Feminist Fortune Cookies
“A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality & full humanity of women and men.” - Gloria Steinem "For there is always light / If only we are brave enough to see it / If only we are brave enough to be it - Amanda Gorman "love yourself first and everything else falls in line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world" - Lucille Ball "When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision - then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid" - Audre Lorde "Does my sexiness upset you? / Does it come as a surprise / That I dance like I've got diamonds at the meeting of my thighs?" - Maya Angelou “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” - Gloria Steinem “Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” - Gloria Steinem “Women may be the one group that grows more radical with age.” - Gloria Steinem “ I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.” - Gloria Steinem “We've begun to raise daughters more like sons...but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.” - Gloria Steinem “When humans are ranked instead of linked, everyone loses.” - Gloria Steinem “In the world of the feminine, everything you feel is right.” - Mama Gena “ Reinvention is our birthright and our obligation.” - Mama Gena “Women are the greatest untapped resource on the planet.” - Mama Gena “When she designs, and then lives, her own destiny, a woman naturally sets right everything wrong in our world.” - Mama Gena “The feminine is the feeling part of us, our deepest intuition, our sense of community & connection. Additionally, it is a sense of spiritual morality and consciousness. The feminine is life. It may shock you to hear that she does not care about production, accomplishment, domination, assertiveness, or winning. Those are masculine values. On the contrary, she favours enjoyment, inclusion, surrender and sustainability.” - Mama Gena “The world is designed to take the wind out of a woman's sails. To fill her with fear about all the ways she is inadequate. We each need the focus and determination of warrior women to fight the tide of self-hatred that comes from living in a culture that devalues us.” - Mama Gena “I had never considered myself beautiful, but I decided that I could change my mind.” - Mama Gena “Extremists have shown what frightens them most: a girl with a book.” - Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Peace Prize, age 17 “Well behaved women rarely make history.” - Eleanor Roosevelt “Anger is one of those emotions that's been long-stricken from the social palette of acceptability. Especially for women, who are taught that being angry makes you unlikeable, and being unliked is a kind of rejection from femininity itself. But a terrible thing is lost in the suppression of anger – your relationship with one of your greatest allies: Instinct. - Toko-Pa Turner, Author of Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home
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"Breathe it all in, love it all out" - Mary Oliver
"So take a breath and find out what is unsolved in your heart. Breathe in patience, breathe in love. Love yourself bountiful & send that love out. When you send love out from the bountifulness of your own love, it reaches other people. This love is the deepest power of prayer." - John O'Donohue "One conscious breath in and out is a meditation" - Eckhart Tolle "My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being." from Only Breath by Rumi Here are some of my favourite quotes from Charlotte's Web by E.B. White, a classic children's novel written in 1952 about belonging, friendship, and the natural world.
"Wilbur didn't want food, he wanted love. He wanted a friend - someone who would play with him." E.B. White "I don't want to be perfect. I only aim to be fearless & resilient & myself" - Charlotte the Spider "Why did you do all this for me? I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you." said Wilbur the Pig.... "You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing." - Charlotte the Spider And from the Tao Te Ching (the classic Chinese text written some 2500 years ago) on friendship, belonging and transformation: "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage." "Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power." "When I let go of who I am, I become what I might be." "The cure for everything is salt water. Sweat, tears, or the salt sea." - Karen Blixen, author of Out of Africa Have you ever considered swimming in the ocean, year-round, like our Nordic friends practice?!
The book "The Finnish Way: Finding Courage, Wellness, and Happiness Through the Power of Sisu" by Katja Pantzar may inspire an adventure of cold water dippings! My friend Jill Maynard introduced me to the world of open water swimming at the beginning of September, rocking me to my core that many people in the world actually enjoy and reap both physical and mental health benefits from swimming in cold water! Together with my water goddess at the helm, I have taken the plunge twice in the Pacific Ocean during the wee hours of the Fall morning! Elevated and empowered for days was my apes-swim experience. Let me qualify the word "swim". I breast stroked with my head out of the water (and gasped in disbelief when Jill dunked her whole head under water and re-emerged peacefully). It took about 2 minutes of being in the water, together with cueing from Jill to focus on my "yoga breathing", for my body-mind to release the cold water shock and re-establish an inner equilibrium. We breast-stroked for about 5-8 minutes. I wore my swimsuit plus kayaking booties and water gloves. And once we were out - we were home bound! I have since discovered that I feel colder afterwards if I have a warm / hot bath or shower. Jill says its better to have a cool rinse, ending off with a gradual increase in water temperature. Don't try this cold water swimming alone, friends! If you'd like to experience open water swimming in the company of all-women (sorry guys - we'll ocean dip with you on another day), mark on your calendar the following date: Women's Full Moon Ocean Swim Wed Oct 24th 8 pm Deep Cove, Panorama Park Spread the invitation! Stand and behold from the beach. Dip. Or swim. All intentions welcome! Wear just a swim suit, add booties & gloves, or sport a full body wet suit - your choice! Enter & swim in the water with the yogic calming & internally warming breath called Ujjayi Breath (or Ocean Breath). Apres tips: Layer up! Take a cool to warm shower or bath (but not hot)! Sip warm to hot drinks! "Diversity
is not only a sign of health in biospheres but also an indication of wellness in human communities" - Michele Fogal (Author of Quirky & Diverse Love Stories & Creatrix of Guided Meditations for Writers) Thank-you Michele for gifting the Wed AM students (winter grand finale class) with a guided meditation for creative recharge! Michele has a wonderful series of guided meditations available free of charge on her website: http://michelefogal.com/divine-diversity/ "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye." - by Antoine de Saint-Exupery author of The Little Prince "Women are the greatest untapped natural resource on the planet" - Mama Gena
"Notice what lights you up. Not because lit-up women are beautiful and magnetic and fun to be around, but because they are fun to be" - Mama Gena "Our job as therapists [and as parents, teachers, leaders, and human beings] is not about helping people feel better, but rather, to help people get better at feeling." - Dr. Gabor Mate (with Heather's elaboration in brackets) "Whatever Arises, Love That" - Matt Kahn (also the title of his book) "When rooted in your heart, every reaction can be viewed as a perfectly orchestrated activation of consciousness, clearing out the old paradigm to make room for something new to unfold. This often occurs at the rate in which each particular feeling is honoured and given permission to be." - Matt Kahn (Whatever Arises, Love That) "You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching. Love like you've never been hurt. Sing like there's nobody listening. And live like it's heaven on earth." - credited to William Purkey "What you seek is seeking you." - Rumi "Just keep coming home to yourself. You are the one you've been waiting for." - Byron Katie, Author of Loving What Is and The Work "I don't sweat. I just leak awesome." - a Zumba t-shirt quote You are the sky. The clouds are what happens, what comes and goes.
- Eckhart Tolle - Stillness Amidst The World "You can't force a rosebud to open by beating it with a hammer."
- Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. (author of Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal") " When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as "rootless and stemless". We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed. When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don't condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development. The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each stage, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is." - W. Timothy Gallwey (author of The Inner Game book series) Shavasana, Shavasana,
why are you so difficult to master? Compared to my side-crow and headstand, you're such a disaster! I must practice, again & again, Lest I be incomplete. The end. - Gary Carr, Communications Guru & Yogi Student |