LA TIGRESA'S WOMANIFESTO

or WHY I GO BARE BREASTED INTO THE FOREST

by La Tigresa

Traditional means of protest are no longer enough.

Nearly 99% of California's old growth redwood forests have been cut down.

Coho salmon are almost extinct. And still the rape of Mother Nature continues.

I go bare breasted into the forest to embody Mother Earth, pleading to be protected and preserved.

The chainsaws, bulldozers and logging trucks stop in their tracks when they see me.

I am the Earth Mother begging them to do no more harm to my naked, sacred body.

Mother's breast is the first nourishment a baby receives.

Mother Earth gives us all of our nourishment: food, water, air.

Every culture personifies the Earth as the Great Mother.

The Earth has always been seen as a woman's body.

I want the loggers to see in me an image that is vulnerable, sacred, beautiful.

I speak my poetry to them saying, "I am the Earth", so they can begin to see the Earth as also vulnerable, sacred, beautiful.

I want them to see me as an image to be protected and cherished, not hurt or damaged.

I want them to see the Earth in that same way.

And they are stopping work to listen to my lengthy poem, "I Am the Goddess".

They are talking to me. They are getting my message. And so is the world.

I get their attention dramatically -- and my common sense request for sustainable forestry then has a chance to be heard.

And heeded. "The most ancient name for God in the Hebrew language is El Shaddai,

It means 'The Mountain-Breasted One' Before you invented God, you remembered Me."

(from La Tigresa's poem "I Am the Goddess" complete text of poem available online at www.earthfilms.org )

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