What with Jupiter moving through Pisces it doesn't surprise me that I've been dreaming like crazy lately but it does make me gear up for bedtime as if I am going into psychic battle. What demons, anxieties, fears, and monsters are waiting in store for me as soon as my head hits the pillows, inviting me to work out and express what lurks in the attic and basement of my deepest self? Well whatever has been hiding out is no longer. Everything is up in my face, begging to be noticed, acknowledged, and, on a good night  - blessedly released.

     There have been the usual anxiety dreams like I still have my flower shop, it's Valentine's Day and I forgot to go to the wholesalers and buy flowers all the while fussing over forgetting to get the little cards printed out that identifies the arrangements as coming from my store. The next night I was in the passenger seat of a giant RV (HATE to be in the passenger's seat). My collaborator and videographer of my TV show adventure is driving. We are on a treacherous winter road on the mountains. Huge boulders of snow right ahead. Swerve left and we smash into the mountain. Swerve right and it's over the cliff. No choice but to plow right through that snow boulder, which turns to puff as we come out the other side. And then yesterday morning I awoke to the tune of Rocky blasting in my head as I easily jogged up the stairs of some monument.

     Rocky? The quintessential "I come from nowhere but have a BIG dream for myself" movie. In real-life Sylvester Stallone was offered big bucks for his screenplay but only if the part of Rocky was to be played by someone else. He refused the money and shopped around until someone would make the movie with him as the star, for hardly any shekels at all. The rest is history.

     Ah, the pattern emerges. No more flower shop but endless details to manage with my TV show project, especially making sure it is identified as coming from me. What appears to be life-threatening turns to poof as I go through it. Ultimately I triumph as long as I do my own thing my own way, which is good because I can't seem to do anything any other way anyway.

     And so I carry on in the face of all kinds of seeming impossibilities, putting myself out there, inviting, coaxing, urging women to participate in speaking their voice, their experience, their challenges in a very public way, an avenue to help them get their own work seen, validated, and supported. It's a work-out.

     I cried when last night watching the Academy Awards as Barbra Streisand, a rebel and feminist leader herself, announced Kathryn Bigelow as the first woman director to win an Academy award for best director with: "The time has come." And it indeed it has.

     So here I am today, feeling a little Rocky-esque, knowing my essay will be available for generations to come, a small window into the journey of finding and speaking our voices, as women, as leaders, as creators and contributors to the world that is our own. I celebrate my little triumphs as Kathryn Bigelow celebrates hers and Moni'que celebrates.

The rest is herstory.

And yes, she meant me.

 Read the winning essay