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  • Welcome!

    Welcome!

    Welcome to WomenHeal! I hope you’ll settle in your chair, get comfy and take some time to look around. This site is merely an introduction to all that WHOA will become in early 2013, and yet, there is so much good here already!

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  • Catherine and Jacey, age 6 www.larockstarcreative.com

     
     
    “Perhaps empathy is the music of human connection, the resonance of the soul.”

    ~ Anthony Lawlor

    Artwork by Lizzie’s daughters

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    “Wisdom is a process. It asks us to be both a student and a teacher, and it is a community effort.”

    ~ Jennifer Chrisman

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    “No matter how much we meditate or pray, we still need others to help us dismantle the walls of our isolation and remind us of our belonging.”

    ~ Tara Brach

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    “We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.”

    ~ Dorothy Day

Discovering My Feminine Wisdom

Discovering My Feminine Wisdom

Published on December 19, 2012

I grew up playing with frogs, chasing after salamanders, building hay forts and riding on the tractor with my grandfather as we collected sap to make maple syrup. I wore dungarees, played sports and knew how to clean the scales off a freshly caught fish. I could throw a bale of hay almost as far as my cousin. And I understood the entire process whereby the cute baby farm animals would become ingredients for my dinner.

In short, I was a tomboy.

As I got older, I found that I was most comfortable in the company of men. Men tend to approach the world in a way that made sense to me: decisive, logical, direct and unemotional. I approached the world in much the same way. It came naturally to me. It was safe and uncomplicated.

More to the point, these characteristics of masculine energy served me well. In college and law school, I was rewarded by my professors for my decisiveness, logical arguments and direct approach. I could demonstrate these traits in interviews, and came across as unflappable and confident. Ultimately, I was offered a job with a law firm in Boston. From the beginning of my career, it was clear that I was on the fast track to become a partner in the securities litigation division.

I was good at my job, but I was desperately lonely.

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You are exactly where you are supposed to be

You are exactly where you are supposed to be

Published on December 14, 2012

A little over 3 months ago I found the healing power of hoop dance.

I can say without hesitation that it has changed my life.

Inside this little circle of light, I found myself again.

When I sat down to write this post I struggled & surrendered to the truth that I wasn’t ready to tell my story yet it but to show it… so the video came together, a montage of a few of my practice sessions (aka my daily exercise + meditation all rolled into one) paired with what I found to be true for me.

The story surrounding my hooping journey is still brewing, I’m still learning & stretching… giving & receiving.

I’m at the beginning, I’m still starting… but it has been the most beautiful emergence.

Wherever you are on your healing journey… if you take one truth away from this, let it be this:

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Finding Sanctuary

Finding Sanctuary

Published on December 12, 2012

Heart-centered thinkers, conscious relationship builders, artists, nature lovers, healers, tea drinkers, leaders, misfits, spiritual seekers, water watchers, poets, sacred space makers, pilgrims, dreamers, soul sister friends…

I close my eyes, connect to the center, and let images of women’s communities I’ve known wash over me. Some are painful. Many beautiful.

I see the group of us in St. John’s talking late into the night or meeting for Sunday brunches. I see the fresh crepes, the veggie tofu strips, and the salads we made when we got together. Big bowls full and never the same. How I learned the promise and beauty of women coming together.

I see the late night ecstatic smiles after dancing until I couldn’t stand anymore. Still feel the heartbreak of leaving after all these years. Disappearing after the assault. Only way I knew back then.

I see a canoe, deep waters just outside of Vancouver, and a friend and I paddling. Together. How the water calmed and turned green with the trees’ reflection as we stopped for a while by one of the many islands. How I saw Green Tara shining back at me.

I remember some of the ways women have healed me…

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What Healing Women Means to Me Now

What Healing Women Means to Me Now

Published on December 3, 2012

Women have always been the angels in my life – the ones to hear me, to believe in me, to inspire me, to teach me to trust in my own capacity to heal.

For over 20 years I have been involved in women’s spirituality and women’s circles. The relieving message that always shines through is, ‘You are not alone!’ Not alone in my pain, my shame, my confusion, my excitement, my rage, my dreams and my prayers. There is immense healing available through women’s sharing of their authentic stories, for the storyteller and for those who sit as witnesses listening with their hearts.

Yet today, when I sit in circles, I find that, as a collective, women are more strongly bonded by our wounds than by our collective vision of a new paradigm. We have grown in our solidarity more as victims, as oppressed, as fighters for the underdog’s cause, than as agents for true change. It’s time to return the ancient wisdom of all traditional cultures: let’s measure our actions by how they will affect the next seven generations, the Great Mother Earth, and how much beauty and harmony they will bring. Let’s re-learn how to listen to what is needed, to trust our intuition, and allow ourselves to feel.

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