I Am a Woman Finding My Voice: Celebrating The Extraordinary Blessings Of Being A Woman

By Janet Quinn

This celebration of womanhood, with a foreword by Dr. Joan Borysenko, delights in the joy of the feminine soul. In a time when it might not be politically correct to speak of such a uniquely feminine soul, Quinn takes the position that finding one's own authentic voice is imperative if we are to value a universal livelihood of love and community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: May 5, 2009
• ISBN: 9780061922619

Janet Quinn

Janet F. Quinn, Ph.D., registered nurse, associate professor, and distinguished researcher of Therapeutic Touch, has been profiled in The New York Times, Time, and Utne Reader. She makes her home in Boulder, Colorado.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

We sat in a small circle of women on the reddest earth I have ever seen. There had been a recent rain, and the new desert growth was so brilliantly green and shiny that it looked almost plastic. Some of us played the musical sticks, hitting them together in time with the clapping of the old ones as they sang a song of beginning. The sticks are hand carved by the men, then elaborately decorated by the women as they all sit together around the central fire singing. The wood itself is mulgar, which is plentiful in that desert and which has an unforgettable, pungent smell that is released with the warmth of one’s hands or as it burns in the fire. Sometimes still I hold those sticks until the aroma gives itself up to me and I remember.

The singing quieted, and Nganyinytja, the Aboriginal elder who had invited us to her place in the heart of the Australian outback, spoke through the translator. Her fingers never stopped drawing in the soft, silky dirt, illustrating her words with symbols and images. We will talk now of women’s business. This business belongs only to the women. Women must never speak of this business to men or when men are present. The men have men’s business and will not speak of it to the women.

I was quick to respond. I asked the translator to query Nganyinytja about which is more important, women’s business or men’s business. Our teacher looked at me curiously. She shook her head slowly back and forth, and I assumed that she had not understood the question, so I asked it in a different way. Which has more status in the tribe, I wanted to know, men’s business or women’s business? I was, of course, assuming that I already knew the answer.

The translator once again queried our teacher. Nganyinytja again shook her head back and forth and finally spoke, drawing a circle in the sand and moving her fingers around it, over and over, deepening it with each pass. Diana translated. She says she understands your words, but your question makes no sense. There is no business which is more important than any other. All business, women’s business, men’s business, is needed for the sake of the whole. All the work must be done; it is all important to the whole tribe.

Nganyinytja looked away, paused, and then began our lessons in women’s business. And while all of these teachings were meaningful to me, the first teaching I received from Nganyinytja will always be the most powerful. In that one moment, hundreds and hundreds of miles from any form of modern life and thousands of miles from my civilized, politically correct, academic world, I had been given a new understanding of feminism. I have never been the

Reviews for I Am a Woman Finding My Voice

[wanderlustlover_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Another success, and also another nightly reader. These are one page affirmations about womanhood, growth, change and embracing the self in all forms on the path as we walk it. I definitely enjoyed all the affirmations and the every once in a while anecdotes.

Another one of those books I would give copies to all of my friends who are female.