As we go marching, marching, unnumbered women dead Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread. Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew. Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses, too!
As we go marching, marching, we are standing proud and tall. The rising of the women means the rising of us all.
No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes, But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!
In 1907, the Skowhegan textile strike led by a 17 year old girl worker at Marston Worsted Mill stood up to a culture of sexual harassment and retaliatory firing… this was the first successful strike of the IWW. It preceded and made possible the famous Bread and Roses Strike led by women workers in 1912. I’ve been reflecting on this 110 year anniversary of the Bread and Roses strike and the 5 years that built up to that point… in the same way the pivotal year of 2017 (The murder of an unapologetically Pro-Black Abolitionist freedom fighter young man we loved named Brandon Harrison and so many more events in our lives) brought us to this tipping point in 2022.
This Lunar New Year - Year of the Water Tiger is being ridden into 2022 by the goddess Durga’s many armed powers to remove all obstacles & Queen Mother of the West - Xi Wangmu’s medicinal potency - of the elixirs of life from the Kunlun mountains to make the dreams we don’t dare to speak possible.
The striking women and children on the frontlines chanted “We want Bread 🥖 and Roses 🌹 too!” We want to survive with sustenance but so much more than that, we want refuge and replenishment, for our art and writings to be published and honored, for our sisters and children to delight in beauty and wonder and possibility. This New Moon in Aquarius bring the possibility of the Age of Aquarius- of a New Era of Justice and Harmony on Earth coupled with the Tiger Year bringing the Courage of the Heart that we needed. ❤️🐅🧧🥮🍊🥖🌹
For sisters who feel called by the seed potency of the New Moon and Tiger Lunar New Year email rossamedicine@gmail.com for an invite and ask to be put on the Our Medicine is Resistance email list for opportunities to gather and for personal and collective consecration of Sagrada Femenina ✨
