And this exclusion of "women's work" continues, despite United Nations data gathered since 1975 (the beginning of the UN Decade for Women) indicating that women globally contribute two-thirds of the world's work hours, for which - given the imbalanced, unjust, and truly peculiar nature of the accounting characteristic of dominator economics - they globally earn only one-tenth of what men do and own a mere one-hundredth of the world's property.

I pray for a world where we live in partnership rather than domination; where "man's conquest of nature" is recognized as suicidal and sacrilegious; where power is no longer equated with the blade, but with the holy chalice: the ancient symbol of the power to give, nurture, enhance life. And I not only pray, but actively work, for the day when it will be so.

Care work is still primarily done by women for free in families and for poverty wages in the market, and this is a major reason that worldwide women are the mass of the poor and the poorest of the poor.

Obviously there is pain in childbirth. But giving birth is also a moment of awe and wonder, a moment when the true miracle of aliveness, and of a woman's amazing part in that miracle, is suddenly experienced in every cell of one's body. It is in that sense truly an altered state of consciousness.

For as long as human beings are forced to live in a system that at every turn impedes the fulfillment of their basic human needs - not only for love but for creative and spiritual expression - they will try to compensate for this in other ways, including the compulsive acquisition of ever more material goods.

The good news is that there is strong movement in this direction of shifting from domination systems to partnership systems. Over the past several hundred years, one progressive movement after another has challenged traditions of domination - from the 18th century "rights of man" movement challenging the "divinely ordained right" of kings to rule their "subjects" to today's environmental movement challenging the once hallowed "conquest of nature."

To heal ourselves we also have to heal society.