Women Who Roar

I just read this article by Shelby Sledge , Women Who Roar - 10 ways to be a lioness and change the world , on beliefnet.com and I got goosebumps! :)

The king of the jungle always gets the attention. But shouldn't we spend some time looking at the power behind the throne, the queen of the jungle? Lisa Bevere, author of "Lioness Arising: Wake Up and Change Your World" believes we should. Women are like the lioness. They are powerful, strong and nurturing. Remember: You are stunning. You were born for this moment. Don't be afraid of your strength, questions, or insights. Awaken, rise up and dare to realize all you were created to be.

The Lioness is a good mother.
A lioness will not endanger another lioness's cub any more than she'd endanger her own. As women, we should be committed to putting distance between all Earth's children and whatever endangers them or threatens them. It is not enough to be concerned with our own children. Every child deserves an equal chance of survival. Every child needs to be protected, nurtured, trained and provided for.

A Lioness is a strong and powerful creature.
The Lioness is at ease with her strength, at rest with her power They are powerful hunters, but spend much of their time in rest and play. Women are the same. If we limit ourselves with our fear of our own might, we forfeit our strength and beauty. When we stop struggling in our own ability, our true strength is revealed. Embrace your strength! Do not mistake meekness for weakness! It is tempered strength and controlled might!

The Lioness sets aside former limitations.

Lionesses often fail when they first learn to hunt, but that doesn't mean they never hunt again. Hardship is a catalyst for improvement. You may fail at your first attempts to develop strength, but this is part of the learning process. Accept your failures as stepping stones to your strength and future successes.

The Lioness helps those who falter.
A lioness will bring meat to a lion that is afraid to venture into the wilderness himself. Women should also reach out to those who need help. Turning back or waiting for others may slow you down, but only at first. The deliberate extension of goodness, generosity and wisdom always wins out in the end.

The Lioness hunts with other lionesses.
Lionesses are the only big cats that hunt in concerted groups. They also groom each other after the hunt. Women must help each other keep our lives clean. We speak into one another's lives and invite others to give their input as well. Together, we laugh, cry, pray and confess fears, sins and weaknesses. Sometimes we disagree but that doesn't mean we disband. Just as lionesses hunt together, without competition and without breaking rank, no woman's portion or contribution is more significant than another's. Each woman has her own skill set that contributes to a valued whole.

The Lioness is stunning.
A lioness is a beautiful creature. They move with purpose, aware that the survival of their pride depends on their legacy of skill and strength. Women of every shape, size and color are as stunning, wild and fierce as the lioness. There is incredible beauty in the strength of a woman. You are capable of incredible things. Recognize this and revel in it!

The Lioness has prowess.
Lionesses are the height of hunting prowess. Their ability to provide for their pride is unmatched. Like the lioness, women too have prowess. There is exceptional ability, strength or valor waiting to be developed in every woman's life. You may not know or do everything, but what you do know, you chose to do well!

The Lioness hunts in the dark.
A lioness has the ability to see in the dark. She can take the smallest point of light and transform it into sight. Women too should take the smallest points of light and hope and transform them into sight. There are desperate people all over the world who are trapped in the darkness, waiting for someone to bring hope into their lives. There is power in the realization of a connection, that we are not alone in our struggles. So reach out to those around you with darkness in their lives and offer them hope, love and light!

The Lioness lives in the light.When a lioness isn't hunting, she has no reason to move about in the shadows. She conducts her life in the open, sun-filled expanses of Africa. She feels no shame and no need to hide. Like the lioness, women must live their lives in the open with a light-filled heart. You alone have the power to open your life to sunlight and live without fear or shame.

Lionesses roar.
When the cubs are threatened, lionesses will roar as a group in a fearless proclamation of protection. Women must also be a voice for the voiceless. We must learn to live what is within us out loud. All the intangibles of faith, hope and love become tangible within individuals, and are expressed in our unified response to the world's needs. Our roar will be the collective expression of hope and love to everyone around us and to all those who need us.

Adapted from "Lioness Arising: Wake Up and Change Your World" by Lisa Bevere. Lisa is the bestselling author of 15 books. She is also the co-host of the television program "The Messenger," which airs in more than 200 countries. For more information, please visit www.MessengerInternational.org and http://www.pearlalliance.org/.

In pain but OK

Ever since going back to work my back's been bothering me...or my shoulder blade has. I'm obviously doing something not right...or...something's not right at work. So, I've been in some pain...I still am. Got drugs from the doc yesterday and I'm hoping a course of pain meds will make me OK again...? :)

I'm trying to stay of the computer and move about doing less static activities but... :D it's not easy. ;p Last year during April I logged out of everything but blogger, which I also limited to an hour/day, feels like something like that might be needed again...?

I read an article the other day about a family who'd not been 'online' for 6 months. The mother had wrote a book about the experience The Winter of Our Disconnect: How One Family Pulled the Plug on Their Technology and Lived to Tell/Text/Tweet the Tale. ;) An intriguing idea and I can imagine a healthy experience for most of us... I think finding the balance between between online/offline is sometimes hard. The connectedness of the WorldWideWeb is an awesome experience, I've learnt SO much and 'met' ;) some of the Most Amazing People thanks to it...so I'm not wishing a complete disconnect, I think it'd be too great of a loss of information and friendship...but...I do wish I could be better with the limitations of the time I/we spend 'plugged in'... Hmmm... Most definitely it is something to keep working at...! :)

What else...? (since I am still connected ;)) I'm feeling...good... despite the irritating, annoying and frustrating pain...I feel OK. Again...in me... but...I'm hoping it will soon spread to other parts of my Life.

Now I better get a move on. Mum and Little Sis are coming for a visit.

Love&Light,

Women Food and God

Where to start...? :)

I can't stand self-help-books with advice on empowerment, affirmations all that hooplah. Blah, blah, blah, yeah-yeah I'm beautiful and special and someone... Bleh! :p

But! After seeing Geneen Roth on Oprah a while back I went...wow... That makes sense... What an absolutely brilliant, beautiful, simple and bold idea... No more diets. Eat what my body wants...when I'm hungry, with pleasure... (etc.!) I have to learn more!

I ordered the book, still quite convinced it might end up as a never-ending 'toilet read', and it was laying about the house for a bit 'til I finally put in in my bag to have something to read on the long comute to work. On the third page (I think, lil'sis had my copy) I did the first of many 'dog-ears' and after the first chapter I started digging in my bag for a pen so that I could underline the awesomeness that leaped at me from the pages! I never underline things in books I read for pleasure...that's 'honour' ;p is soley for school book...except for this book! Wow... So beautifully simple, heart wrenchingly honest and...excellent.

There's so much I want to adress about this book! :) SO much underlined and dog-eared and many many light-bulb-moments... and as I said previously it can work/help anyone with any type of obsession or addiction if you manage to translate what Geneen has to say about food to your specific 'issue'. I might return with more when my sisters (older sis is waiting for her turn too ;)) are done reading. :)

One of my many favourite parts of the book is when she talks about the eating guidelines (I cringed - I'm too much of a 'permitter' ;) to cope with 'guidelines') 'til the part where she shares about an experience when she realised her students just didn't get it and she had to re-explain them as 'If love could speak...'-guidelines (the exact wording escapes me!) and I got major goose-bumps...'cause it was soooo true...! If Love, rather than 'The Voice', spoke to me...I'd not treat myself the way I do...the way I did.

I will not lie when I say that this was/is one of those Life Changing Books. I see things clearer, about myself and about food... I have let Love speak to me.

Yeah :D I looooved this book!

7 out of 5 stars! ;)

Oprah.com has plenty of interesting stuff on this book too! I didn't think I'd write as much as I have 'cause a lot can be found there. An excerpt, videos and more...go have a look and if you have even a slight obsessive streak...read this book!

Love&Light,

Book Review - Committed

 

(image: adlibris.com)

The book cover, in Swedish, which is the one I've read.

(I also thought it was a purdier cover than the English one)

Swedish title 'I nöd och lust: en tvivlare försonas med äktenskapet',

i.e. 'for better or worse; a doubters reconsiliation with marriage'.

The blurb:
Having been effectively sentenced to wed, Gilbert tackled her fears of marriage by delving completely into this topic, trying with all her might to discover (through historical research, interviews and much personal reflection) what this stubbornly enduring old institution actually is. The result is "Committed" - a witty and intelligent contemplation of marriage that debunks myths, unthreads fears and suggests that sometimes even the most romantic of souls must trade in her amorous fantasies for the humbling responsibility of adulthood. Gilbert's memoir - destined to become a cherished handbook for any thinking person hovering on the verge of marriage - is ultimately a clear-eyed celebration of love, with all the complexity and consequence that real love, in the real world, actually entails.


I agree with what I've highlighted.
I don't necessarily agree that Liz ever comes to the conclusion that marriage is a 'humbling responsibility of adulthood' or that it's 'destined to become a ... handbook' or that marriage is an actual consequence of real love, in the real world...which is the conclusion that I feel the blurb-author has come to. ;P I don't believe that Liz and 'Felipe' would have ever gotten married if they hadn't been forced to. This doesn't make their (or any other unmarried couples) love any more 'unreal' or 'irresponsible'... But! That's me being critical not of Ms. Gilbert's book but of the blurb-author! :) ;P :)

Now, here's the book review! ;)
So...even those who've haven't read Eat, Pray, Love knows it ends in Love. ;)  Committed is the 'epilogue' of that love and Liz's...reconciliation of marriage. :) The Swedish title sorta says it all :D and the ending is no surprise! ;)

Despite knowing where the book will end it is a good book! Just like in Eat, Pray, Love we're taken on Liz's journey, although now a more internal one (despite the fact that there is a great deal of actual journeying in the book too) on her 'quest' to 'get' the ancient institution of marriage. She shares with us what she's found about the subject, which is a lot and mostly very interesting. We follow her through her contemplations about what she's seen, heard and experienced of her own previous one and the marriages of her female relations. It's an interesting journey, her journey, but also one that other 'doubters', whether 'committed' or not, can/will enjoy.

It's a book about marriage, the history and sometimes consquences of marriages both today and 'yesterday'...the book is well worth reading for anyone interested in the subject. :)

Book Review - Strength in Weakness

The 'blurb':

Quaker women in the eighteenth century were carrying on the faith and activity of their seventeenth-century forebears, but as a group their lives and writings have been neglected in modern times by both Quaker and other historians. Gil Skidmore brings together a rich array of letters, spiritual autobiographies, journals, and memoirs to put the lives and concerns of these women into context.

I really liked it. Despite the heavyness of the 'old' English and the 'uneducated' way of writing it was a good read. The bible references are quite frequent so one needs not to be 'disturbed' by that fact if you are to be able to enjoy the book.

I found that the parts where education and raising children were brought up to be especially 'enlightened'. I have now unfortunately forgotten which one of the women made the most poignant points about these topics (towards the end of the book) but if it had been my own book (I borrowed it from the library) I would have underlined her words for sure, those and many of the other inspirational things that were brought to light by these courageous women.

It's not in on the 'top list' of my all time favourite books perhaps but it definitely gave me food for thought. I like that in any book! :) What the Quaker women (and men!) went through back then was, is, some truly amazing stuff...

Book quotes

I love reading. Reading takes me through time and space and allows me to 'experience' how life and love is to others. I laugh and cry, I hurt and heal and by reading I learn and grow, sometimes with the characters in the books but just as often when they don't. After my Family, reading means the world to me.
I like writing too and perhaps I'll write a book one day, share with other's some of what I've learnt...pass it forward if you will... :)


Here's what a some other folks have to say on Books:

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.
- Charles W. Eliot (21st President of Harvard University)

A single book at the right time can change our views dramatically, give a quantum boost to our knowledge, help us construct a whole new outlook on the world and our life. Isn't it odd that we don't seek those experiences more systematically?
- Steve Leveen

When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.
- W. Somerset Maugham (English playwright, novelist, and short story writer)

Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a dangerous enemy indeed.
- Anne Rice (American novelist)

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.
- Maya Angelou (American poet, memoirist, actress, director, and civil rights activist)

You cannot open a book without learning something.
- Confucius (Chinese thinker and social philosopher)

More books...!

*lol!* And here I thought I wasn't up to blogging right now...! This'll be my fourth post today!? :D Must be a new record! ;)
It's another book post, I read about One Thousand Gifts over on Kindred of the Quiet Way and it made me curious.


I seems to be just the type of book I love to read so I hunted about on the net for more info about it. I found an excerpt of the book here. Oh my goodness, I bawled my eyes out reading that first chapter and now just have to read more. I looove reading about interesting life journeys, especially spiritual ones, and Ann Voskamp seems to have made one. :) I think I should be able to read 'past' all the bible references (which are not really my cup of tea) and still enjoy the journey. :)
Ann also has a beautiful blog - A Holy Experience where her faith, grace and gratitude shine bright...

Strength in Weakness

I picked up a book I'd ordered from the library today. Strength in Weakness: Writings of of Eighteenth-Century Quaker Women by Gil Skidmore.


(see Preview at Goodreads)
The library had to buy it in as it wasn't available in any library in 'all' of Sweden. :) I've only read the first few pages but I'm already deeply intrigued. Hope it'll turn out to be a good read. I'll try to remember to return with a review. :)

Karen Armstrong

...a provocative, original thinker on the role of religion in the modern world.



Religious thinker Karen Armstrong has written more than 20 books on faith and the major religions, studying what Islam, Judaism and Christianity have in common, and how our faiths shaped world history and drive current events.

A former nun, Armstrong has written two books about this experience: Through the Narrow Gate, about her seven years in the convent, and The Spiral Staircase, about her subsequent spiritual awakening, when she developed her iconoclastic take on the major monotheistic religions -- and on the strains of fundamentalism common to all. She is a powerful voice for ecumenical understanding.
(text taken from TED.com)

Paulo Coelho

‎‎"To believe in your choice you don't need to prove that other people's choices are wrong."
- Paulo Coelho

"No" is not a sin.
"Yes" is not a virtue.
- Paulo Coelho
I'm really liking Paulo Coelho's quotes... I follow him on facebook and he really has some insightful stuff to share! He seems, at least to me, to be a very interesting and quite available person and I like him more the more I learn of him...!
His books "Veronika Decides to Die" and "By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept" I can most definitely recommend that you read!

He is truly inspirational in his "quest" for individual growth (for everyone!) and questioning of the need for a "norm" to follow... Who really decides what is "right" and what is "normal"...?