Part One of this post was written a few days ago, prompted by an all-too-familiar place of self-contempt. Through the din of that negative, internal chatter I heard Eve scream, “No!”

Eve’s scream on my behalf compels an even more piercing one on behalf of her daughters.

Eve screams, “No!” at the angering reality that one in three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in their lifetime.

Eve screams, “No!” at the unimaginable levels of atrocity that are too often ignored, dismissed, politicized, and thereby increased.

Eve screams, “No!” to the excruciating awareness that the very telling of her story has, at least in part, contributed to unimaginable harm to her legacy and kin.

Eve screams, “No!” as she watches girls sold, women abused, bodies torn, and hearts broken.

Eve screams, “No!” to any and all ways in which her lineage are denied their freedom, their desires, their appetites, their longings; any and all ways in which they are told to be silent, play small, take the blame, and feel shame.

She does not scream alone.

Another Eve stands alongside her who champions the same. Eve Ensler is an activist and author of The Vagina Monologues. She is also the leader of the ONE BILLION RISING movement, its culmination occurring today – around the world – as one billion women and men rise on behalf of the one billion women who will be impacted by violence; who will experience anything less than their divine heritage as Eve’s daughter.

ONE BILLION RISING is:

• A global strike
• An invitation to dance
• A call to men and women to refuse to participate in the status quo until rape and rape culture ends
• An act of solidarity, demonstrating to women the commonality of their struggles and their power in numbers
• A refusal to accept violence against women and girls as a given
• A new time and a new way of being

Eve’s primal, DNA-level scream of “No!” is embodied in Eve Ensler’s invitation to us: to dance, to walk out, to rise up, and demand that violence against women and girls end.

These Eve’s together – their screams (and their hearts) compel ours. And ours, united, can change the world.

Join ONE BILLION RISING. Scream-and-rise-and-dance-and-walk out on behalf of your forebear – the original Eve, in solidarity with Eve Ensler and one billion others, and on behalf of all Eve’s daughters.

We cannot return to the Garden of Eden (nor would we want to), but we can reclaim a world imbued with a loving God; where both genders are equal, empowered, and honored; where choice and freedom and unbridled desire reign; where endless, tenacious hope swells.

Worth screaming for. Worth rising for. Worth dancing for. Worth living for.

Eve shouts, “Yes!”