Mood:  a-ok

Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana (1840-1898) was a spirit medium of the Zezuru Shona people. For much of her life, she fought against colonization of Mashonaland and Matabeleland (now known as Zimbabwe) by The British South Africa Company, and for her efforts, she was martyred -- executed by the British government -- after the death of Native Commissioner Pollard, which she is said to have ordered. Pollard had thrashed a local chief for supposedly not reporting an outbreak of rinderpest among his animal herds.

Things weren't always bad between the English and the people of Mashonaland and Matabeleland. Trade started off amicably, but the more the British enroached upon the territory of the Zezuru Shona, the more strained relations became. Eventually, after the colonizers began enacting taxes, forced relocations and labor upon the natives of the land, they demaded that the British leave. A rebellion ensued, and in the end, both Nehanda and her husband -- also a powerful spiritualist -- were hanged. Just before her hanging, a Catholic Priest attempted to convert her, but she refused, choosing instead to die true to her own religion and people.

Today, Nehanda is remembered by the Shona as a heroine of Zimbabwe, and there are songs, poems, and books written about her bravery in the face of colonial takeover.

Mood:  hungry

Myriam Merlet, Magalie Marcelin, and Anna Marie Coriolan were three of the main voices behind Haiti's women's movement, which worked with local populations, the judiciary, and the government at large to improve the lives of Haitians until their untimely deaths on January 12th, 2010 when a 7.0 earthquake struck Port Au Prince.

Myriam was hard at work on addressing rape culture, and served as the Chief of Staff of the Haitian Ministry of Women’s Affairs. She was also one of the founders of the humanitarian organization Enfofamm. Magalie was an artist who had recently completed work on David Bell's film Madame Ti Zo. Anna Marie worked with the ICAE, an educational network that aided central and South Americans working for the betterment of native populations.

Mood:  a-ok

Last February, I decided to spend the last part of the month highlighting black women who have made a difference over the decades. I had recently read two books and seen a documentary highlighting the American civil rights movement of the 1960s, but all were lacking a serious element in their retelling of history: the women! Even with all of the accomplishements of women in America and other countries around the world, there was very little said in mainstream books and other media, at least with what I read and saw.

This year, I'm starting my salute to great black women at the beginning of Black History Month, rather than the end, and to kick off this month of glorious, beautiful, strong black women, I'd like to highlight Mariama Bâ, the Senagalese feminist, writer, and professor who broke gender and racial stereotypes by becoming a lawyer, celebrated author and feminist scholar. 

Born in 1929 into a wealthy family in Dakar, she was raised by her mother and father until her mother's death. After this tragic event, she was sent to live with her grandparents, who attempted to raise her in a more "traditional" fashion, with limited education and training to be a wife rather than to pursue the same path as the men in her family. However, her father saw Mariama's potential and insisted she receive an education; she eventually graduated from Ecole Normale, where she was trained to become a teacher.

During her lifetime, she wrote a number of essays and three books about her life as an African Muslim women. She wrote eloquently about sexism, racism, and intersectionality. She witnessed the effects of racism and sexism first hand, and spent much of her life trying to healthe rift between human beings. So Long A Letter, her first novel, is still read in high schools and on college campuses today.

 *photo credit: public domain.

Mood:  bright

A Softer World is the comic brainchild of Emily Horne and Joey Comeau. Emily creates a lot of the art, and Joey creates the words. Both maintain blogs that are alternately hilarious, touching, and soulful, and Joey is a published writer whose book Overqualified touches on a dilemma faced by college grads faced with roaming the job world for that next position: you're too qualified to work entry level, but the next position available requires 10 years of experience you don't necessarily have.

Mood:  celebratory

Between simply bucking up and making use of a simple weight loss program, I have managed to lose nearly 15 pounds since June 2009, which is when I started using Lose It!, an app put out by FitNow for the iPhone. While I still have the pain of fibromyalgia and its associated sleep issues (I also have a touch of sleep apnea that my doctor and I are working together to combat) to deal with on a daily basis, I have been able to fit back into a lot of my clothing, and getting around is a lot easier than it was when I was at 160 pounds last summer (I'm now at 145.6).

For anyone seeking to lose weight gained during a long illness or after the birth of a child, Lose It! might be a good program for you, too. I haven't found that I needed to change my diet all that much (I still enjoy the occasional burger and fries) as much as I had to change the portions, though I do sometimes eat more greens and staples than I used to, as the caloric intake is less and they fill me up more. I've also found that cutting out the number of candy bars and bags of chips I used to eat also helped, but that particular issue was also brought on by the fact that I couldn't sleep, and as a result I craved a lot more sugar thinking it would help me manage my wakefulness and time. ProVigil and a change in pain medication have helped me manage this particular issue, and my path has been fairly steady overall. 

Mood:  chatty

Claw Money, fashion designer and entrepreneur, started her art career as a graffiti artist in New York City during the late 1980s. Her signature mark -- an iconic paw with three claws -- appeared all over the city during her near decade-long tenure with TC5 and FC, two male-dominated graffiti groups. Eventually, she formed her own group, called PMS.These days, she has her own clothing line, and has dressed such celebrities as Santogold, M.I.A., and Kanye West. Her designs have appeared in hundreds of magazines, including Vogue, Bust, High Times, Paper, Nylon, and Vibe, and she has worked with Clavin Klein, Mark Ecko and Nike, among others. A book about her life called Bombshell: The Life and Times of Claw Money, was published in 2007.

Mood:  bright

Nina Pandolfo of Brazil combines cute with concrete as one of Sao Paulo's best female graffiti artists. In addition to making street art, she also works on canvas and in other mediums. She's an accomplished sculptor, and has been showing her work since the early 1990s, when she introduced the world to her wild imagination by painting directly onto the walls of her native city of São Paulo. 

These days, she's asked to paint her murals -- sometimes as a means of luring art lovers into the gallery -- and is enjoying a professional art career. 

Mood:  chillin'

Following the style of Shepherd Fairey (Andre the Giant Has A Posse), Patrick McNeil of Canada, Patrick Miller of the US, and Lady Aiko Nakagawa of Japan formed the New York arts collective Faile in 2000. Inspired by the resurgence in street art around them, the trio (all art school grads) took to wheatpasting their adopted hometown -- as well as cities around the world -- using little more than ingenuity and student loans. When adulthood caught up with them a few years later, and the collective realized it needed to sustain itself with earned monies, the three branched out into other fields, including fashion, woodworking, mural making and print sales.

Today, they have 4 books published, and are still showing art around the world.

Mood:  amorous

The first time I ever caught a vision of Ari Up, she was groovin' to the sounds of her group The Slits as a part of the documentary film Girls Bite Back, which is a look at the ladies who made punk and metal history. Featuring Nina Hagen, X-Ray Specs, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Lilliput, Girlschool and The Plasmatics, the 45-minute documentary is a lovely tribute, but to me, the woman who stood out the most was dreadlocked Ari, as she led the most experimental, tits-out, jaw-droppingly entertaining band in the UK's early punk history. Respected by both men and women in the industry (her mother, Nora Forster, was well known in music circles and is now married to Johnny Lydon), Ari and the ladies of The Slits still weave a rich musical tapestry at every show, blending punk, reggae, ska, rock and their theatrical personalities to entertain crowds around the world.

Ari could have faded away like so many of her contemporaries eventually did, but she instead chose to continue doing what she loved best -- making music -- and 30 years later, it is still paying off.

Mood:  bright

A soft cubist who considered Picasso to have "embodied the novelty of destruction", Poland-born artist Tamara de Lempicka (May 16, 1898–March 18, 1980) was raised at the lap of high society. Unlike a lot of her contemporaries -- women who remained at home and in the shadow of the men in their lives -- Tamara was an internationally famous artist and businesswoman who was also one of the few people to accurately predict the coming of World War II years before it happened. 

Throughout her life and career, which spanned Europe, The Americas and Russia, Tamara remained sharp, ahead of her time and lovely. She painted kings, queens, actors, art-world luminaries and her family, in particular her daughter Kizette, from whom she spent several years estranged.Her contemporaries were such artists as Georgia O'Keefe, Willem de Kooning, and Santiago Martinez Delgado, among others. She counted actors George Sanders and Tyrone Powers as friends.

Tamara's art career spanned nearly 40 years, and it wasn't until after the poor reception of her work at a gallery in Manhattan in 1962 that she decided to retire.  She passed away in 1980 in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and her ashes were spread across Popocatepetl, a volcano in the region, by her friend Count Giovanni Agusta.