by Gail Straub

Date: Wednesday, September 17th at 9:00 AM PDT
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Cost: Suggested donation $10 US.
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In a world run amuck with seemingly irreparable differences, divides, and conflicts, Gail Straub’s memoir Home Inside the Globe offers an antidote. As a seeker on pilgrimage across the Sahara in camel caravan with indigenous Tuaregs, trekking off the beaten trail high in the Himalayas and in Timbuktu in Mali, or participating in the sacred rituals of Bali, the intrepid Straub seeks out all that is different so that she can become whole.  And this impulse toward differences guides her to its perfect opposite, a boundless realm where our common humanity unifies us. As an activist Gail is deeply immersed in the era of Gorbachev’s Russia and Deng Xiaoping’s China, working with leaders who are empowering sex-workers in India, Syrian refugees in Jordan, and among isolated Berber villages in the High Atlas in Morocco. Here out beyond man-made political borders, she again finds a much larger, freer place where we connect as human beings transcending nationality, skin color, gender, socio-economic status, and religion. 

Along with traveling the exterior landscape of these countries, we also journey through Gail’s interior terrain as she matures through the stages of girlhood, womanhood, and cronehood. We witness how various cultures shaped her, helping her through times of grief, crisis, and confusion. Throughout Gail’s ever so human journey, we can find ourselves and our own longing for wholeness. Home Inside the Globe is a dynamic synthesis of memoir, travelogue, and life lessons. It is an invitation to awaken as individuals so that we can fully participate in creating a better world for all people.

About the Author Gail Straub

Gail Straub is the author of eight books, including the best-selling Empowerment, coauthored with her husband, David Gershon, and translated into fourteen languages; the highly praised The Rhythm of Compassion; her feminist memoir Returning to My Mother’s House; the fairy tale Réveil . . . and the Old One at the Edge of the World; her award-winning nature writings The Ashokan Way and Solace and Sanctuary in collaboration with the artist Kate McGloughlin; and most recently her critically acclaimed memoir, Home Inside the Globe. Gail’s books have garnered three Nautilus Silver Medal Awards as well as three Foreword Review Book Awards. Her articles and essays have appeared in various publications including the Chronogram, Foreword Magazine, Huffington Post, Spirituality and Health, Wayfarer, and In Context.

Along with being a writer, Gail Straub co-founded the Empowerment Institute in 1981 and is considered a visionary pioneer in the field of empowerment.  One of the world’s leading authorities on women’s empowerment, she co-founded IMAGINE: A Global Initiative for the Empowerment of Women to help women heal from violence, build strong lives, and contribute to their community. IMAGINE initiatives have taken root throughout Africa, India, and the Middle East where they have impacted several million lives. Gail’s white paper entitled “The Missing Piece in the Empowerment Equation” is considered a seminal contribution to the field of human agency. She has contributed to various anthologies on women’s empowerment including Enlightened Power: How Women Are Transforming the Practice of Leadership. Gail has been a consultant to many organizations furthering women’s empowerment including the Chinese Women’s Federation, the Russian American Initiative, Women for Women International, World Pulse, and the Omega Women’s Leadership Center.

Taking her empowerment work global early in her career, Gail served as the co-founder for the First Earth Run, a historic planet wide initiative cosponsored by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and ABC Television in 1986, during the height of the cold war. As a torch of peace was passed around the world, 25 million people in sixty-two countries participated and the relay garnered recognition from forty-five heads of state. The event raised several million dollars for UNICEF that was distributed to the neediest children in the world.

 Actively engaged with the vibrant artistic community in her home in the Hudson River Valley, Gail has been involved with the Woodstock Bookfest since its inception in 2010, offered her series Books, Spirituality, and Consciousness under the auspices of Woodstock’s iconic independent bookstore The Golden Notebook, and interviewed spiritual luminaries such as authors Stephen Cope, Eve Ensler, Priscilla Gilman, Elizabeth Lesser, Mark Matousek, Joan Borysenko, and Mark Epstein. One of Gail’s greatest joys is working in collaboration with other Hudson Valley artists, musicians, writers, painters, and poets including Kate McGloughlin, Will Lytle, Steve Gorn, Amy Fradon, Nina Shengold, Lissa Kiernan, Susanna Ronner, and the late Carol Zaloom.

 For over forty years Gail has lived with her husband David Gershon in their small A-frame perched on the edge of the Ashokan Reservoir and the Catskill Mountain Watershed in the Hudson River Valley in New York.

Facilitator to be confirmed

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