Courage goes before us.

My clients have always been valuable teachers. They inspire me to do better and bring me stuff I would not have thought about without them. It's one of the things I love about sharing massage. The energy goes both ways.

Here's an email I received this morning from one of them. She didn't write this text, but felt it was worthy of going viral. I wish it were attributed so I could thank the woman who did write it, but I agree that it is worthy of being seen, so here it is.

This is the story of our Mothers and Grandmothers who lived only 90 years ago.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.
Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

Lucy Burns
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

Dora Lewis
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold.
Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.
Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.
For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

Alice Paul
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

So, refresh MY memory. Some women won't vote this year because - Why, exactly?
We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Mrs Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a 60 day sentence.

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.'It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I
could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say.
I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

Miss Edith Ainge, of Jamestown, New York
All these years later, voter registration is still my passion.
But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote.
Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

Berthe Arnold, CSU graduate

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry.
She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said.'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.'
The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'

HBO released the movie on video and DVD.
I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include this movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco/Bingo night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

Conferring over ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution at National Woman's Party headquarters, Jackson Place, Washington D.C.
Left to right: Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer, Alice Paul, Florence Boeckel, Mabel Vernon (standing, right)

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.
The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women.
Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent - remember to vote.
Helena Hill Weed, Norwalk , Conn. Serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for carrying the banner,
'Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.'

I would go her one further. Remember to make your vote count...hold your elected officials accountable. We've had enough of the foxes guarding the hen houses. The earth is oozing her lifeblood into the gulf and soiling all of the southern shores as a result of lax environmental policies and paltry enforcement of procedures designed to protect us from a fiasco such as this one.
This is a democratic republic, not a corporate oligarchy. If the good ole boys in DC who run this dog and pony show won't hold themselves accountable for the consequences of the legislation and policies they enact, then we must value our right to do so and vote someone else into office who will.