Dr. Rama Mani

Dr. Rama Mani is an internationally reputed scholar, poet, and practitioner of peace and security. Rama’s dream, since her childhood in India, was to wield the power and beauty of words to transform the world. This is one of her poems (click to hear her performing it).   

OURtopia
Co-creating Tomorrow Together Today

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We are women
Who have walked the Earth
We’ve savored her fruits
And stumbled on her rocks
We’ve struggled
But found
Our way. 
Alone and together
We’ve emerged from hardship
Lighter, and more connected.

And today
We’ve gathered here,
We women of unbreakable iron
Resilient as bamboo
Fragrant as nenuphars,
To shape the future
In the image of our dreams.

Don’t tell us we are naïve and not
Pragmatic!
Who was it that saved the seeds
In the great flood
That we might eat in times of drought? [/symple_column]

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Who was it that mid-wifed births
In snow and sandstorms, checkpoints, battlefields,
With anguish, but never a fuss?
Our intention steels us.

This world we envision
Stirs in our womb
Itches under our feet
And bursts with crystalline clarity
From our lips.

This is no Utopia or Fairyland:
We feel, touch, hear, smell it
We WANT it
As our children’s birthright.
As the only sensible way forward
Is to listen to our heartbeat
And heed the call of Spirit
The wisdom of the Ancients
The pulse of the Nascent
That beats steadily in our veins.

We are here to co-create Ourtopia
With you, our brothers, fathers, friends.
And nothing can stop us.

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From Rising Women, Rising World:  “We are living through the end of an epoch and the beginning of a new one. Women are not just witnessing the tides of transformation from the sidelines, as they were obliged to do in times past. Today, women are shaping these transformations in unexpected, creative and beautiful ways, in every part of the globe, even in the most divided war zones and amidst excruciating crises.”

Dr. Rama Mani feels passionately that creativity and artistic expression are vital for global transformation, because art can do what statistics cannot do – namely speak soul-to-soul. She’s passionate about the power of imagination, and encourages us to allow ourselves to “expand our imaginal cells” and imagine how the world could be, allowing whatever arises to drop in. This, Rama says, can help build “Ourtopia”. 

4GGL thanks The Shift Network for bringing this Voice to our attention.

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Rising Women, Rising World is a growing and diverse international circle of experienced women specialists with knowledge and expertise in the full spectrum of human development.

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