, not just to make people mad. Somebody said that this was a bunch a women just a bitchin'! Imagine that! Like we women don't have a lot to bitch about!

But, No, that is also not true!

Come to think've it, tho, there is anger here. I mean, how couldn't there be? You've got a right to be riled up when you've been misled, misused, and abused. Sure. But I think all that anger's supposed to get us 'round to doing something constructive.

I explained to my friend that, sure, there was some anger-the kind that's intended to make you wanna share a story and the kind that's designed to kick you in the butt to fix something. One kind's in the letters, the other kind's supposed to be in you after you read them.

Then there's a third kind of anger-way more scary, and that's the anger of those creepy people who hear these ideas and want to stop them, crush them, destroy them and destroy the people who believe in them. Well, think about it. 'Course, we're gonna make certain kinds of other people angry, writing stuff like this-just like the Emancipation Proclamation or Carry Nation.

The big guys, the fat cats, the people who are comfortable with things just the way they are, the dudes who are on top because they climbed up there on the backs of folks like us, people like that'll hate all this. Some of us'll probably be yelled at, spit on, threatened-even jailed, maybe. That stuff isn't new. That's not our anger in action-that's their fear.

But, if we stay steadfast and true, our miracle'll happen, anyway. Even my friend wants that. I left a couple letters with her and I really hope she'll take a chance and start reading them. It'll change her.

So, spicy sisters, please keep writing. Keep changing the world. Keep on working miracles through the Life Force.

Love ya all!

'Lea' Mags S. 'Sovran' She'alahn, Volume One

(Continues...)

Excerpted from She'alahn, Volume Oneby Lea Sovran Copyright © 2010 by Lea Sovran. Excerpted by permission.
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