I have been reflecting a lot these days on the lives of Dolly Parton, Larry Dossey, Wendell Berry, and Gloria Steinem. They all passed into the spirit world within eight days of each other. Of these well-known figures who died, the only one I met was Dossey, and on just one occasion. Yet Larry meant a lot to me. I became aware of his work shortly after his first book, Space, Time, and Medicine came out in 1982. I was introduced to him by a dear ancestor, Dan Moonhawk Alford, a professor at The California Institute of Integral Studies at the time, who once described himself as “standing at the lonely intersection of Native America, language, consciousness, and quantum physics.” Dossey similarly brought seemingly disparate subjects together to develop a new way of looking at time, health, consciousness, medicine, and society. I was particularly struck by his understanding of time as a source or wellspring rather than a limited, linear conception, an understanding I later continued to develop in my own work. Larry went on to write more than a dozen books that were both topical and timeless, successfully reenvisioning and transcending mainstream medicine’s mind-body dichotomy.
Wendell Berry’s magnum opus The Unsettling of America is a profound piece of work that I am still learning from. His work is rooted in culture in the deepest possible sense. Berry addressed both humanity and land use in a revolutionary way, bridging the illusory divide between culture and agriculture. “Our demands upon the earth are determined by our way of living with one another; our regard for one another is brought to light in our ways of using the earth” he wrote. The Unsettling of America is still unsettling to read a half century from its publication date. Large agribusiness is still predominant, even as regenerative farming is on the rise. Berry has yet to be fully listened to, understood, or widely put into practice. I pray that the seeds of thought he planted will soon blossom. Berry went on to write over four dozen other books of poetry and fiction in addition to The Unsettling of America. I may return to write more about him and Larry Dossey another time.
The Different Ways We View Gloria Steinem and Dolly Parton
The main impetus in writing this column was the huge disparity between the way the public has viewed Dolly Parton and Gloria Steinem immediately after their deaths. Everyone rushed to claim their love of Dolly, while Steinem’s passing elicited mostly praise, but also condemnation from both sides of the political aisle. I am still trying to figure out why that is, which moved me to write this piece.
How did Dolly Parton manage to essentially never offend anyone, and Gloria Steinem offend so many? The answer goes to the heart of the way women have been treated in American society over the past half century. The two women could not have been more different in the way they handled sexism. Steinem confronted men in power to demand change, while Parton learned at a young age to use the sexism that existed in society for her advantage. Steinem was a feminist icon who co-founded Ms Magazine, the National Women’s Political Caucus, the Women’s Media Center, and the Women’s Action Alliance, launching her career in a time when women couldn’t open a bank account without a co-signature from a man. Parton claimed to be non-partisan, but she was not apolitical. She used her celebrity to effect societal change for causes she believed in: literacy, the LGBT community, marriage and gender equality, and also funded or raised money for educational scholarships, minority causes, rescue relief efforts, hospitals, vaccines, and much more. Both women were successful, employing vastly different styles and strategies. I find this fascinating.
Parton cleverly created her own persona, deliberately drawing attention to her figure, accentuating her large breasts and femininity, and often used playful, self-deprecating humor. While Steinem made frequent mention of her humble beginnings in a working class and unstable family, it was clear that Gloria sought to overcome her past, while Dolly embraced it. Parton made her past transparent in her song Coat of Many Colors, describing how her mother made a multi-colored coat from rags that Dolly was proud of, “sewin every piece with love.” Parton also wrote songs like Dumb Blonde, later joking that she could do that because she wasn’t dumb, and wasn’t blonde. Reminiscent of Lucille Ball, she confronted the sexism of her age with stealth humor and wit, while being a lot more in control of things than people realized. Perhaps not coincidentally, both Lucy and Dolly ended up co-founding large production companies: Lucy cofounded Desilu Productions with her husband Desi, and Parton cofounded Sandollar Productions with her manager Sandy Gallin. Parton’s long career nearly goes back as far as the final season of I Love Lucy (1957). Dolly launched her career just two years later, singing at the Grand Ole Opry at the age of 14.
It almost seems like Parton pulled off some kind of magic trick. She created a carefully calculated, totally canned image and somehow came off as completely sincere. She joked that if she weren’t a woman, she would have been a drag queen. Perhaps not surprisingly, she once entered a Dolly Parton lookalike contest and lost (to a man).
Steinem Attacked for Being a White Feminist
Gloria Steinem has long been unfairly attacked from the right for supposedly eroding traditional family structures, and from the left for fomenting elitist “white feminism” that was tone-deaf to women of color. She was also attacked from the left for being the director of a non-profit organization in her twenties that turned out to be funded by the CIA. I was disheartened to see these same attacks taking place right after her death.
It’s true that she was white and attractive, and the media favored her as their go-to source for all things feminism for many years, over black, brown, and feminist leaders who were considered less attractive, including (to some degree) Betty Friedan, who arguably is most responsible for kicking off the 20th century second wave of feminism with her publication of The Feminine Mystique in 1962. Steinem went undercover as a Playboy bunny, exposing Hugh Hefner’s sordid relationships with women. Is being white and attractive Steinem’s fault? No. And whenever the media tried to label her as the face of the feminist movement, Steinem took exception, including during the very last interview she did with Brad Falchuk, which just aired posthumously as part of his Famous Last Words series for Netflix.
Steinem actively partnered with black and minority activists from the beginning, steadfastly acknowledging their profound influence on her. She toured the country with the black activist Dorothy Pitman Hughes for two years promoting social equality for women. It was on the heels of this consciousness raising tour that Pitman Hughes urged Steinem to found Ms magazine. Ms magazine demanded the repeal of laws criminalizing abortion, advocated for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, and put the spotlight on the position of candidates regarding women’s issues, including sexual harassment and violence in America, and nearly every other important issue of its times. The magazine continues today. Steinem also frequently toured with black activist and prominent civil rights attorney, Florynce Kennedy, who schooled Steinem on how race, class, and gender intersect. Steinem served as the treasurer of the Angela Davis Legal Defense Fund after Davis was wrongfully imprisoned for a crime she didn’t commit, and she also supported Shirley Chisholm’s historic bid for the presidency of the United States after she became the first black woman elected to Congress. That same year, Chisholm and Steinem partnered with Bella Abzug and Betty Freidan to found the National Women’s Political Caucus.
While both Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem acknowledged the tremendous influence of the French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir on the modern feminist movement, and both likened the struggle of feminism to African American’s struggle for civil rights, Steinem made a much greater point of crediting her early adoption of feminism to African Americans, saying she learned feminism “disproportionately from black women.” Steinem also wisely credited Native American women for the first wave of feminism in the 19th century, writing the Foreword to Sally Roesch Wagner’s seminal book about the Women’s Suffrage Movement. I relate to Gloria Steinem’s support of Roesch Wagner, as I myself befriended Sally while writing my second book, Original Politics: Making America Sacred Again. It was largely because of the excellent research by Wagner on Native influence in the 19th century women’s movement that I was able to write the following from Original Politics:
How did the first radical suffragists of the United States—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Matilda Gage—come to a vision of equality for women? All these women were living in 19th century America, a time when a woman fleeing a violent husband would be routinely returned to him by police, just as runaway slaves were returned to their masters. How did these women—who lived in a society where they were required to pay taxes but had no voice in the direction of government; could not vote; could not run for office; lost all property rights once they married; had no right of divorce, and if they separated from their husbands, lost all custody rights to their children; whose oppression was sanctioned by the Bible, with their husbands having the legal right and religious responsibility to physically discipline them;—HOW in the world did these women, who were not even permitted to speak aloud in church, have the courage to ask for equal rights?[i]
They did so because they were living nearby Native women who befriended them and showed them another way. These Native women were fully equal in their society—their responsibilities were in balance with men; their children were members of the mother’s clan, and they controlled their own use of property. The Native women’s work was satisfying and done alongside other women (as opposed to the mostly isolated drudgery of the colonial household), and they were responsible for agriculture in addition to the home life. Moreover, the women were understood to be spiritually related to Mother Earth herself, a relationship that ensured respect. In fact, they lived in a society where rape and violence toward women was almost unheard of and severely punished if it were to occur. These Native women happened to be Haudenosaunee (Iroquois)—the same group that strongly influenced the founding fathers of the United States—but, in truth, they could have been from any number of other tribes with similar traditions of equality for women.
As Roesch Wagner knew, it was a bit of a misnomer to call the women’s rights leaders of the 19th century “suffragists.” They were not merely asking for the right to vote; they wanted equal rights in every way. In the first ever women’s conference in the United States (if not the world), held at Seneca Falls, NY, in 1848, they drafted a document obviously based on the Declaration of independence, only this time for women. It began the same way: “When in the course of human events…” and went on to proclaim that “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal…”
In short, the influence from African American feminists on white feminists in the 20th century is remarkably reminiscent of what happened in the 19th century, only it was Native American women back then. In both cases, the women behind the scenes were generally people of color, while the main faces promoted were white women. While this implies something telling about the ability of the society to fully support African-American women (such as Kamala Harris in her bid for the presidency), I cannot blame the white women who acted as allies. It is up to the society as a whole to change and welcome all women and men as equals.
The Larger Question of How to Honor our Ancestors
Finally, I hold within my heart a larger question around how we should honor our ancestors. Rather than picking apart people’s lives to uncover their perceived faults shortly after they die, why not instead focus on the positive things they did while they were alive? To be human is to be imperfect. Nobody is without fault. To me, a self-described ancestor worshipper, I cherish all the good things I learned from my mentors now in the spirit world. In my latest book, Original Love, I wrote this about “living ancestors,” and I will close with that statement today.
Imagine, if you will, stepping into the footsteps of a particular ancestor or ancestors you have admired, letting in their light, their hopes, dreams and aspirations, lovingly accepting the responsibility to carry forth their work in your own life. Feel their energy living through you, pulsing in your own heart. See their dreams coming to fruition; visualize them smiling, finding contentment. Do your life’s work in service to them and the generations that will come after you. I call such a practice communion with living ancestors. A living ancestor is someone who remains alive in spirit, having taken up residence inside your own heart. They are always there for you, helping to guide you in your most important decisions, acting as your spiritual compass.
Thank you Larry, Wendell, Dolly, and Gloria.
Love and blessings to all,
Glenn
Note: The two italicized portions of the text are reprinted with permission from SelectBooks, NYC. Original Politics: Making America Sacred Again (copyright 2020) and Original Love: The Timeless Source of Wholeness (copyright 2026).
[i]. Wagner, Sally Roesch. Sisters of Spirit: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early American Feminists(Summertown, Tn., 2001).
Well ladies and gentlemen i hope u are all ready
A balanced appreciation for four ancestors that makes our present feel more hopeful.