Today at 1 p.m., women and their families all over Ventura County and beyond will stand for five minutes to reflect on ways to improve the world. Many will recite Julia Ward Howe's "Mother's Day Proclamation," written in 1870.

The mother of six, successful author and writer of the stirring lyrics of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," was opposed to the Franco-Prussian War. In her book "Reminiscences," she wrote about the inspiration for her proclamation:

"The august dignity of motherhood and its terrible responsibilities now appeared to me in a new aspect, and I could think of no better way of expressing my sense of these than that of sending forth an appeal to womanhood throughout the world, which I then and there composed."

Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of fears!

Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,

"Our husbands shall not come to us reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.

"Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience.

"We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says, "Disarm, Disarm!"

The sword of murder is not the balance of justice! Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as the means whereby the great human family can live in peace,

And each bearing after her own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

Mrs. Howe's proclamation is being voiced by a new generation, spurred by author Sharon Mehdi's book, "The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering," about two grandmothers who stand in a park to help save the world. A group of Ohio women then created a Web site, http://www.standingwomen.org, to encourage women to gather on Mother's Day in schools, parks and their own front or backyards to stand for five minutes in silence, thinking what they can do individually and collectively to improve the world.

The Ohio group's proclamation reads:

We will be standing for the world's children and grandchildren, and for the seven generations

beyond them. We dream of a world where all of our children have safe drinking water, clean

air to breathe, and enough food to eat. A world where they have access to a basic education to

develop their minds and healthcare to nurture their growing bodies. A world where they have

a warm, safe and loving place to call home. A world where they don't live in fear of violence — in

their home, in their neighborhood, in their school or in their world.

This is the world of which we dream. This is the cause for which we stand.

Mrs. Howe dreamed of holding a Women's Peace Conference, but women were still fighting for the right to vote and that dream was unrealized. Still, 138 years later, her words continue to inspire.

Today, local women have pledged to stand at 1 p.m. at these sites we know of and at others we do not: Plaza Park in downtown Ventura, Libbey Park in Ojai, Foothill Park in Camarillo, and in their own yards. Mothers taking a unified, public stand for a better world for their children — we can think of no better way to celebrate Mother's Day.