In April we launched the Conscious Living Series composed of visually enjoyable, to the point, life-altering booklets. The first three booklets, Conscious Choices (Dating), Conscious Sexuality, and Conscious Relationship were launched last month.

Today we launch the next three booklets focused on three of the infinite ways women express their spirituality. The three Conscious Spirituality booklets invite you to live a conscious, mindful life in the area of spirituality—naming your spirituality, living your spirituality, designing practices to support your spirituality, and finding communities to inspire your spirituality. If we don’t consciously design our lives and spirituality, by default we automatically fall into the patterns, practices, and habits shaped by our early religious formation.

1. Conscious Spirituality I: Ordinary Life is Interesting Enough – For Woman Who Are Spiritual but Not Religious

Imagine a woman who embodies her spirituality. A woman who honors her body as the earthy temple of the spirit of life. Who breathes deeply in gratitude for life itself. Imagine yourself as this woman as you read Ordinary Life is Interesting Enough!

An Excerpt: “Some of us name ourselves humanist, rationalist, or atheist; others refuse designation. Most identify as ‘spiritual but not religious.’ For some of us ‘non-belief’ was an intellectual decision; for others, it just happened as we gradually moved beyond religion and/or god, noticing one day that he/she/it no longer lived in our bodies, minds, and hearts. Whatever path was chosen or stumbled upon, we returned home to radical self-responsibility and to full participation in this life, here and now. Without the elaborate infrastructure of religious society and without the weekly support of religious community and ritual, we, the ‘spiritual but not religious,’ find ourselves searching for spiritual practices, words of inspiration, and communities of support and camaraderie.

A Response: Linda responded to the booklet in this way, “On the journey from religion to spirituality, it’s good to hear that I’m not alone on the journey. It’s good to hear from others who long for community. It’s good to be encouraged to write my own statement of belief.”

2. Conscious Spirituality II: All the Colors of the Rainbow – For Woman Who Embrace a Nature-Based Spirituality

Imagine a woman who experiences her oneness with all that is. A woman who honors her intimate connection with the natural world. Who embraces its rhythms and cycles as her own. Imagine yourself as this woman as you read All the Colors of the Rainbow!

An Excerpt: “As adults we embrace the courage to find our way back to the open spaces of spirituality. We learn again what we knew as children, to use all the colors of the rainbow in the expression of our spirituality. Reclaiming our childhood passion, we find comfort, inspiration, guidance, and wisdom in the natural world. We would much rather hike or camp in the natural world on the Sabbath than be indoors. Our spirituality is shaped by the natural world and our experience of it.”

A Response: Sarah reflects on her spiritual philosophy inspired by the natural world – “Energy is available to me in the natural world. I call on the roaring waters when I need strength, the brightness of the sun when I’m afraid, and the gentle breeze to calm me. By becoming one with nature, I embrace my pain and feel it as part of the world’s pain. I embrace my power and experience it as the life force that flows through all. I accept myself just as I am, as a part of it all: the cycles, the unity, the harmony.”

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the founder of Imagine a Woman International and BAB Coaching and Publication Services. If you’re inspired to take the next step with your book project, visit www.birthabook.com. If you’re ready to author your own life, business, ministry, or self-understanding, visit www.imagineawoman.com for inspiration, opportunities, and support. If you would like to become certified to facilitate our 6 woman-affirming experiences, visit here for certification details.

Today we launch the Conscious Living Series composed of visually enjoyable, to the point, life-altering booklets. The first three booklets, Conscious Choices (A Woman-Affirming Guide to Dating), Conscious Sexuality, Conscious Relationship ($6 each, $15 for all three) were inspired by my own experience of waking up and by hundreds of conversations and vulnerable experiences shared in women’s circles over the past 25 years. The stories that motivated me to complete the first three booklets express truths rarely acknowledged even in women’s groups.

Some of us don’t have the words to express our experiences. Others of us have been conditioned to accept the way things are without questioning. When we feel uncomfortable we are much more likely to conclude that something is wrong with us, and to either ignore our discomfort or pursue remedies for our perceived flaws.

I met Sally in the dorm at a retreat center. The conversation turned to sexuality. She shocked us by the following expression of her frustration: “Iʼm 26 and I’ve already figured out that most men will do anything to be sure their sexual needs are met. The vagina is what they want. I’ve yet to experience a date where the man doesnʼt at some point start the predictable moves toward ‘getting some.’ Itʼs frustrating.” As we shared with her, in a way she wished her mother had been able or willing to do, she was encouraged to remain loyal to herself, regardless, and said, “Through this conversation, I now know that men do exist who’ve moved beyond the “getting some” stage, and I’ll only date them.” She woke up to her own responsibility to know what she wants and to let go of what doesn’t work for her!

Forty-something Jennifer chimed in, “As I look back Iʼm ashamed of how many times I faked orgasm with male partners. Most of them had no idea how to satisfy me, so I put up with them pushing me around like a piece of furniture to set up the perfect setting for their release. I never once told the truth. So they believed they were perfect lovers because I enabled them to think that.” Through our informal circle sharing, she too became aware of her responsibility to tell the truth about her experience and to make clear to partners which sexual style worked for her. She announced, “No more fake orgasms!”

Fifty-something Celine shared her experience in a circle of women, “I left a relationship because I finally realized that the man I was dating only wanted sex. He kept a lid on his frustration and anger when I asked to be held or told him that I was too tired for sex—until one day, when he could no longer hide his obsession. When I asked him for some affection, he became angry, jumped out of bed, and slammed the door on his way out. I was petrified. I broke up with him that week.” She was encourage by the honest sharing and now knows she’s not alone.

Married Celeste opened up about a situation faced by many women, yet rarely spoken aloud: “My husband went into moods almost weekly. He became distant and irritable. This was very painful. I asked him if his moods were related to the frequency of our sexual intercourse. He told me that he expected regular sex from his partners. His expectation shut me down. We saw a counselor who challenged my husband to manage his own emotions and needs, and stop looking to me for release. When I read about the difference between process and destination oriented sexual styles, I felt encouraged. I’m not frigid. I’m not crazy. Now we must decide if the differences in our sexual styles mean the end of our marriage. Taking responsibility for what I want and need is serious business!”

Louis and Monica attended the “Adam & Eve Make Peace” workshop for couples. They shared their inspiring experience as the reason they wanted to practice the “Making Peace” Intimacy Practices offered in the workshop and in the Conscious Relationship booklet: “How sad that the title Men are From Mars. Women are From Venus assumes that so much distance exists between men and women. We thought something was wrong with us because distance is not our experience. We share many of the same feelings and responses to life. Growing up, we thought this closeness could only be experienced with friends of the same gender. Yet weʼve always been each otherʼs best friend.”

These women and couples, and our daughters, granddaughters, and nieces were in my mind and heart as I prepared the first three booklets in the Conscious Living series. Sexual intimacy is not the focus of these booklets, yet it is boldly addressed. I emphasize it here in this blog because so little is written to support women, of whatever age or relationship-status, to sort through their sexual attitudes and responses. The resources contained within the booklets to evaluate dates, trust our own wisdom, reclaim our own sexuality, and co-create peace-full relationships are deeply life-affirming, positive, and wise.

The word conscious means: known to oneself, awake to one’s own existence, aware of what one is doing, and aware of one’s sensations, thoughts, reactions, and surroundings. The first three booklets invite you to live a conscious, mindful life in the area of relationships—pursuing them, evaluating them, and maintaining them. If we don’t consciously design our lives, by default we will automatically fall into the patterns and habits shaped by our socialization.

Twenty-six year old Sally wished her mother had listened to her dating experiences and frustrations, and then been able to share the wisdom she heard that night at the retreat center. She told us that she doubted whether her mother had ever explored her own sexuality. She felt her mom and dad were going through the motions because so much had been unspoken, unaddressed between them through the years.

Inspired by Sally’s longing, share these three booklets with your daughters, nieces, and friends, and yes, even with your mother. If you’re not quite sure what to say to them about sexual intimacy, healthy dating, conscious relationships, read the booklets, and then give them to your loved ones. With your purchase of one booklet, you can give another copy away. With you purchase of all three, you can give one of each away! Purchase all three booklets here for $15.

Conscious Choices: A Woman-Affirming Guide to Dating

Description: Receive support to stay awake and aware during the dating experience, trusting what you see and sense, and making wise choices. Includes the “The Twenty Promises” for women of all ages and important reflections to consider after each date. Imagine a woman who is awake and aware. A woman who pays attention, trusts what she sees and senses, and makes good choices. Who remains loyal to herself no matter what. Imagine yourself as this woman.

Excerpt: “During the first month of getting to know a new friend or potential lover, reflect on each encounter in your journal. Rather than guessing what he or she may be feeling or thinking, notice your own feelings and responses. After each encounter, ask yourself:
1. “How did I feel in his/her presence?” Underline or highlight the words that best describe your feelings. (List in booklet)
2. “What part of my body felt energized during the encounter?” My mind expanded. • My heart opened. • My genitals tingled.
3. “What part of my body felt depleted during the encounter? My stomach tightened. • My ears felt assaulted. • My shoulders hurt.
“From a place of fullness, we look, sense, and determine what works for us and what doesnʼt. Our choices are wiser today because we trust what we see and sense. We trust our own “deeper wisdom.” We choose graceful relationships that deepen in satisfaction without depleting us. We choose friends and partners willing to develop the necessary relationship skills to navigate lifeʼs challenges. We choose friends and partners who take responsibility for their own emotional, spiritual, and practical needs, and have a fantastic circle of support and maintain it.”

Purchase “Conscious Choices: A Woman-Affirming Guide to Dating” Here

 Conscious Sexuality: Reclaiming our Birthright

Description: Receive inspiration to embrace your own erotic energy and sexual style. Includes the popular “Know Your Sexual Style” inventory and “The Smile of Love” chakra meditation. Imagine a woman who embraces her sexuality as her own. A woman who delights in pleasuring herself. Who experiences her erotic feelings and sensations without shame or guilt, and expresses them with courage and self-respect. Imagine yourself as this woman.

Excerpt: “It may take years, but eventually we find our way into a therapistʼs office with our current partner or into a womenʼs circle with our disappointment, questioning the sexual script weʼd taken for granted. Awakened from our trance by divorce, memory, or the recognition that weʼd been faking pleasure for decades, we acknowledge that the traditional script doesnʼt serve us, that thereʼs got to be more to it than 4-6 seconds of pleasure, and then sleep. Weʼre encouraged to take responsibility for our truth, and slowly we come home to our own sexuality. Without shame, we bring a process-oriented understanding of sexuality to our partnerships. This understanding moves us beyond the performance orientation of the culture. It includes the expression of the full range of feelings that accompany every intimate relationship, feelings of warmth and caring, anger and passion, tenderness and support.”

Purchase Conscious Sexuality Here for $6

Conscious Relationship: Adam & Eve Make Peace

Description: Learn the yoga of love by practicing the “Making Peace Intimacy Practices” based on the popular “Imagine Lovers” poem. Cultivate presence, gratitude, and peace within your relationship. Imagine lovers who share a practice of presence and reflection. Who stay awake to the essence of their love. Gratitude for All That Is fills their shared experience.

Excerpt: “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to deepen your intimacy by developing new habits of togetherness, by turning toward each other regularly to practice the “Making Peace Intimacy Practices” for couples. The ultimate salvation of the world depends upon developing a new kind of balance in which women and men come together to offer their combined strength, wisdom, and compassion in service of humankind. As couples find their way to a sacred meeting place beyond right and wrong, blaming and shaming, one-up and one-down, the world becomes a safer, saner place for all of us. Join us in making the world a saner, more peaceful place for all of us by including seven “Making Peace” Intimacy Practices in your shared life. Consider them your Yoga of Love.”

Purchase Conscious Relationship Here for $6

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the founder of Imagine a Woman International and BAB Coaching and Publication Services. If you’re inspired to take the next step with your book project, visit www.birthabook.com. If you’re ready to author your own life, business, ministry, or self-understanding, visit www.imagineawoman.com for inspiration, opportunities, and support. If you would like to become certified to facilitate our 6 woman-affirming experiences, visit here for certification details.

In honor of Women’s History Month, we remember our foremothers…

There have always been women who remember the old ways.

Women who hold within them the memory of a time in the very beginning when women were honored. Women who refuse to worship the gods, to learn the language, to take the names of the fathers.

Women who refuse to twist their female bodies out of shape, to fit into definitions, to transcend limitations. Women who love their bodies. Regardless.

Women who refuse to please others by becoming smaller than they are. Women who take space with their thoughts and feelings, their needs and desires, their anger and their dreams.

Loud and strong women from every age wild women, spinster women, wise women, rebellious women, women who love women, midwives, witches healers, activists. Banners and placards aloft . . .

Eve, the Mother of All Living: “Take and eat of the good fruit of life. Take a big bite!”

Sappho: “She Who Gives Birth Has Power over Life and Death.”

Mary Wollstonecraft: “Break the Silken Fetters!”

Sojourner Truth: “Ain’t I a Woman?!”

Margaret Sanger: “Speak and Act in Defiance of Convention!”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton: “Whatever the Bible may be made to do in Hebrew and Greek in plain English, it does not exalt and dignify women.”

Karen Horney: “Womb Envy is More Like It.”

Audre Lorde: “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.”

One by one the women step up and commit the forbidden act of biting into limiting thought: refuting it, smashing it, discarding it and beginning again in the very beginning when women loved their bodies, named their gods, authored their lives. When women refused to surrender except to life as it pulsated through them.

Women reminding us there is nothing wrong, there never has been anything wrong, there never will be anything wrong with woman—that’s why nothing ever works. Stop asking the question!

They speak the truth of a woman’s life told with heart, mind, and body. Refusing dissection, they are women and poets and theorists, who gather our brokenness into their words. An impulse toward wholeness awakens within us and we become again as we once were whole.

Inspired by our foremothers in every nation and generation, invite your friends, co-workers, daughters, nieces, and the young women in your school, neighborhood, and family to join you on the “Fifty Things To Do” woman-affirming adventure. To begin, click on this safe PDF link: “Fifty Things To Do.” Be full of yourselves and rock the world during Women’s History Month, 2011!

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the founder of Imagine a Woman International and BAB Coaching and Publication Services. If you’re inspired to take the next step with your book project, visit www.birthabook.com. If you’re ready to author your own self-understanding and life, visit www.imagineawoman.com for inspiration, opportunities, and support. To read more details about IAW’s Certification Program, visit here: www.imagineawoman.com/home/programs-services/iaw-certification

My awakening came late in time. I missed the second wave of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s. I was immersed in fundamentalist traditions that kept me isolated from the political movements in the wider culture. I was dealing with the aftermath of growing up in a severely dysfunctional home, children’s shelter, and orphanage—the kind of situations no one wanted to hear about because they were “so depressing.”

I was managing depression and my disheveled inner landscape with food and relationships. These habits of behavior kept me comatose until I was ready to walk through my personal past. I also finished high school and college successfully, launched a private day school, found great joy in teaching, and courageously entered a marriage. Light and darkness always dance together in our lives.

I was not alone. In circles of women I heard stories of others whose “consciousness raising” was precipitated by real life challenges. The “knight in shining armor” mythology shattered as they divorced and became the sole financial and emotional provider for their children. They sought support at a local women’s center and began to listen to women’s stories, shedding the competitive attitudes of a lifetime.

They stumbled into self-help meetings and someone said “Goddess” instead of the compulsory “God” in the Twelve Steps, and they wondered how she got the courage to commit such a heretical act. Their therapists suggested they read The Second Sex or The Creation of Patriarchy and they were stunned that women were writing such powerful treatises and they knew nothing about them.

In the 1980s after my divorce, I showed up at graduate school to major in religious education, the appropriate focus for young women, only to discover that most of my classmates were “radical” women going into the ordained ministry. After graduate school, I relocated and was drawn to the local Unitarian church. I sat with tears in my eyes every Sunday listening to the preacher. Her words resonated with my deepest experience in a way that the words of male ministers had never been able to do.

In the process of awakening, I realized that aspects of the 12 Step model weren’t working for me. I desired a non-shaming, non-hierarchical framework within which to wrestle with my habits of behavior. I rewrote the 12 Steps from an inner perspective, recognizing that my journey was an inward one. Instead of looking to another God or higher power outside of my life for salvation, I longed to return home to myself, to grow in knowledge and love of myself, to accept and trust myself. I wasn’t interested in ascending to enlightened states of being that involved the denial of the self. I was compelled to descend—to look deep within to reclaim forgotten aspects of myself.

Releasing the shame of a lifetime, I reached beneath my obsession with flaws, beneath the accomplishments that masked my sense of unworthiness, beneath years of alienation from myself, toward the goodness at my center. I discovered that the good was deeply embedded within me. As I embraced my original goodness, my inner spaces were cleared out and reclaimed as my own. I found rest within my own life and now accept all of myself as worthy.

From a self-possessed center, I refused to embrace any set of principles based on the belief in my fundamental sinfulness and defectiveness, or on the necessity of ego-deflation, humiliation, or the surrender of my natural impulses. Instead, I reframed the 12 Steps based on my belief in original goodness and the necessity of self-love and self-trust. Each step now answers the question, “What’s good and right about me?” and affirms my natural impulse toward healing and wholeness.

As I was writing A Deeper Wisdom, I invited a community of recovering women to join me in the process. It is always in the company of women that we are reminded of our common heritage as women. A heritage that reaches beyond “the beginning” defined by men to the “very beginning” when the divine was imagined as woman.

We discover that we are surrounded by a courageous cloud of witnesses—their experience and stories, their ideas and images, their creativity and outrage become healing resources for us. No longer asking the question what’s wrong with me, we are freed from our obsession with the works, words, and lives of men. Self-possessed, we step outside of patriarchal thought and immerse ourselves in women’s history, philosophy, theology, creativity, recovery, and spirituality. Receive Gerda Lerner’s strong challenge:

To step outside of patriarchal thought means being skeptical toward every known system of thought and being critical of all assumptions, ordering values and definitions. It means being critical toward our own thought, which was trained in the patriarchal tradition. Finally, it means developing intellectual courage, the courage to stand alone, the courage to reach farther than our grasp, the courage to risk failure.

Perhaps the greatest challenge to thinking women is the challenge to move from the desire for safety and approval to the most “unfeminine” quality of all—that of intellectual arrogance, the supreme hubris which asserts to itself the right to reorder the world. The hubris of the god-makers, the hubris of the male system-builders.

We’ve been warned against exhibiting hubris (“arrogant pride”) all of our lives. Gerda Lerner supports us to be arrogantly full of ourselves for the salvation of a planet out of balance and in danger of annihilating itself. In her every word, we hear the powerful affirmation, “It is right and good that you are woman. Assert to yourself the right to reorder the worlds you inhabit. Be full of yourself!”

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the founder of Imagine a Woman International and BAB Coaching and Publication Services. This week’s blog is an excerpt from the 2012 edition of Patricia’s book A Deeper Wisdom: The Twelve Steps from a Woman’s Perspective. The book is written to all women on a spiritual journey of self-discovery who are interested in woman-affirming processes and thinking. Visit here to purchase the book for $12:  http://www.imagineawoman.com/home/products/books-by-patricia-lynn-reilly

Here’s my rationale for turning at least some of our Valentine’s Day attention and energy toward ourselves: I believe that an intimate connection exists between our choice to love, pay attention to, and remain loyal to ourselves, and our capacity to love, pay attention to, and remain loyal to others.

This belief was shaped by my personal journey, strengthened by listening to the stories of women, and affirmed by the thinking of writers I respect and admire:

When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. —Anne Morrow Lindbergh

As one respects oneself so one can respect others. It is not that as you judge so shall you be judged, but as you judge yourself so shall you judge others. —Harry Stack Sullivan

Everything worth having costs something, and the price of true love is self-knowledge. Becoming acquainted with yourself is a price well worth paying for the love that will really address your needs. —Daphne Rose Kingma

If we depend on our partner to make us whole, we’re in trouble. Sooner or later, we shall feel betrayed. Sooner or later, we shall hate the dependence. Sooner or later, we may be the one who does the betraying. Wholeness is within. —Marion Woodman

Loving yourself…does not mean being self-absorbed or narcissistic, or disregarding others. Rather it means welcoming yourself as the most honored guest in your own heart, a guest worthy of respect, a lovable companion. —Margo Anand

In preparation for February 14, turn some of your Valentine’s Day energy and attention toward yourself. May “Spring Juices” awaken your original self-regard. In the very beginning, the girl-child loves herself!

Spring Juices

spring juices flowing

the fragrance of attraction

rousing me from winter’s celibate sleep

awakening the erotic in every encounter

with bus driver, musician, old friend.

***

moistened by a contagious ecstasy,

i open and receive the fertile darkness,

a friend’s laugh, the calla lily’s curves,

the yam’s sweetness, an old woman’s fierceness,

the egret’s pose, the musician’s sounds,

the call of my ancestors,

the fleshiness of all that is.

***

i wonder what it would be like

to love myself in the moist spring.

to dance with my own ideas

on a blanket at the park, perhaps;

stroking, teasing, tasting, opening,

expanding the ideas until they formed

a beautiful poem, an ode to “what is.”

my body aroused, moistened, and opened

by the dance of my mind,

by the play of my words,

my body attune to the hum,

the resonance, the ah,

my body erupting in response

to the dance, to life, to All That Is.

***

in the very beginning, the girl-child loved herself.

(Excerpt from Words Made Flesh, Copyright, 2004)

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the founder of Imagine a Woman International and BAB Coaching and Publication Services. If you’re inspired to take the next step with your book project, visit www.birthabook.com. If you’re ready to author your own self-understanding and life, visit www.imagineawoman.com for inspiration, opportunities, and support. To read more details about IAW’s Certification Program, visit here: www.imagineawoman.com/home/programs-services/iaw-certification

There’s good news in this season of resolutions and self-betterment plans!

Your task is not to become a new, improved, or changed person by spinning out resolution after resolution or embracing the current self-improvement fad. Rather, it is to heal into the present by reclaiming your natural and essential self in all its fullness. In the very beginning, you loved yourself. You came into the world with feelings of omnipotence, not inferiority. You loved your body, expressed its needs, and followed its impulses. You recognized and expressed your feelings. You told the truth. You created plays, musicals, stories, and pictures from your own unique vision of the world. You were full of yourself!

You may doubt that this time ever existed. Allow Monique Wittig’s strong words to remind you of the truth, “There was a time when you walked alone, full of laughter, you bathed bare-bellied. You say you have lost all recollection of it, remember . . . You say there are no words to describe this time, you say it does not exist. But remember. Make an effort to remember. Or, failing that, invent.”

Each IAW self-guided retreat/course invites you to embrace your essential-self by discarding the facades and personas of a lifetime. It will inspire you to celebrate your originality and truth by shedding the conformity of many lifetimes. No longer content with self-improvement schemes that merely require the rearrangement of your exterior life, you’ll heal into the present and experience the transformation of your inner world.

Before you make another body-resolution, sign up for an expensive body-fix, register for a juice fast, or look into the mirror yet again with disgust, imagine a woman who is glad to be alive. A woman who has released body-scrutiny and -criticism. Who celebrates her body with reverence and respect. Imagine yourself as this woman. IAW’s transformational self-guided retreat/course “Love Your Body: The Five Pathways to Body-Love” will remind you of the body-loving instincts of the child you once were, and of how to awaken them in every season of your life.

Before you make another life-resolution, sign up for an expensive life overhaul, decide to end it all, or change careers, imagine a woman who authors her own life. A woman who trusts her inner sense of what’s right for her. Who takes responsibility for the design and content of her life. Imagine yourself as this woman. “Author Your Own Life: The Five Choices of Authentic Living” will remind you of the creative intelligence you already possess, and how to access it to author your own life and self-understanding.

Before you make another relationship-resolution, say I DO, scream I DON’T, or sign on with the latest matchmaking outfit, imagine a woman who turns toward herself with interest and attention. A woman who turns inward to listen, remember, and replenish. Whose capacity to be available to others deepens as she is available to herself. Imagine yourself as this woman. IAW’s transformational self-guided retreat/course “Relationships from the Inside Out: The Four Ingredients of Conscious Relationship” will remind you of the essential connection between self-love and the love of others, and how to experience your relationships from the inside out.

Before you make another spiritual-resolution, join an ashram or convent, turn your life over to another god or goddess, or turn away from spirituality altogether, imagine a woman who embodies her spirituality. A woman who honors her body as the sacred temple of the spirit of life. Who breathes deeply as a prayer of gratitude for life itself. Imagine yourself as this woman. “Name Your Own Gods: The Five Paths to Conscious Spirituality” will remind you of your birthright of freedom and courage, and how to use this birthright to inspire and design your own spirituality.

Invest in yourself as you enter the New Year with renewed self-love and compassion. Invest $27 in one of our woman-affirming retreats and receive these “pillows of support” to accompany you on your self-guided retreat journey:

• “Home Is Always Waiting” Meditation MP3 to prepare for your retreat.
• “Thirty Daily Meds” in your in-box to inspire you throughout your retreat.
• Membership in IAW’s Members-Only Circle on Facebook to share your retreat-insights.

Before you take another step into the New Year, treat yourself to one of our 6 woman-affirming experiences to infuse 2012 with dynamic self-love and purposeful engagement with the world around you. Visit here for more self-guided retreat details.

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the founder of Imagine a Woman International and BAB Coaching and Publication Services. If you’re inspired to take the next step with your book project, visit www.birthabook.com. If you’re ready to author your own life, business, ministry, or self-understanding, visit www.imagineawoman.com for inspiration, opportunities, and support. If you would like to become certified to facilitate our 6 woman-affirming experiences, visit here for certification details.

In honor of Mary and all the Mamas, past, present, and future, who thrust us forth into life, we reach back to the very beginning and remember the Big Mama!

Long ago the Big Mama gave birth to ALL THAT IS. It took her seven days of hard work and seven nights of deep rest. Here’s how it happened—

On the first day, she gave birth to light and darkness. They danced together.

On the second day, she gave birth to land and water. They touched.

On the third day, she gave birth to green growing things. They rooted and took a deep breath.

On the fourth day, she gave birth to land, sea, and air creatures. They walked and flew and swam.

On the fifth day, her creation learned balance and cooperation. She thanked her partner for coaching her labor.

On the sixth day, she celebrated the creativity of all living things.

On the seventh day, she left space for the unknown.

On the seventh and final day the Big Mama left a great big empty space in the universe…for YOU to fill with your ideas and words, poems and stories, businesses and organizations, sounds and songs, daughters and sons, colors and paintings, careers and retirements, movements and dances.

With a deep breath, celebrating the creativity of all living things, imagine 2012 as the space left for you to fill by the Big Mama. Imagine this space as an expansive field. During this holiday season, allow yourself to play in this field of infinite possibility.
*******

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the founder of Imagine a Woman International and BAB Coaching and Publication Services. “The Big Mama” was originally published in her first book, A God Who Looks Like Me: Discovering a Woman-Affirming Spirituality (Ballantine Books, 1995) and will be published as a children’s book in 2011. Visit www.imagineawoman.com to learn more about Patricia’s inspirational books. If you’re inspired to take the next step in 2012 with your own book project, visit www.birthabook.com.

With the support of the Kula for Karma community Penni Feiner, Executive Director of Kula for Karma, traveled to Africa, taught meditation, breath work, chanting, and yoga postures, and offered 100 Rwandan genocide survivors the gift of yellow tee shirts with “Imagine a Woman” poem printed in English on the front side of the tee, and translated into Kinyarwandan, the Rwandan language, on the back.

Because many of the women weren’t able to read or write, the Rwandan translator read the poem out loud. The faces of the women lit up as Gyslaine’s voice moved from stanza to stanza. After the first reading of the poem, the women broke out into song and dance. They sang, “Warakoze Mana, Icyubahiro Ni Icyawe,” which means “Glory be to God. Thank you God. Praise be to God.”

As Penni listened to their song, she became determined to understand its meaning, commit it to memory, and create a chant to offer back to the women she and her team would meet in the days to come.

When back at the guesthouse, Penni grabbed her guitar and started to sing, etching the women’s song into her mind. She invited some of the young children to sing the song into her I Phone in order to perfect her pronunciation.

After working, reworking, and fine-tuning, Penni memorized the women’s song, which became the soul of a new chant to offer the women the next day at their session. As she sang the song/chant the next day, inspired by the women’s own song, the faces of her students glowed. They were delighted and deeply affirmed as they received the gift of their words echoed back to them by a sister from another continent.

What “deep and meaningful” (D&M) gift will you offer those around you during this season of light and generosity? Do you have a song, dance, poem, suggestion, massage, or skill to share with your circle of friends, colleagues, and clients? Do you have time and energy to volunteer at non-profits such as Kula for Karma doing good work in your community?

Be inspired by Penni to do more D&M giving and acting, thinking and doing during the month of December! Share your adventures in giving on our Facebook Fan Page.

Penni Feiner is the Executive Director of Kula for Karma, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that offers therapeutic yoga, meditation instruction, and stress management support services—at no charge—to those who have been challenged by difficult circumstances, including addiction and abuse. Their mantra is: KULA (community) + KARMA (selfless service) = A Better World For Everyone! Visit their website: www.kulaforkarma.org.

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the founder of Imagine a Woman International. IAW International was delighted to partner with Kula for Karma on their trip to Rwanda in June 2010. We’re imagining into being more opportunities for the poem to partner with them in service of the world’s women. Join the IAW Global Community of Women at www.imagineawoman.com for inspiration, opportunities, and support.

Imagine a woman who is interested in her own life. A woman whose life is her teacher, healer, and challenge. Who is grateful for the ordinary moments of beauty and grace. Imagine yourself as this woman.

I first learned about gratitude as a potential response to life in Alanon, back in the day. When GA, my recovering alcoholic husband,  announced that he wanted a divorce and I discovered that he was involved with a woman he met in AA, I ran to my Alanon sponsor for support. She challenged me to resist the temptation to live in fear of that day 18 months ahead when we would be divorced.

Ginny encouraged me the stay present during every moment of the experience and to maintain a daily gratitude practice of acknowledging the goodness of life even as the world around, and within, me was falling apart. She promised me that if I stayed present, that I would be ready for that far-off day when the “no-fault” divorce would be finalized.

By the time GA and I met at the courthouse to finalize the divorce, I was studying at Princeton Theological Seminary and in love with my new life of study, exploration, and writing. As we embraced after the divorce proceedings, I offered him the blessing of gratitude, “I’m grateful for the gift you gave me. Yes, my world crashed when you left, but it needed to crash. The life I live today is more authentic, joyful, and real. Thank you, and peace be with you.”

I have continued that almost-daily gratitude practice for 20 years and explored the important role gratitude plays in our happiness, healthy adjustment to life’s twists and turns, and physical well-being. I have come to believe that it is a cost-effective way to manage our anxiety and add to our wellness routines!

According to Dr. Robert Emmons and Dr. Michael McCollough, who edited the first scholarly volume devoted to a fundamental human quality of gratitude, there are many emotions and personality traits important to well-being, but a large body of evidence suggests that gratitude is uniquely important.

In their volume, The Psychology of Gratitude (Oxford University Press, 2004), they brought together the work of scholars from a diversity of fields. Their research suggests that grateful people have higher levels of well-being.

These are some of the specific manifestations of well-being inspired by gratitude, gleaned from the Emmons-McCollough research and my own experience:

1. Grateful people are happier and more satisfied with their lives and social relationships.

2. They have higher levels of self-acceptance and greater authority and control of their circumstances, their personal growth, and the purposeful use of their capacities.

3. They have more positive ways of coping with life’s difficulties because they are more likely to seek support from others and grow from the experience.

4. They have fewer negative coping strategies because they are less likely to avoid or deny the problem, blame others for the problem, or cope through substance use.

5. They have fewer experiences of bitterness, resentment, irritation, and envy. Although they may experience these negative reactions initially, grateful people pivot/shift from these more readily and turn toward gratitude as their primary response.

6. They cope better during life transitions. Because they are more grateful before the transition, they are less stressed and depressed during the transition, and more satisfied with their lives after the transition.

7. They sleep better because the quality of their lives is more peaceful.

For the next two weeks, consider ending each day with your own Gratitude Practice. In your journal, list your gratitudes, write a gratitude poem, compose a song expressing your gratitude, or create a collage inspired by each day’s gratitudes.

Email your lists and written gratitudes to us or post them at our IAW International Facebook fan page. We’ll  gather your writings into our gratitude collages through December 1.

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the founder of Imagine a Woman International and BAB Coaching and Publication Services. If you’re inspired to take the next step with your book project, visit www.birthabook.com. If you’re ready to author your own life, business, ministry, or self-understanding, visit www.imagineawoman.com for inspiration, opportunities, and support.

Breast, A Noun

A poetic reflection in honor of Breast Awareness Month…

To know anything at all
about our history, our bodies, ourselves,
we must reach beyond
what they told us,
what they taught us,
what they want from us,
we must reach back
to the very beginning.

Before merriam and webster,
who have something to say about everything:
“breast a noun, either of two milk-producing glandular organs
on the front of the chest especially in the human female.”

Before the reversals of christian history:
adam giving birth to the woman,
father god suckling the child,
christ nursing humanity,
the milk-giving goddess agatha claimed as their saint,
her breasts cut off and carried on a platter.

Before the alterations of the hebrew bible:
el shaddai, a name for god,
shaddai meaning breast,
male translators altered the meaning,
their “god of the high places” doesn’t have breasts like mine.

We must reach back to the very beginning
to the place where lovers go
when they suck my breasts
to the source of life/mama mama mama
cried in the silence as their wet lips
surround my nipple, and they suck for dear life.

In the very beginning
long before adam gave birth
and father god sprouted breasts
and christ nursed humanity
and shaddai meant “high places”
and agatha’s breasts were amputated
and my lovers wanted more than I could give
in the very beginning
was the big mama.

From her moon-breasts
flowed the milky way,
the stars and planets,
streams, rivers, and oceans,
all that ebbs and flows,
all that expands and contracts,
returning always to mama’s breast.

To her breasts
pharaohs and kings
returned again and again
hoping to receive immortality
to become infants forever
nursing at mama’s breast.

She came to me early in the morning
the one with breasts like mine
she held me in her arms
as i cried mama mama mama
don’t let them take my breast away on a platter
her nipple found my lips/and i sucked for my dear life.

The breast-less surgeon,
the one they call artist
he cut into my breast
with skill and beauty
and all they took away that day
was a perfectly shaped lump
they left the breast.

She came to me again that night
the one with breasts like mine.
she brought agatha.
agatha brought her platter.
we made an altar in the middle of the forest.
on agatha’s platter we placed her breasts and my lump.
using merriam and webster,
the hebrew scriptures, the christian bible
and photos of lovers who became infants at our breasts
as kindling, we built a fire and toasted marshmallows.

Where two or three women are gathered together
there she is in the midst of them.

Patricia Lynn Reilly is the author of five books, and the founder of Imagine a Woman International and BAB Coaching and Publication Services. If you’d like to join the IAW Team of Certified Coaches and circle the globe with WomanSpirit visit www.imagineawoman.com. If you’re ready to write your novel, children’s book, anthology, or non-ficton best seller, visit, www.birthAbook.com. “Breast, A Noun” can be found in Patricia’s anthology of poetry and prose Words Made Flesh. It is available for purchase at the Imagine a Woman website.