WEFPJ was an all-women’s community of protest and challenge to violence and militarism housed on 52 acres bordering the Seneca Army Depot in upstate New York.
Commonly known as the Seneca Women’s Peace Camp or Seneca, the encampment was modeled after the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in England (1981-2000) where hundreds of British sisters were creating nonviolent protest in the face of the scheduled deployment of U.S. Cruise missiles.
Though the U.S. military steadfastly refused to either “confirm or deny” the presence of nuclear weapons at the Seneca Depot, the base was uniformly regarded as a storage site and departure point for both the Cruise and Pershing II weapons bound for Europe.
In the summer of 1983, 12,000 women from around the world participated in nonviolence trainings, direct actions and civil disobedience at Seneca resulting in 950 arrests.
In 1994 the encampment transitioned into Women’s PeaceLand, an intentional community whose purpose was to promote and implement the principles of peace, nonviolence and anti-oppression.
Due to limited resources and waning outside interest, the peace camp farm and land was reclaimed by Seneca County for back taxes in March 2006.
The Seneca Army Depot was approved for base realignment and closure in 1995 and closed in 2000. By 2008, however, a portion of the base was reopened to serve as a training ground for soldiers from Ft. Drum.
Were you at Seneca or Greenham, even for just an afternoon? Share your story with the rest of us by commenting on the blog. Click on comments below the post, write what you have to say in the box, click on other, write in your name, skip your web page (unless you have one...), type in the letters of the word verification (so advertising machines don't bombard us) and then click on publish your comments. YOU DID IT! If that doesn't work for you, you can always email us at peacecampherstory@yahoo.com
005 Becky Condon
007 Doreen Cornwall
008 Suzanne Sowinska
010 Jody Bear aka Jody Laine
014 Linda Field
015 Z aka Deborah Zubow
016 Susan Shachter
017 Barbara Reale
019 Brenda Miller
020 Otter aka Karen Escovitz
021 Sarra Lev
022 Laura Boswell Thornton
023 Maria Herlihy
024 Wolfgrrl aka Billijo Wolf
025 Andrea Doremus
027 Samoa aka Kim Blacklock
028 Helen Freedwomon aka Helen Friedman
029 Amy Bat Tzipora
030 Ruby Hohawk
031 Linci Comy
032 Janette Sperber
034 Dorothy Emerson
035 Nancy Clover
036 Michelle Murray
037 Grace Ross
038 Laura Flanders
039 Quinn Dilkes
040 Rosalie Regal
041 Charlotte Koons
042 Jennifer Miller
043 Helene Aylon
044 Alessandra Nichols
045 Martha Mollison
046 Mary Loehr
047 Clare Grady
048 Marilyn Rivchin
049 Susie Kossack
050 Ellie Rosenburg
051 Louise Cummings
052 Chris Huston
053 Tracy Sabo
054 Bryna Fireside
055 Lars Friend
056 Karen Edelstein
057 Cathy Sherwood
058 Cat Tague
059 Arora Crone
060 Judy Besemer
061 Sorrrel Hays
062 Marilyn Ries
063 Carol Baum
064 Barbara Gerber
065 Nancy Osborne
066 Carman Sivill Bradshaw
067 Karen Kerney
068 Julie Hammer
069 Diana Cramer
070 Mary Ann Zeppetello
071 Karen Mihalyi
072 Walter Putter
073 Claudia Gebhardt
074 Ruth Putter
075 Kathleen Rumpf
076 Andy Mager
077 Arlene Ahl
078 Linda DeStefano
079 Jane Begley
080 Beth Howe Miller
081 Renee-Noelle Felice
082 Sally Roesch Wagner
083 Sera Brown
084 Eugene Korvos
085 Mima Cataldo
086 Lucille Povero
087 Twilight
088 Sita Lang
089 Lynn Varricchio
090 Evelyn Bailey
091 Claire Parker
092 Estelle Coleman
093 Alice O'Malley
094 Hershe Michele Kramer
095 Louise Krasniewicz
096 Wanda Metcalf
097 Phenix Hearn
098 Pam Anndagah aka Flanigan
099 Leeann Irwin
100 Catherine Allport
101 Bobbie Falls
102 Jeanne Michele Charbonnet
103 Terri Fredlund
104 robin earth
105 Rachel Flanigan
106 Woody Blue
107 Miriasiem Barnes
108 Jasmine Laine Kramer
109 Penny Batelli
110 Terri Shay
111 Laura Briggs
BooKS
Common Women, Uncommon Practices: The Queer Feminisms of Greenham by Sasha Roseneil, Casssell, London, 2000.
Greenham Women Everywhere: Dreams, Ideas and Actions from the Women's Peace Movement by Alice Cook and Gwyn Kirk - South End Press, 1983.
Nuclear Summer: The Clash of Communities at the Seneca Women's Peace Encampment by Louise Krasniewicz - Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.
Panhandling Papers by Kady - Common Wealth Printing, 1989.
Prisons That Could Not Hold by Barbara Deming - Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1995.
Rocking the Ship of State: Toward a Feminist Peace Politics edited by Adrienne Harris and Ynestra King - Boulder: Westview Press, 1989.
Walking to Greenham: How the Peace-camp began and the Cold War ended by Ann Pettitt - Honno: South Glamorgan, Wales, 2006.
We are Ordinary Women: A Chronicle of the Puget Sound Women's Peace Camp by Participants of the Puget Sound Women's Peace Camp - The Seal Press, Seattle, 1985.
We Are the Web: The Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice by Catherine Allport - Artemis Project, NYC, 1984.
The Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice: Images and Writings edited by Mima Cataldo, Ruth Putter, Byrna Fireside and Elaine Lytel - Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987.
MuSiC
Peace Camp Sings, 1987. Tallapoosa Music, New York, NY.
The Great Peace March: Wild Wimmin for Peace, 1986. To order, call: 412-361-3022
The Average Dyke Band: Songs from Seneca, December 1985.
ViDeo
Every Woman Here: Remnants of Seneca 1982-2006. Peace Encampment Herstory Project, 2007. 33 min.
C.D.: the Ritual of Civil Disobedience. Sorrel Hays, Marilyn Ries and Sara Halprin, 1987. 23 min.
Stronger Than Before: The Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice. Women's Video Collective, 1983. 26 min.
aRTiCLeS
Deming, Barbara. Dec. 1984. "Building the 'Beloved Community.'" The Nonviolent Activist.
Doremus, Andrea, compiler. Fall 1999. "Seneca Stories: Responses to a call for Memories." Iris. pp. 36-47.
Finkelstein, S. Naomi. Winter 1994/95. "McRunes and Mazdas." Sinister Wisdom, #54, pp. 72-79.
Joy, Margaretta. April-August 2003. "We are the Web": Letter Writing and the 1980s Women's Peace Movement," Prose Studies, Vol. 26, #1-2, pp. 196-218. Routledge.
McDaniel, Judith. "One Summer at Seneca: A Lesbian Feminist Looks Back in Anger." Heresies, #20, pp. 6-11.
PaPeRS
Chmielewski, Wendy E.: "Resisting Nuclear Madness: The Utopian Vision of the Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice," presented at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, New Brunswick, New Jersey, February 6, 2001.
10 comments:
The 'Listen Listen Listen' chant was given by Paramahansa Yogananda. It seems to come in several forms.
Variations of the first part include:
Listen, listen, listen to my heart's song
Listen, listen, listen to my heart's song
OR
Hearken, hearken, hearken to the whisper of my soul
Hearken, hearken, hearken to the whisper of my soul
OR
Take me, take me, take me, my Lord in thy love
Take me, take me, take me, my Lord in thy love
Variations of the second part include:
I will always love you I will always serve you
I will always love you I will always serve you
OR
I will never forget you I will never forsake you
I will never forget you I will never forsake you
I first heard the chant in about 1980, and used to sing it to my children as they dropped off to sleep each night.
I don't know where it started, but I first heard this song at a radical faerie fall gathering, 1988, Short Mountain Sanctuary. I sang it just about everywhere I went for years after.
I don't know where it started, but I first heard this song at a radical faerie fall gathering, 1988, Short Mountain Sanctuary. I sang it just about everywhere I went for years after.
Klay
klay 00 at g mail dot com
i was 8 years old and i went the the Association of Reasearch and Enlighment's (A.R.E.) camp in the blue ridge mountains of Virginia...i had the time of my life and the last night i was there we had something they called an "Angel Walk" where every person, in turn would walk between the two rows of everyone else and they would close their eyes and everyone would whisper how wonderful they were...we would sing "Listen to my heart's song" while they walked...it felt very sacred and meaningful...
This is a beautiful Chant first heard sung by Rabbi David Zeller.
It is my impression that he wrote it.
I know I first heard and quickly joined in at either several Rainbow Gatherings and Dead shows in the mid to late 80's. Also, I think it is featured on the "Be Here Now" album by Ram Dass. Of all the chants I learned at the formentioned events, this one I can call on with no hesitance at any moment. It brings me much peace. I sing it while swinging on swings; alone at times of deep introspection and being. It is like a breath. To meet someone else who can join in chant at chance occasion, would be terrifically flowing.
Hello, Love this song, chant, or whatever it is called.
We do a variation on it where at the end we sing
I will never forget you
I will never forsake you
I will never forget you
I will always love you
I think of it as a song that God is singing to all of us and it brings me peace.
Thanks for sharing it here.
Suzanne
First heard this chant via ZBS Media's "Moon Over Morrocco" 'Jack Flanders' radio drama in the early '80 (by Tom Lopez); may have been garnered from Bhagavan Dass recordings from the late 70s when he was @ ZBS, or from the first Bhagavan Das album, "AH-"...
Beautiful.
This song/chant is from Paramahansa Yogananda and I first heard it at the second Rainbow Family Gathering with a huge group of people holding hands singing, dancing, in a circle in the mountains above Lander, Wyoming in 1971. I was standing apart from the group talking to an older Native American guy who was just curious and watching. I felt a bit apart until someone grabbed me and pulled me into the circle. Then you couldn't help but feel the power of the oneness of the group.
I learned this chant, and many others, at Sufi yoga ,Dance, song, meditation group for children in the 1970's when i was 9 years old.
I recall one night at seneca, just me and the lightening bugs in the total darkness- i hear one voice singing, "Listen, listen,listen..." from way off across a huge field.
I responded "To my heart song..."
We walked toward one another in the total darkness under the impossible hugeness of the starry night sky, until we met in the center of the field.
Well I must admit I don't recall who the other voice was- but I sure do love her.
Post a Comment