GPIW is pleased to share some highlights of a gathering we organized in Varanasi, India last year on the seminal female figure of Sita. The story of Ram and Sita is a foundational one for south Asian civilization. We felt the need to explore the role of Sita in advancing human society through a new lens. So much about her life bears important messages for our time. She lived in a pre-patriarchal age, when women rishis and sages were working with their male counterparts to lay the framework for a civilization based on dharma. It is important now to recollect that time of greater male-female balance. The age in which she lived was also one of greater harmony in the natural world where there was respect and love for all the forces of nature. She could interact with the life energies of the rivers and forests, understand and care for the needs of the animal and plant kingdoms. There is much we can gain by remembering that time of greater integration with mother earth’s communities of life. We hope some of Sita’s messages come through in this brief film.
