Step 1) Learn to Fly. Step 2) Fly Away.

Let us perish the ego of this world and live infinitely as one. I'm here to learn, and so are you. Let's feed on the active materials that perpetuate our minds and souls. Let's bring emotions to fire and burn in the fertile crescent of our universe. I want to plant wonderment in your eyes because I cease to exist in any state other than believing each and every existence that has been so delicately put before us.~SK

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My dear friend @jheffauart and his AMAZING artwork. Wow. What a skill it is to draw/paint all of these and handcraft wood so intricately. Truly magical ✨✨✨🌿 #nimeakayahealingcenter #nimeakaya #art #woodwork #canvas #acrylicpaint #psychedelica #psychedelicart #thebest #shooketh #amazed #artistsoninstagram #jheffauart 💜💜💜💜💜 (at Chillum, Maryland) https://www.instagram.com/p/BngMsmThE7w/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=vqvn4y3z4ywf

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What a beautiful day in the neighborhoods, a beautiful day to be a neighbor. Won’t you be mine? Please be mine. #hum hm hun hun hum ha hun hu ha hum ha hum ha hun... da da da da . Am ma am ma #ohm namashemayo ♻️😌 #MrRodgers he was wise beyond his years https://www.instagram.com/p/BmjOGQ4Astv/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=98nqinfwnty2

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Today for #WomensHistoryMonth I want to highlight Nidia Diaz, guerrilla commander of the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front (aka FLMN) and legislative deputy that negotiated the UN-Sponsored Peace Accords of El Salvador, ending the 12-year civil war. Díaz became internationally known as one of the FMLN’s most exceptional leaders. On April 18, 1985, she was captured, imprisoned, and tortured by the Salvadoran army. Six months later, at the peak of the civil war, she was released in exchange for (former) President Duarte’s daughter, Inés. Díaz continued to be a leader of FMLN, signing the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords, which ended the country’s civil war and transformed the FMLN into a political party that is now a leading political party and primary force in the nation's Legislative Assembly. As commander, Diaz helped strategically manage FMLN operations for eight years in order to engage in dialogue with Duarte, never once letting down their guard unless negotiations helped move the nation forward. There were many objectives to be met by the political party after the signing of the Peace Accord including "toppling the dictatorship and submit the military’s power to civilian authority, profoundly democratizing the country, guaranteeing respect for human rights, and reunifying Salvadoran society." One of the greatest victories FMLN was able to accomplish was establishing the political and civil rights of all citizens. According to Diaz, "20 years later, we still have problems such as citizen security as well as poverty. We have not been able to jump-start the country’s economy. But today we have a tool, which is to make proposals, to have dialogue, to be critical, to build public opinion, to protest, and to take the streets. In other words, no one can kill us, disappear us, nor exile us for our ideas and our proposals." This quote of her's resonates with what we are faced with today, internally and as a nation: "We would be very frustrated if we didn’t continue to struggle, and continue struggling our whole lives. Things change when the people decide that it is time." #HerStory #RevolutionaryWomen #ElSalvador #FMLN #GuerrillaWomen

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Today for #WomensHistoryMonth I am recognizing Dr. Nawal El Saadawi, Egyptian psychiatrist, physician, writer, and activist. At age 83, Dr. El Saadawi shows no intention of slowing down. She has been an active feminist since a very young age, having been circumcised at 6 years old and coerced into marriage at age 10. While working as a doctor in her birthplace of Kafr Tahla, she observed the hardships and inequalities faced by rural women. After attempting to protect one of her patients from domestic violence, Saadawi was summoned back to Cairo. She eventually became the Director of the Ministry of Public Health and divorced her husband of 43 years. In 1972 she published Woman and Sex (المرأة والجنس), confronting and contextualising various aggressions perpetrated against women's bodies, including female circumcision. The book became a foundational text of second-wave feminism. Due to publishing a feminist magazine, Saadawi was imprisoned during the rule of Sadat in Egypt, which led to her writing her memoirs in prison. Apart from memoirs, her work ranges from plays to short story collections, as well as full-length novels. Dr. El Saadawi went through three marriages and divorced at age 63. In one of her memoirs she explains, it was not that she "wasn't allowed to marry for love" but the "complexities of the patriarchal character" that lead to her failed marriages. Saadawi is highly critical of what she calls "large patriarchal religions," and continues to advocate against the problematic views the Arab world upholds against women. She is also an avid supporter against U.S. foreign policy in the region leading to imperialism and dictatorship regimes. She is the founder of The Arab Women's Solidarity Association and From 1979 to 1980 she was the United Nations Advisor for the Women's Programme in Africa (ECA) and the Middle East (ECWA). #HerStory #NoFGM #ArabWorldFeminism

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Today for #WomensHistoryMonth I want to recognize Nayla Al Khaja. She is not only the UAE's first ever female director, but also founded one of the most successful production companies in the area, D-Seven Motion Pictures. Nayla started working on her production company after realizing the many obstacles that face filmmakers in the UAE. She tackles subjects that are usually off the table in the Emirates, ranging from arranged marriages to the secret dates women go on behind their parent's backs. Al Khaja has been awarded a number of awards from all over the world, most notably the honor of Emirates Woman of the Year presented to her by Benazir Bhutto in 2005. #HerStory #WomenInFilm #UAE #Arabana #UnveilingDubai #Malal #TheNeighbor

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Today I want to recognize Malalai Joya for #WomensHistoryMonth one of the youngest former members of Parliament in Afghanistan who has survived four assassination attempts on her life and routinely lambastes the Taliban, the Karzai government and the U.S. for persisting in the country's occupation. When asked during a 2010 interview "What would you like to say to President Obama?", She became agitated as if she were right in front of him and spoke directly: “I speak for the peace loving people of Afghanistan. We reject your brutal occupation. We reject corruption, warlords and drug lords. You say this is Bush’s war but you do not denounce the warlords who destroy my country. Why do you not reverse course one hundred percent and end the occupation? If you do not then, this is now Obama’s war too.” She went on to explain that “the occupation” has not liberated women, that Karzai and the Parliament of warlords have done little to improve the lives of women: “President Obama is not assisting in the liberation of Afghan women by empowering the warlords and fundamentalists.” #MalalaiJoya #PowerfulWomen #badassbabes #Afghanistan #HerStory

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Today for #WomensHistoryMonth I want to recognize Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the world's first Female Prime Minister and leader of the (socialist) Freedom Party of Sri Lanka. Bandaranaike served a total of 3 terms and 40 years in office. During her reign, she managed to nationalize seven newspapers by creating a corporation in which the public and government held shares. She removed private state-aided schools and retained the portfolios of External Affairs and Defence in order to direct a foreign policy based on neutrality. One of her most prominent policies included the India Pact of 1964 that granted a displaced population of 600,000 Indian Tamils repatriation and 375,000 Sri Lankans citizenship. In the elections of 1965 Bandaranaike was defeated by her rival for office but she made an unexpected comeback in 1970, and displayed her strength by quelling a major insurrection. Prompted by her sense of social justice, though, she gave away almost all her land. In 1941, Sirimavo joined the Lanka Mahila Samiti, the primary women's movement organization in Ceylon, which strove to improve the conditions of rural women in the island country. One of the organization's goals was to launch a massive food production effort to meet the shortages that became acute during World War II. As secretary of the western province group of Samiti, Bandaranaike worked with experts and goiyas (farmers) to introduce new methods of growing crops that increased paddy yields by more than 150 fold. She did not agree with the commonly held assessment that the peasants made no efforts on their own. Practical and elemental in her ideas and approach, she once remarked, "I came to know at first-hand the agony as well as the ecstasy of the farmer." Family planning and political rights for women were also among the causes she supported and championed for while in office. 💜#HerStory #SirimavoBandaranike #FemaleLeaders #SriLanka

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Today for #womenshistorymonth im recognizing Safia Minney, the pioneer of the organic free-trade fashion industry. In the mid-1990s, before ethical fashion became a uber-trendy catchphrase, Minney's innovative fair trade clothing company #PeopleTree was already using eco-textiles and helping skilled, local artisans gain access to markets. She is known as one of the world's foremost social entrepreneurs, establishing World Fair Trade Day (observed every second Saturday of May). Minney's work strives to change the fashion business by addressing integral issues of fair wages, gender equity, transparency, accountability, capacity building, improved working conditions and environmentally sound practices. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👍🏽💜 way to go @safia_minney !! #HerStory #WomenEntrepreneurs #FreeTrade #consciousconsumerism ♻️

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Today for #WomensHistoryMonth I want to highlight Rachel Louise Carson, a well-known environmental activist (she's from Silver Spring MD!) that brought ill-managed DDT contamination under national attention with her 1960s ground-breaking book, Silent Spring. Carson helped crystallize the beginnings of an American environmental movement, and was a catalyst for changing national pesticide policies. Her work provided formative inspiration for the deep ecology and eco-feminist movements, in addition to laying the groundwork for organizations such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). If only she were alive today to knock some sense into Scott Pruitt and the rest of the devil's spawn cabinet crew. *leSigh*. #HerStory #EnvironmentalMovement #SilentSpring #savethebees

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Today for #womenshistorymonth I want to recognize the Mirabal Sisters who tirelessly mobilized the opposition Movement against Trujillo's dictator regime in the 1960s Dominican Republic. Patricia (36) María (34) and Antonia (25) were incarcerated, tortured, and sentenced to death on November 25th, a day that is now globally recognized as the official International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women as declared by the UN. They are commemorated across Latin America and recognized in textbook literature as heroines and symbols of social justice and feminist resistance. The 200 Dominican pesos bill features Patricia, María,and Antonia for their revolutionary legacy, and murals of their faces now cover an obelisk memorial of Trujillo in Santa Domingo, DR. #FeministResistence #MirabalSisters #HerStory #fightfacism #Heroínas 💜💜💜

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Today for #WomensHistoryMonth I am recognizing Concepcion Picciotto. If you've set foot near the White House in the past 35 years, chances are, you've seen this woman. She is known for carrying out the longest political protest in US history. 💜 This Spaniard-American woman, commonly known as "Conchita" has been living in Lafayette Square in Washington D.C since August 1981. That is when she set up a peace camp across the White House in order to protest nuclear arms. She was featured in Micheal Moore's documentary , Fahrenheit 9/11 . She died late January last year, but her perseverance and dedication to a cause so vital to our global health and environment will never be forgotten. #WorldPeace 🌎 #NoNuclearArms #ProtecttheEnvironment #HerStory #lasmujeressomosfuertes #sisepuede #neverforget RIP 💐

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Safe access to women's healthcare is essential and a fundamental right!! #globalgagrule #Resist #AdayWithoutWomen (at Washington, District of Columbia)

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In 1979 on this day, International Women's Day, 100,000 women called off work and marched the streets of Tehran to protest the mandatory hijab imposed by the new regime. If you think women aren't powerful, I have news for you. When a women awakes, mountains are moved. Here's to strong women, may we know them, may we be them, may we raise them. 🌹#Resist #TheFutureIsFemale #Iran 🇮🇷#InternationalWomensDay #AdayWithoutWomen

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Today I want to feature Sampat Pal Devi for #WomensHistoryMonth 💜 She is an Indian social activist from the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh (North India) and founder of the Gulabi Gang. If you ever seen a photo circulating the internet of elderly women in pink Saris and wondered what they're all about- they're a gang of feminists traveling around India beating sex predators and rapists with bamboo sticks. (Yes, there's videos and a full documentary about them and it's THAAAT amazing.) Women of the Gulabi Gang empower themselves and fight against gender violence, caste oppression and corruption in India. Sampat Pal has recruited an estimated 270,000 members to join her cause. Together Pal and her women have carried out several raids, beaten up several men and public officials, and attained one-hundred percent success. When asked about a series of incidents of sexual assault in the State, Sampat Pal responded, "There is a need for social change. We cannot blame the government, as they can only take action after the incident. It is society that causes the incident to take place in the first place." I second to that! 🙋🏻 #Amen #GulabiGang #pinksarees #SocialChange #FemaleEmpowerment #HerStory #InternationalWomensDay #ADayWithoutWomen

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Today I'm recognizing Mona Eltahawy for #WomensHistoryMonth 💜, an award winning Egyptian-American author, journalist and public speaker. If there was a voice for Islamic Feminism- Eltahawy would be it. She's the voice who puts ignoramuses and Islamaphobic Western media outlets in their places when they talk about radical Islam, the mother/aunty you wish you had exposing every ounce of misogyny and gender conformity you encounter from your cultural upbringing, the metaphoric voice inside of you telling you to push back after being belittled, frankly, for not being cisgendered, being a member of the lgbtq community and/or being female. Mona Eltahawy has written many influential think-pieces on Egypt, the Islamic world, and women's rights, my favorite being "Why Do they Hate Us" featured in Foreign Policy (FP). She has appeared as a guest commentator on MSNBC, the BBC, CNN, PBS, Al-Jazeera, NPR, and dozens of other television and radio networks. She is the author of Headscarves and Hymens, and a frequent columnist for The New York Times. If you're looking for a voice to resonate with you, or are simply looking for a badass woman to aspire to, check her out. If you think Islamic Feminism is a slippery slope worth investigating, check her out. If you're confused/don't believe in/ are apathetic about the physical and emotional emancipation of women, CHECK 👏🏽HER 👏🏽OUT👏🏽or ill have her put you in check. 😏#DearSisters #MidEastFeminism #HerStory #headscarvesandhymens @monaeltahawy

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Today for #WomensHistoryMonth I want to recognize Bridget Tolley. 💜 Hailing from Kitigan Zibi First Nation in Quebec, Bridget Tolley has carried the torch of missing and murdered women for more than a decade. Long before she co-founded Families of Sisters in Spirit, a national advocacy group on the issue, the Algonquin grandmother of five was galvanized to fight for justice and change after her mother was killed by a police car. It turned out that the policeman investigating the death was the brother of the officer responsible for it, Rabble.ca reported at the time. Her passion for social change has seen her speaking at massive rallies on Parliament Hill, in government committee hearings and frequently in the media. But she believes that today’s indigenous women are still at the frontlines in a struggle that goes right back to the foundation of the country. “It has been more than 519 years that our women are still resisting colonial violence against us, our people, our nation and our land. It is the longest social movement in North America. To end violence for all people, aboriginal women must be at the epicenter of the solution.” #HerStory #BridgetTolley #SistersInSpirit #AlgonquinNation #FirstNation #IndigenousWomenRise

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Today's #WomensHistoryMonth highlight is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, an award winning Nigerian novelist, nonfictional writer, story teller, and public speaker. Much of Adichie's works highlight the dangers of underrepresented cultures and gender construction. One of her most endearing quotes that ended up on Beyonce's pro-feminist platinum hit single, "Flawless" states: "We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls: 'You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you will threaten the man'. Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage I am expected to make my life choices. Always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now, marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support. But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage. And we don't teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors. Not for jobs or for accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing. But for the attention of men We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are Feminist: a person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes" #Adichie #UltimateBae 💜😘 #WeShouldAllBeFeminists #ReadHerWork #HerStory