Sunday, June 21, 2009

"Empowering the Dreams and Spirit of Women" Guest Blog from Women of Wisdom's Kris Steinnes




LIFELONG HEALING

Here is a beautiful and empowering book for all who are engaged in healing themselves and the Earth by bringing in what author Kris Steinnes calls "the feminine mind." The feminine mind is what I call the Goddess within each of us, the One who holds us and heals us and moves through us -- each of us a part of nature -- to heal the Earth.

Women of Wisdom by Kris Steinnes, is being offered beginning on June 23rd, 2009 at 12:01 am. We invite you to go to this page - www.wisewomanpublishing.com/womenofwisdom.html - to access the order page and then go back to this page to access the bonus page. On the Exclusive Private Invite page, enter your order confirmation code. That will allow you to gain entry to the bonus gifts that are available to people who buy the book on June 23rd.


Here is Kris' description of the wisdom that
WOMEN OF WISDOM: Empowering the Dreams and Spirit of Women makes available to all of us. I love this book. It holds the Divine Feminine.




Women of Wisdom is a journey through sixteen years of one of the largest women’s spirituality conferences in the world, a very unique conference that has impacted thousands of women’s lives. Authors Jean Houston and Margot Anand both exclaimed separately to me – “Kris there is nothing like this in the world” – and they have traveled around the world. The book will continue to impact women, as they experience the wisdom and gifts of the sixty contributors in the book.

The Women of Wisdom book gives women access to powerful, inspiring women leaders and their message for women to step into their power, own their feminine gifts, and learn to speak their truths. WOW provides role models who will inspire women to discover their dreams and their purpose.

Additionally the book shares stories from women whose lives have been changed by experiencing these women’s messages. Evocative art, poetry and experiential exercises enhance the book’s message, providing diverse ways to experience the spirit of the feminine.

Included in the book is my own story of how I started Women of Wisdom, which has been an empowering story for women to hear. My story began with reading The Feminine Face of God, by Patricia Hopkins and Sherry Anderson. Shortly afterwards I had a vision of bringing these spiritual women leaders to Seattle. And I immediately set that in motion at Seattle Unity Church, where I was a board member.

I realized this was something more than just a conference when I welcomed people at the first night of the conference, February 11, 1993, and I stated “Welcome to the First Annual Women of Wisdom Conference.” It has become a movement for women to come together in community and explore their potential, and to honor and support one another. This conference has continued to grow and be strong for seventeen years now and that is a testimony to the power of the vision, and the importance of women realizing the value of their unique gifts to share with the world.

In 1998 I realized I had a wealth of material in the tapes of the talks from these nationally known best selling authors and that they would make a great book. I had a dream to share this with other women. I would get phone calls and emails from women asking me if there was an organization like WOW in their city. Not everyone has the luxury to travel to conferences and experience life changing conferences and this book will provide that opportunity to many women.

In addition, the powerful women who participated at the conference in different ways – artists, musicians, writers, local presenters and WOW leaders – would contribute to make this book a holistic experience of exploring the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of being a woman, giving the reader the full conference experience.

The women’s movement has led women to evolve to such heights as running for the presidency of the United States. However in workshops I have given women have shared how isolated they feel. They don’t feel honored in society for their feminine gifts and how they don’t feel comfortable or safe speaking what they feel, what’s inside their hearts, whether it be in the workplace, home or other. In sharing women’s stories in the book, women will relate to their experiences and gain strength and support through the validation of the feminine that is expressed in the book.

Many of the authors in the book share how there is a lack of balance of the feminine in our world, and how we’re at a critical time where women need to become equal partners towards creating the solutions to the many crisis facing our globe. Jean Houston shares her experience of Women of Wisdom in the foreword of the book:

Women of Wisdom is in the forefront of the biggest change in human history – the only change that will assure our continuity as a species. Those who organize and participate in the Women of Wisdom experience, know that for a new world to be born we have to bring a new mind to bear. Critical to this is the rich mind style of women that has been gestating in the womb of preparatory time, lo, these many millennia. In their ebullient and evocative conferences WOW demonstrates a tremendous change in who we are and how we do things.”

”Playing their part to usher in feminine mind, WOW emphasizes process rather than just product, and making things cohere, relate, and grow. Cultures in which the feminine archetype is powerful are almost always non-heroic, they tend to make things work together, each piece has its part to play.”

“Men and women will be released from the old polarities of gender that force them into limited and limiting roles, and qualities of intelligence will be added to the human mind-pool that will render most previous problem solving obsolete. Linear, sequential solutions will yield to the knowing that comes from seeing things in whole gestalts, in constellations, rather than in discrete fact…. And it will ring an ecological ethic, along with a new partnership between men and women, in which the human acts in concert and in partnership with Nature to bring about more symbiotic ecological relationships.”


As a bonus, those who buy Kris, book on June 23 from her link (see above) and are in the first ten to select my book as a bonus from her bonus page, will receive a free copy of GROWING UP WITHOUT THE GODDESS: A Journey through Sexual Abuse to the Sacred Embrace of Mary Magdalene. You may request a pdf. file or a signed paperback.

Blessings, Sandra

Sunday, June 14, 2009

National Campaign for Health Care Reform

and Gifts in Raleigh, NC. Photo by Alice Osborn.




While I practice holistic healing for myself and others -- Healing Touch, Reflexology, and Aromatherapy -- I understand that sometimes we all need to go to a doctor to speed healing. Many of us needed a doctor (and someone willing to take us to a doctor) when we were abused. I also know that those of us recovering from abuse need the support of psychotherapists as we continue on our healing path. For these reasons, I support the
National Campaign for Health Care. Here's my story, which I submitted to the campaign for posting on their blog, if they choose to do so. You can post your story, too, by going to the site above.

I am fortunate because I am healthy, but if that were to change, I would be among those who are most unfortunate because I have no health care insurance. I worked for 20 years as a high school teacher, but a technicality left me without health insurance when I retired early and received partial retirement pay. I continue to work part-time as a community college instructor, but I receive no benefits from that employment. I can no longer afford catastrophic health care insurance ($250 a month), so I eat right, exercise, meditate and pray and try to stay out of harm's way.

I could pay $125 at most monthly for a health care plan that would do more than pay 80% of hospital charges after a $5,000 deductible. I could afford low co-pays for office visits and routine care. Paying more than $125 a month for health care means that I can't afford to visit a doctor for everyday care and checkups. It means I can't afford to visit a dentist for teeth cleanings and ordinary checkups. So I pay for that preventive care now instead of paying for a catastrophic health care insurance plan.

I'm five years away from being eligible for Medicare, and from what I read, Medicare is underfunded and at its current funding rate, may not be able to continue paying for care within a couple of years.

Fortunately, my husband is a veteran who qualifies for his care through the Veterans Administration. Otherwise, his diabetic care would be far more than we could afford. He is 65, and receives Social Security and Medicare, and he, too, continues to work part-time. Our cars and our house are paid for, and fortunately, we are almost out of debt.

We are able and willing to pay for ordinary medical care, but not at the rates insurance companies charge today. I've worked for 40 years, and only in the last three years have I been without health insurance.

I'm not afraid of death -- of dying maybe -- but not of death. I'm not seeking care that will give me new joints and new body parts or even exceptional intervention if I am faced with injuries or diseases for which the chance of recovery is slim. I believe the body is an amazing healer, and I just want simple interventions to help it on its way. A flu shot, a bone set, a blood panel now and again, and hospitalization to help with minor interventions that will sped recovery.

I watch as people in my community have barbecue dinners to help people younger than me, who have not yet raised their children, pay for necessary life-saving hospital care. I know there are others who need this help far more than I do.

I hear that the medical lobby and the drug lobbies have just about killed the possibility of a "public Medicare" plan. I do hope what is being reported is wrong and that our legislators will have the foresight to make basic health care available to everyone.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

JOAN NORTON'S new book is the Feminine HERO'S JOURNEY for the Intimate, Inner Journey to Resurrect the Sacred Feminine



As a sexual abuse survivor, I especially celebrate and recommend Joan Norton's and Margaret Starbird's 14 STEPS TO AWAKEN THE SACRED FEMININE. Sexual abuse thrives in cultures like ours that have banished the Sacred Feminine, and here is a book that shows how to awaken her and bring her back!

Beautifully written and designed, 14 STEPS TO AWAKEN THE SACRED FEMININE is a gentle, loving guide for individuals or groups that want to heal and reclaim the empowering archetypes of the Sacred Feminine which the Western Christian tradition has hidden, denied, degraded, and banished. This book is the feminine HERO'S JOURNEY for the intimate, individual journey to the inner world to resurrect our part of the Sacred Feminine and to call her forth into our daily lives through story, image, meditation, and reflection.

By engaging personally with the seven historical and seven legendary archetypes of Mary Magdalene, we can shed the historical distortions and cultural and doctrinal practices that changed Her story, which then captured, distorted, and degraded the Sacred Feminine in each of us. We can emerge with the mystery of our own divinity restored, empowered to be Her in a world that so badly needs and wants the strength, compassion, and balance She brings.





14 STEPS TO AWAKEN THE SACRED FEMININE: WOMEN IN THE CIRCLE OF MARY MAGDALENE by Joan Norton and Margaret Starbird

See Joan's blog at http://blog.marymagdalenewithin.com
See Joan's website at
http://www.MaryMagdaleneWithin.com

http://www.growingupwithoutthegoddess.com
GROWING UP WITHOUT THE GODDESS