Virtual Blog Tour Day 2: WOMEN OF WISDOM by Kris Steinnes

Welcome to Day 2 of the blog tour of WOMEN OF WISDOM by Kris Steinnes. Yesterday I posted a general summary of the book and information about the author and the Women of Wisdom Foundation. Today you can read excerpts from two chapters. Tomorrow, I'll be featuring an interview with Kris Steinnes conducted by by Jonnie Gilman-Klohe of The Natural Choice website.

Information for ordering this inspirational book about women's self-empowerment is printed at the bottom of this post.

Chapter Excerpt:

Have You Put Your Dreams On Hold?
Angeles Arrien

Each one of us has a great dream and a great calling. Many of us have put our dreams on the back burner. We say, “Someday when I have enough time, when I have enough money; then I’ll do what I really want to do, what has fire for me.” At this time there is such a wonderful opening in history, in evolution, if we will just come and take our place.

What I’ve found among many of the indigenous peoples of the world is that they know how important it is to bring our medicine and our dreams to this world. If we want the earth to get better we need to show up and take our place, not with our shrouds of insufficiency, but with our long tall bodies and our deep, deep roots. The warrior’s way or the leader’s way is to show up. And then I can pay attention to what has heart and meaning, which is the healer’s way. I can’t know what has heart or meaning until I choose to show up, until I choose to be present.

Among the shamanic traditions of the world, if you go to a shaman or a medicine person, and you are dispirited, disheartened, or depressed, many of them will ask you one of four questions: “When in your life did you stop singing? When in your life did you stop dancing? When in your life did you stop being enchanted by stories, and particularly your own life story? And when in your life did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence?”

Wherever we stop singing, dancing, being enchanted by stories or deeply comforted by silence, we begin to experience soul loss. There’s not a culture in the world that does not have song, or dance, or story, or doesn’t recognize that in the sweet territory of silence we connect to the mystery in our contemplative and reflective practices.

I know I’m not at home when I’m in appeasement, weak-heartedness, seduction, drama or exaggeration. I know I’m not at home when I am playing the martyr or the victim and wanting someone else to be responsible for my life and therefore guilt induce others. I’m not at home when I’m controlling, because the opposite of control is trust.

I am at home when I have fire; when I am deeply connected to what has heart and meaning, the heart’s fire; when I’m seized by a vision that I want to manifest and bring to the sweet face of Mother Earth. I know I’m on fire when I’ve lost time through some creativity, and when I’ve experienced a moment of tender sweetness and intimacy in a relationship that has substance and depth. I know I’m on fire when I’ve connected to something numinous and extraordinarily beautiful that can only be found when trusting in an unshakable part of myself, in a sacred refuge that I can find in my deep interior.

Angeles Arrien is a cultural anthropologist, award-winning author, educator, and consultant to many organizations and businesses. She lectures and conducts workshops worldwide, bridging cultural anthropology, psychology, and comparative religions. Her work is currently used in medical, academic, and corporate environments. Angeles is the President of the Foundation for Cross-Cultural Education and Research. Her books, including The Four-Fold Way, The Signs of Life, and The Second Half of Life, have been translated into nine languages, and she has received three honorary doctorate degrees in recognition of her work.

Website: http://www.angelesarrien.com/


Chapter Excerpt:

The Millionth Circle: Transforming Ourselves and the World
Jean Shinoda Bolen

If we are ever to have a post patriarchal world, it will begin in the United States, and it will begin with the generation of women over 50. There has never, in the history of the world, been such a generation of women in numbers or potential. There are over thirty million of us, who, thanks to the women’s movement, medical advances, and reproductive choice, have had opportunities, access to resources, education, travel, a range of know-how, and connections with each other and to others in the world. Each of us may have two or three active decades in which to make a difference. The fate of our planet also hinges on what humanity does—or what women individually and collectively can and will do, in this same short span of time.

It’s our turn. If we do not make it into a post-patriarchal world, then we will have failed. That’s really the message that I have felt in my bones. We have been under patriarchy for four thousand years—from the time history has been written—and it is time for the circle. Patriarchy is about hierarchy. It is a structure that enforces and expresses authority and power. In contrast, the circle is egalitarian and collaborative. To have a place in the hierarchy is about persona, often about posturing and the need to be aggressive. To seek power over others doesn’t nourish the soul.

Male leadership cannot change the fundamentals of masculine hierarchy. For there to be a balanced world where those without power matter, empowered women such as we can be, need to speak for the children, women, animals, and for our beautiful planet itself. Women’s wisdom, experience and compassion are missing when decisions that affect us all are made.

Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD, is a Jungian analyst, psychiatrist, and internationally known lecturer and workshop leader. She is also a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco, and author of the best-selling books The Millionth Circle, Goddesses in Everywoman, The Tao of Psychology, Gods in Everyman, Crossing to Avalon, Ring of Power, Close to the Bone, Goddesses in Older Women, Crones Don’t Whine and Urgent Message From Mother, as well as Gather the Women, Save the World. She has been an advocate for women, women’s issues, and ethics in psychiatry; is a former board member of the Ms. Foundation for Women, and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

Website: http://www.jeanshinodabolen.com/

Ordering Information:

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.

This virtual blog tour is organized by
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