If family and society tell you its unfeminine, not really womanly, to be aggressive, to speak up, to have strong opinions, to take up space, then women won't trust their own voice, because to be heard and to be influential, you've got to have a way to sing out with passion and love and self-trust - to sing out your song for everyone to hear.

One does not practice meditation to become a great meditator. We meditate to wake up and live, to become skilled at the art of living.

Power is just using energy in a wise way to get things done. Power has been misinterpreted to mean getting my way on the backs of other people. Getting whatever I want, forgetting that there are other beings and species and energies involved.

I'm calling my initiative take the other to lunch. If you are a Republican, you can take a Democrat to lunch or if you're a Democrat, think of it as taking a Republican to lunch because there is no shortage of the other right in your own neighborhood, maybe that person who worships at the mosque or the church or the synagogue down the street or someone from the other side of the abortion conflict - or maybe your brother-in-law who doesn't believe in global warming.

Recognition of the harm that patriarchy has caused to people and the planet does not mean that men are wrong and women are right; rather it is a call for new organizational forms and for relishing gender differences within a context of equality.

The person who takes the first step in a conflict toward the other, those are brave people.

We must pay attention to the voice that calls us out of the safety zone.