Do you want to get outside, but find it hard in the winter?  A lot of places have enough sunshine to make it possible to walk, hike, ski, snowshoe many days during the winter.  Even if you don’t get much sun where you live, you can still get outside and breathe the air, clear your head, and get your swagger back.

Want to know more about hiking in winter? Take a look at the Taos News Winter Guide – my article on hiking is on page A90 and a photo I took of my neighborhood horses is on page A142: http://taosnews.nm.newsmemory.com/default.php?pSetup=taosnews_special_wvg.

All women have swagger – they are just waiting for permission to use it.

- Cindy Brown

Cindy Brown, founder of the Swagger movement will be in Boulder July 19-21, offering a series of workshops and presentations for girls and women. Swagger is the permission girls and women need to feel their full confidence and to increase their success at work, home, church, on the playing field and world stage, and in their relationships.  The presentations include:

• Tuesday, July 19:  YWCA Puente – Discussion and hike with participants in YWCA Punte, a program for Latina girls
  transitioning from middle to high school focused on positive body image and self-confidence.
• Wednesday, July 20:  Boulder Housing Partner Lunch and Learn – Lunchtime brownbag with Boulder Housing Partner (BHP), the housing authority of the city of Boulder, to discuss how the swagger concepts can be incorporated into the services provided by BHP to women and girls.
• Thursday, July 21: YMCA of Boulder Valley Girl Power Camp – Program of games, discussion, journaling, hiking and fun with middle school girls – focused on feeling confident and making their voices heard. According to the YMCA “since the Y’s
  three areas of focus are youth development, healthy living and social responsibility, the Swagger movement program taught to the middle school girls is a welcome collaboration.”

What is Swagger? Swagger means high feminine confidence. In the Swagger movement, we believe that swagger is important because women have many talents to contribute to the world, but the world has become out of balance, dominated by male energy. We believe that we need both male and female energy in the world and when those energies are in balance, there are more equitable and satisfying life opportunities for all people. By gaining confidence, especially at an early age, women are more able to make their contributions and help bring balance to the world.

The movement was born of Brown’s experience working in male-dominated professions for the past 25 years.  She is the former Co-Executive Director of Boulder Housing Partners and was an instructor at the University of Colorado, College of Architecture and Planning.  The Swagger movement is part of a growing number of organizations aimed at promoting self-confidence in young women, including the UN Program Girl Up and sister effort – The Priceless Project:  http://PricelessProject.com

For more information, contact 720-341-9703 or visit the website at www.girlsguidetoswagger.com.   For more information on YMCA programs, contact Susan Coker at 303-406-1180.

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What is swagger?

Swagger means high feminine confidence. In the Swagger movement, we believe that swagger is important because women have many talents to contribute to the world, but the world has become out of balance, dominated by male energy.  We believe that we need both male and female energy in the world and when those energies are in balance, there are more equitable and satisfying life opportunities for all people. By gaining confidence, especially at an early age, women are more able to make their contributions and help bring balance to the world.

One of the most important goals of swagger is to reach young girls and support their developing creativity and talents.  When you were growing up, were you encouraged to let your light shine or were you told to be quiet or not to boast or to keep your accomplishments to yourself so that you wouldn’t make other people, particularly boys, uncomfortable?  Many of us carry the scars and the deeply-ingrained message that we should accomplish much, but say little.

I saw a home movie of myself as a child.  I was full of excitement and happiness and came bounding into the room, smiling and laughing.  Somewhere along the way, I got told to keep it down, sit down and be more feminine and agreeable.  I’ve had swagger for most of my life, but I have often been in conflict with myself over how to express it.  As an adult in the work world, I would often hold back – not wanting to make people uncomfortable with my ideas and questions.  Inevitably, I would be unable to keep it to myself and my ideas would come out.  I sometimes got thanks for contributing, but surprisingly often I didn’t.  I even got thanked one time for being quiet. Read more…

Meek’s Cutoff is a radical movie. Its visual openness reflects the landscape through which  the three families wander, not sure where they are going. I whispered to my companion, Could this be the first time a man wouldn’t ask for directions? It’s not so awful that they are lost, although things seem quite dire. But it is that they are closed. For the moment, so are we. And therein is the metaphor.

Because we are lost and will not admit it, we refuse open up and ask for directions. What this movie does in its quiet and determined (if meandering) narrative development, is shift our focus from requiring a specific goal complete with a map, to settling into trust. What do we trust? Who do we trust? How do we come to trust?

I was never surprised that an Indian was captured to become their guide and replace the arrogant egotist who would not admit to being lost. His small-mindedness made him reluctant, hateful and condescending, unable to trust the native man who so beautifully, spiritually, and mysteriously reflected and blended into the land that spawned him. (I kept thinking the settlers’ clothes were too clean and organized for the months’ long camping ordeal they were on.) He didn’t immediately inspire the confidence to reassure us and the party of three families that everything would work out. This is not just because of the language barrier but because of the human membrane that separates us from ourselves and from our own instincts. And we hold onto our separateness so it stays that way.

But, sometimes, dignity trumps arrogance. The “Indian” (so credited) somehow felt his way through the landscape, singing to his ancestors, communicating with the divine, and trusting his instincts. He emerges as a powerful model, initially for Williams’ character who  was open enough to fall into trust. By the time the movie ends, astonishingly unresolved, we too have fallen into trust without any easy answers.

The point is not whether they find water or reach their still unknown destination but that they had achieved some grace, overcome bigotry and racial profiling, learned to surrender and, against the odds, survived their own perceived separateness.

Meek’s Cutoff (2010) Review by Carol Terry

Cast: Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Will Patton, Zoe Kazan, Paul Dano, Shirley Henderson

Director: Kelly Reichardt

Running Time: 104 min.

Genre: Western

Surrender and consciousness

Surrender to the vagaries of wind and weather, water, weight, gravity, skill, ego and consciousness. In the wind, in a boat, I have to be fully conscious every second and able, ready and willing to change strategies, change tack, change direction, change sails and the amount of sail, at any moment. I might have a plan, but the wind will define what happens. You can be going along all nice and then be hit by a puff of wind and the boat wants to surge directly into it – you have to let go a bit, let it happen, readjust, then come off the wind, or, let the sails out really fast. In either case you have to balance, juggle, move fast, dance, think of and do a lot of things at once to bring the boat and the elements and the people back into balance with one another. Then you’re off, on a new tack, another direction until distance and wind and shore demand another change. It’s not up to you. You must surrender and be conscious every second.

You never know it all

What caused our lapse when we bumped the side of the hill? It doesn’t matter who’s in charge when we are all in the same boat. This is metaphorical. I could have said, Why didn’t you see it? But I didn’t see it either. People may think they know it all, all about sailing. (I actually think my brother does know almost all there is to know.) But we went out with Bob the expert, he races in the harbor and knows the depths of the lake, the Narrows and still he biffs. What happened? We will talk about this for a long time. Was it the winch issue? The sail out too much? The main was reefed but we could have pulled in more of the jib. Certainly we didn’t tack soon enough and there it was, the muddy bank of the hill and I said “We can’t be doing this.” So much for control. It was too late to prevent what was happening. At what point was it already too late? When we were talking about strategy of the cockpit and who would bring in the sheet and how to let it off the other winch? Careening across the Narrows trying to conduct sailing school. The real school was the muddy bank of the hill. And we didn’t know how close it was because we were busy thinking. The Lesson is much closer than you think. And it’s not the one you are talking about, it’s the one right in front of you, coming up before you have a chance to do anything about it. It was a slow scrunch and dead on the bow (am I right that if the Titanic had hit the iceberg straight on it wouldn’t have been so bad?). Why are we humans so schizophrenic? So confused about the thing itself and our words and ideas about the things.  We were lucky the lesson wasn’t hard as a rock or – indeed –the rock itself. Read more…