Stories From Women Who Walk

Hello to you listening in Hamburg, Germany!

Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is Stories From Women Who Walk with 60 Seconds for Motivate Your Monday and your host, Diane Wyzga.

We are living in a time of historic upheaval. But what if this currently confusing, chaotic, confounding, cultural churn is stumbling toward change that reveals the hidden roots of social injustice for what they are so that we can reconfigure for good?

How easily the safeguards can be leaped. And they have been. We can clutch our pearls and bemoan the times we live in; or, we can invite our feelings of hopelessness to give way to action, to repair, restore, and renew out of the ashes of the old ways. We are responsible for making change because we’re the only “sentient force” that can.

Question: What one small grand gesture are you committed to take on behalf of what you love and care for?

These words from the Irish poet Seamus Heaney may motivate and sustain you wherever your feet touch the ground, whatever progress you are intent on making today.

“History says, Don’t hope

On this side of the grave...

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up

And hope and history rhyme.” [“The Cure at Troy” Seamus Heaney]

BONUS: Seamus Heaney reads his poem, The Cure at Troy

The Cure at Troy (full text)

"Human beings suffer

They torture one another,

They get hurt and get hard.

No poem or play or song

Can fully right a wrong

Inflicted and endured.

The innocent in gaols

Beat on their bars together.

A hunger-striker’s father

Stands in the graveyard dumb.

The police widow in veils

Faints at the funeral home.

History says, Don’t hope

On this side of the grave…

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up,

And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change

On the far side of revenge.

Believe that a further shore

Is reachable from here.

Believe in miracles

And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle self-healing:

The utter, self-revealing

Double-take of feeling.

If there’s fire on the mountain

Or lightning and storm

And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing

The outcry and the birth-cry

Of new life at its term.

It means once in a lifetime

That justice can rise up

And hope and history rhyme. [From "The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes"]

You’re always invited: “Come for the stories - stay for the magic!” Speaking of magic, would you subscribe and spread the word with a generous 5-star review and comment - it helps us all - and join us next time!

Meanwhile, stop by my Quarter Moon Story Arts website to:

✓ Check out Communication Services I Offer,

✓ For a no-obligation conversation about your communication challenges, get in touch with me today

✓ Stay current with Diane on LinkedIn, as “Wyzga on Words” on Substack, and now Pandora Radio

Stories From Women Who Walk Production Team

Podcaster: Diane F Wyzga & Quarter Moon Story Arts

Music: Mer’s Waltz from Crossing the Waters by Steve Schuch & Night Heron Music

All content and image © 2019 to Present Quarter Moon Story Arts. All rights reserved.