NOTE: Effective October 31, 2007, the State of Tennessee accepted the Charter and Bylaws incorporating A Country Rag as a non-profit organization headquartered in Jonesborough. Application has been made to the Internal Revenue Service for 501(3)(c) status. Officers of ACR, Inc. are: Chairperson -- Jeannette Harris; President -- Gwendoline Fortune; Vice President -- Carolyn Moore; Secretary/Treasurer -- Rebecca Grindstaff. Members of the Board of Directors are: Leah Daily, Vera Jones, Frances Lamberts, Penne Lane, Chris Mysinger, and Caroline Ross.
ACRs new ad-free domain address is acountryrag.org (bookmark it!). This mirror site at oocities.com/countryrag will continue to be on-line but will not be updated. The site is open again for submissions of graphic arts, photography, and literature addressed to submissions@acountryrag.org. The next update will be in the spring of 2008.
Mission statement: To encourage contemporary arts and tourism in Appalachia, with special emphasis on the endeavors of women and minorities.
"Ecological feminism is essentially a response to a set of key problems thrown up by the two great social currents of the later part of (the last) century—feminism and the environmental movement." -- Val Plumwood (1993)
"As we move into the 21st century, many people are looking for spiritual awakening and healing. I'm not surprised to find many women seeking alternatives to treat PMS and menopause and looking to this traditional practice and the Earth for medicine.
"Some elders believe there are very specific reasons for the greenhouse effect in our world today. The elders of some tribes believe, as do I, that a part of this effect on the Earth is due to the omission in our society of honoring the sacred feminine and the Moon cycle. The demands that are placed on women in our society and the dishonoring of Moon time are also a part of this phenomenon;...." -- Sharon Oxendine, a Lumbee Indian residing in Weaverville [N.C.], The Moon Lodge: Women of the Sacred Hut, published in new life journal, a freely distributed newspaper, October 2007, Buncombe County, N.C.
"The one shared premise to which all eco-feminists would ascribe is the idea that there is a link between the oppression of women and the oppression of nature. It is a worldview in which domination is seen to be a key axis of organisation, the enactment of which is explicitly embodied within the organising principles of Western culture." -- Green Spirit
"We are the ones we have been waiting for.... It is time for us to remember who we really are and our soul’s true purpose.... It is divine destiny that we are here now." -- Venus Rising Institute for Shamanic Healing Arts
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".... And she shows you where to look/
Among the garbage and the flowers/
There are heroes in the seaweed/
There are children in the morning/
They are leaning out for love/
And they will lean that way forever/
While Suzanne holds the mirror/
And you want to travel with her/
And you want to travel blind/
And you know that you can trust her/
For she's touched your perfect body/
with her mind."
-- Suzanne by Leonard Cohen
State of Denial, State of Grace
For my goddaughter, in 1998,...
I can see that you've never been touched,
not really down deep in your soul,
and it seems I would never pray this for you,
the turning of matter to coal.
But how will you know heaven and hell,
the distinctions 'tween devil and God,
unless you have loved one person at least
more than the earth and life that we plod.
And how will you find the place beyond pain,
where terror has lain with destruction,
yet your spirit glides on, discordant and blind,
a part still aligned, wordless, undivined,
absorbed in eternal construction.
...with eternal love and gratitude
"...Old age should burn and rave at close of day;/.... Do not go gentle into that good night./
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
-- Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas
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