Cornelia Powell

Reading Time: 6 minutes By Cornelia Powell – Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.…

Reading Time: 7 minutes By: Cornelia Powell – Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.…

Reading Time: 4 minutes By: Cornelia Powell – Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the…

Reading Time: 5 minutes When I shook Marianne’s hand that afternoon in Greenville—a packed room of mostly women, women of all stripes—thanking her for putting love on the ballot, she replied, “Yes! It’s time to get radical with our love.” Radical, like love as an “essential existential fact.” Radical, like love is “our purpose on earth.” Radical, like your life depended on it!

Reading Time: 6 minutes “The Amazing Women on Titanic” features women whose lives echo today’s headlines, as well as our own everyday dreams. There was Edith Chibnall, first-class passenger from England, who had marched with suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst in the famous “Black Friday” protest on Parliament in 1910; crew member Violet Jessup who survived this and another ship disaster to write a no-holds-barred book about a working woman’s life at sea; ground-breaking Mennonite missionary Annie Funk, second-class passenger from Pennsylvania who didn’t survive, had founded the first school for girls in Janjgir, India—later named in her memory; and Dorothy Gibson, famous model and pioneering American silent-film actress, the highest paid of her time.

Reading Time: 7 minutes I remember the moment I walked into the Egyptian Ballroom in Atlanta’s Fox Theater to see an art exhibition called The Dinner Party: Judy Chicago’s feminist-awakening homage to women—and my first real history lesson! It was early October 1982 and I didn’t know what I was in for; yet I could feel the womb of womanly beauty and power and mystery all around me. It was as though I was reclaiming something, but it’d be years before I had the words to express it.

Reading Time: 8 minutes Hillary Clinton and her directness in those First Lady days were a bit unsettling for me as well; nonetheless, the backlash felt unfair—in a double-standard sort of way—and whether I “liked” her or not wasn’t the point. I defended a woman’s rightful place to be smart and determined and capable and a leader! And yes, she, and many other women making their way in business or politics would be called “pushy” and “hard to work with” or much worse—as we saw and heard years later during the run-up to the 2016 election. “Brace yourself,” Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton’s director of communications during her presidential run, wrote in Dear Madam President, “nothing draws fire like a woman moving forward.”

Reading Time: 5 minutes It was Princess Diana’s tenacity and spirit that carved out a way for William to be king and have a marriage based on love and equality; and, in her demonstrative acts of unconditional love, gave Harry, younger at her death and maybe more vulnerable, the resilience to mend his broken heart and find a strong partner who matches his devotion and compassion. And Prince Charles played his part as he tenderly protected and guided his sons after Diana’s death; then, years later, boldly challenged the old monarchic code and, with William and Harry’s full-hearted support, married the woman he had long loved.

Reading Time: 3 minutes There’s a bit of intrigue associating the honey in “honeymoon” and the ancient legend of the honeybee’s luscious nectar with love and sex. In her book, The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us, Bee Wilson muses how human civilization would have barely survived without the honeybee: its wax was used to create light in a dark world and its honey gave nourishment and medicine.

Reading Time: 4 minutes After changing into a sleek and sexy white halter-neck dress, Meghan wore designer high heels with soles painted pale blue and a fabulous ring with a large aquamarine stone once belonging to her late mother-in-law. (Was the ring a surprise from Prince Harry? Was he in on the “something blue” conversation? Or do you think he simply opened his mother’s jewelry box one day for his beloved to select something of her fancy?)

The “something old, something new” rhyme seems to be infused with a kind of fairy-tale quality and delights of feminine mystique—is the mystery part of its appeal? I call the old-fashioned rhyme the most feminine of all wedding rituals. Whether a bride borrows her grandmother’s handkerchief; wears a gift of birthstone earrings or an antique lace veil; pins a blue silk ribbon to her corset or slips a sixpence coin into her shoe or his pocket, they have put something magically mysterious into motion. And what woman doesn’t become more attractive wearing a bit of mystery?