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/.

Searching outside or within...

These words (that I found over at Hay Quaker) shook my world a little and squeezed my heart with recognition... They  made me gasp as I read them over and over, holding my breath.

How something (I assume is) written for the 'big arena', with politics and ideology in mind, can fit just as well...eerily well on a much smaller, personal, level too...! *sigh*

'Himself' is my husband in this scenario and I am 'somewhere outside/others'... :/



"Someone who does not draw strength from himself and who is incapable of finding the meaning of his life within himself will...seek the map to his own orientation somewhere outside himself--in some ideology, organization, or society, and then, however active he may appear to be, he is merely waiting, depending. He waits to see what others will do, or what roles they will assign to him, and he depends on them--and if they don't do anything or if they botch things, he succumbs to disillusion, despair, and ultimately, resignation."
- Václav Havel

Be Kind.

Love&Light,

A Prayer For Courage

*goose bump*-moment, again when reading Paulo Coelho's blog. :) Sooo need to do a hunt of more goose-bump-words (I'm sure!) from this man I've never heard of until today. Just wanted to get this posted immidiately! :)

"Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,

but to be fearless in facing them.

Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain,

but for the heart to conquer it.

Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield,

but to my own strength.

Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved,

but hope for the patience to win my freedom.

Grant that I may not be a coward,

feeling Your mercy in my success alone;

But let me find the grasp of Your hand in my failure."

- Rabindranath Tagore,

 1913 Nobel Prize Laureate from Bengal, India.

Storms Endured - Herman Hesse

Hay Quaker posted the first paragraph on his blog and it led me to read the rest on EarthMamaWeb. I think it's beautiful and so true.
...and very much what I need to read at the moment too...'funny' thing that, don't ya think? ;)



Here, an excerpt from “Wanderings” by Herman Hesse:

For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the forces of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals it’s death wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk, in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought. I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labour is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts. Trees have long thoughts, long breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.

© Herman Hesse.
From Wandering by Herman Hesse. Published by Picador. 1972.

Aristotle

(detail from The School of Athens by Raphael)
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC). Greek philosopher, scientist, student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. An interesting fellow who's had an enormous impact on how, and even what, we think. Some stuff is spot on and other things are a bit 'off'...and being me, I pass on the stuff that I think is spot on (why bother spreading rubbish when one can pass on gems&jewels?) ! :)


"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous."

"Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy."

"Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity."

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

"No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness."

"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self."

"It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought."

"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber."

"The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching."

"We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action."

- Aristotle

Give Me Strength...

Please...

Choices

Yeah...those Life Choices...

When and how do you make them?
What/when/who decides what/when/who does whatever is to be done...?
How do you ever know when the right time is, or that the right choice has been done??
Every choice has a consequence, every action an effect and what has been done can't be un-done.
I guess what I've been doing, so far at least, is by following my gut and my heart feeling quite certain that things will work out, and they always have (and will?) so that "plan of action" had worked out quite well for me, so far... Yet...here I am, and have been for quite a while, needing to make a move rather than just follow a feeling... and I'm feeling strong&weak, lost&found, confident&insecure all at once! I need to make a choice, make my move, make a change and I can literally feel a Force behind me urging me to dare, to go, to do. And still here I stand, where I've been standing, teary eyed like a lost child knowing that once I make that move, whether it be right or 'wrong', I can't take it back. I won't be able to un-do it...

I've always been...strong... An opinionated do:er, the one who manages whatever Life tosses her way. I'm a person who people look to for answers like I was some kind of oracle. I realise that sounds harsh perhaps and it isn't how/what I mean, I merely want to state it sort of matter-of-factly... Why is that? Why do people asume I know when I don't know! Not any more than the next person anyways...! Why do I cope? Why don't I break? Why? Why are things still so hard...? Why can't someone choose for me??

Why can't I have a mad rant without the answers to my questions starting to form at the back of my head?! I don't want to know, don't want to cope and manage... I wanna break...just a little bit...so that I don't need to be strong all the time...

Jewel

Thought I'd share a little bit of music with you this Friday.

My beautiful soul sister Née shared this video on facebook a little while back - Jewel's "Satisfied" and now I'm sharing it with you. :)




I just absolutely LOOOOVE it! It made me cry the first time I heard it and gives me goose bumps every time!

Satisfied lyrics:
If you love somebody
You better let it out
Don't hold it back
While you're trying to figure it out
Don't be timid
Don't be afraid to hurt
Run toward the flame
Run toward the fire
Hold on for all your worth
Cause the only real pain a heart can ever know
Is the sorrow of regret
When you don't let your feelings show

So did you say it
Did you mean it
Did you lay it on the line
Did you make it count
Did you look 'em in the eye
Did they feel it
Did you say it in time
Did you say it out loud
'cause if you did hun
Then you lived some
That feeling inside
That's called satisfied

Busy people walking by
Can't help but worry some
With so many things to do
So little love gets done
Empty hearts everywhere
Drowning but dying of thirst
If you want love
It's not that tough
Start by giving it first
It's so easy to give
Baby can't you see
Just close your eyes open your heart
And do what comes naturally

Well did you say it
Did you mean it
Did you lay it on the line
Did you make it count
Did you look 'em in the eye
Did they feel it
Did you say it in time
Did you say it out loud
'cause if you did hun
Then you lived some
That feeling inside
That's called satisfied

Horses are built to run
The sun is meant to shine above
Flowers are made to bloom
And then there's us
We were born to love
Not really being a Jewel fan I still found myself enjoying her tunes looking around on YouTube. :) "Stronger Woman" made me smile. The line "from now on I'm going to be the kind of woman I'd want my daughter to be" gave me major goose-bumps!! :) :) The goose bumps are always a good guide to my 'likes'! :)



So, I thought I'd post the YouTube links here and perhaps make you cry and smile too... :)

Stronger Woman lyrics:
I guess you could say I'm one of those girls
That's always been with one of those guys
You know the type
Like right now, he sleeps while I write

But it's better than crying
I'm worn out from trying
From loving a man who always makes it clear
I'm not welcome here
Just when he's hungry or frisky
or needs something cleaned
And you know what I mean

But not tonight
'Cause come the morning light, oh
I'm gonna love myself more than anyone else
Believe in me, even if someone can't see
The stronger woman in me

I'm going to be my own best friend
Stick with me till the end
Won't lose myself again, never, no,
'Cause there's a stronger woman,
A stronger woman in me

Light bulbs buzz,
I get up
And head to my drawer
I wish there was more
I could say
Another fairytale fades to gray
I've lived on hope
Just like a child
Walking that mile
Faking that smile
All the while
Wishing my heart had wings

Well from now on I'm going to be
The kind of woman I'd want my daughter to be, oh

I'm gonna love myself more than anyone else
Believe in me, even if someone can't see
A stronger woman in me
I'm gonna be my own best friend
Stick with me till the end
I won't lose myself again, never, no
'Cause there's a stronger woman,
A stronger woman

This is me, packing up my bags
And this is me, headed for the door
And this is me, the best you ever had
I'm going to love myself
More than anyone else
Believe in me even if someone cannot see
There's a stronger woman in me
I'm going to be my own best friend
Stay with me till the end
Won't lose myself again, never, no
'Cause there's a stronger woman
A stronger woman
There's a stronger woman,
A stronger woman in me,
Yeah...

Hope you have a beautiful Friday,
Be Safe♥