Women of Spirit: Exploring Sacred Paths of Wisdom Keepers

By "Twinkle" Marie Manning

This book is a compilation of women sojourners, sages, mystics, witches, shaman, medicine women, philosophers, life coaches, yogis, and more. Their journeys. Their stories. Their teachings and practices. Poetry, Art, Rituals, and Prayers. 
This anthology published by Matrika Press is full of useful tools and powerful messages for ever

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matrika Press
• Release date: Oct 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781946088130

Book preview

WOMEN

OF

SPIRIT

Sojourn With Light Workers and _________the publishing branch of UU Women’s Heart in collaboration with CHB Media, the publishing imprint of a 501(c)(3)

and specializes in books to feed the spirit.

CHB ... Caring. Healing. Believing.

We are proud to publish Women of Spirit, Volume One, Compiled and edited by Twinkle Marie Manning.

Women

of

Spirit

Exploring Sacred Paths of Wisdom Keepers

Compiled and Edited by

Twinkle Marie Manning

Cover art by Shiloh Sophia

a Sojourn With Light Workers book

Compilation Copyright © Marie Manning

December 2014

Individual Submission Copyright © held by

listed authors and artists.

All Rights Reserved

including the right of reproduction,

copying, or storage in any form

or means, including electronic,

In Whole or Part,

without prior written

permission of the author(s)

978-0-9863842-0-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012949604

1.Spirituality 2.Sacred Feminine 3.Self-Exploration 4.Philosophy 5.Healing 6.Title

CHB Media, Publisher

3039 Needle Palm Drive

Edgewater FL 32141

[phone]

[e-mail]

www.CHBMediaOnline.com

www.SojournWithLightWorkers.com

www.UUWomensHeart.org

First Edition

Printed in the USA

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface 11

Contributors

Anna Huckabee Tull

Resume 14

Bernadette Gahdele Rombough 

The Way of the Dene Medicine Woman 22

Deb Elbaum

Living on Purpose 30

Deborah Diamond

There is No Substitute for a True Healing Touch 38

Debra Wilson Guttas

The Question, You and Only, You Can Answer 44

&

Reflections 50

Grace Ventura

Freedom Journey & Stay Awhile 58

Janeen Barnett

A Spider Story 66

JoAnne Bassett

Sacred Scents 70

Julie Matheson

Life on the Lotus Flower 76

Kate Early

Finding the Wizard:

Coaching Creativity in Odyssey of the Mind 82

Kate Kavanagh

Jolting to Salvation 92

Katherine Glass

Prayer to Arch Angel Uriel

For Remembering Your Divine Identity 100

Kris Oster

Angels who carry us. A true story. 102

Lea M. Hill

The Autism Spirit: The Truth About

What’s Behind Autistic Behaviors 106

Meghan Gilroy

Creating a Better Life Sucks 112

Morwen Two Feathers

Practicing Paganism 116

Rustie MacDonald

Trash the Box 120

Shamananca

The Valley of Fear 128

Sharon Hinckley

If This Day Were Up to You 130

Shawna Allard

Focus on the Positive 134

Shiloh Sophia

The Creative Being Creed 138

Susan Feathers

The Mundane as a Sacred Practice:

Living at the Threshold where Sacred-Mundane

Meet – Entries from My Journal 144

Tiffany Cano

Recovering from Self Doubt 154

Tory Londergan

A Sacramental Threshold 160

Twinkle Marie Manning

She Stood There & Journeying with Hekate 164

Tziporah Kingsbury

Tending to Your Sacred Fire:

The Wisdom of One’s Sexual Energy 170

Valerie Sorrentino

Soft Energy 176

Gratitude

Resources

The spiritual world is like the natural world - only diversity will save it.

— Margot Adler

I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn.

― Maya Angelou

"When her eyes opened to strange sounds,

the stars were gathered about a top heaven moon. The sleep had been long and heavy,

but now her eyes opened wide..."

— Merlin Stone

Dedication

For my daughter, Morgan Bailey

and to my nieces:

Arressa, Grace, Rebecca, Samantha,

Autumn and Wilhelmina

May you each always have a community of women who see your beauty and know your strength and who lovingly support you along your journey.

Twinkle Marie Manning

To the Wise Women of old, and to the future Wise Women we pass Our wisdom to, thank you for keeping the Circle alive.

In love and trust from the

Women of Spirit Contributors

Preface

My heart for many years has desired to compile such works as you will find within the pages of this manuscript. An anthology featuring women of spirit. This inaugural volume of Sojourn With Light Workers: Women of Spirit is comprised of many of my friends. Women I have known and have worked with over they years. Women I have shared sacred space with, of their creation or mine. Women who are healers and teachers of their Ways. Women whose journeys have taken them deep into the depths of their own beings, and beyond the scope of what is known.

Each contributor shares a glimpse of herself. Many having overcome great obstacles to arrive at their present place of understandings.

The collection contains messages of inspiration, growth, wisdom, empowerment and sustainability. Each contribution is a gift from the Divine. These gifts are imparted to you by means of valuable tools given by experts who through years of practice have harnessed the ability to fully express and live in the essence of their own Soul’s Purpose and Heart’s Desire.

A shared lesson by all, demonstrated by the very existence of this book, is the importance of sacred community. Gathering to support each other, sharing knowledge, leading and participating in rituals, counseling and advising, are ways we strengthen each other and ensure our next generations will have access to the wisdom of the wise ones. We are torch bearers and map makers alike. Standing firm in our united front to serve the world with our gifts to the best of our abilities.

Merlin Stone succinctly said, The suppression of women’s rights began with the suppression of women’s rites. A resounding warning, yes. But more, it is a call-to-action for those of us with ways and means to keep alive our traditions.

This year we lost two of our beloved Wise Women: Maya Angelou and Margot Adler. We mourn their passing even as we cherish their legacies.

Maya taught us that, There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. Women of Spirit, and the volumes of books that will be created in the years to come, are for this singular purpose: to share stories and works that would otherwise be left untold.

Margot is well-known for saying, The first time I called myself a ‘Witch’ was the most magical moment of my life. While most of the women in this collection do not identify as witches, they claim their own heritage as courageously as did Margot.

Our contributors are from a vast variety of lineages including, Shaman, Ministers, Teachers, Alchemists,Yogis, Medicine-Women, Life-Coaches, Doctors, Mentors, Mothers, and more.

Through their artistry: essays, stories, poems, paintings, photographs, meditations, rituals, prayers, and practical how-to’s, the contributors to this book share with us the very foundations we as society long for to create a Whole world once again. It is in the very core of these sharings that we gain the needed strength to stand up when we hear our purpose calling to us. The courage to put a stake in the ground and claim our path.

We invite you to join us on our journeys even as we now join you on yours.

Twinkle Marie Manning

December 17, 2014

Anna Huckabee Tull

Life-Coach. Singer-Songwriter. Teacher.

Anna Huckabee Tull is an award-winning Singer-Songwriter/Composer and an accomplished Psychologist, who enjoys what has to be one of the world’s most fascinating, unique and uplifting professions: People from all over the planet commission Anna to create original, one-of-a-kind songs of love, growth, loss, birth, and celebration, to honor some of life’s most meaningful passages. She has 5 national albums to her credit. She hosted a TV Special: An Evening of Songs and Stories with Anna Huckabee Tull. Her songs have been bravely shared in living rooms just like yours, where one amazing person who cares, dares to share a song with one other–composed just for them. She has been a TEDx speaker and is soon to publish a book called: Living the Deeper YES.

www.CustomCraftedSongs.com

Resume

One of the most astonishing, rare, and precious gifts one can receive in a lifetime is arriving at an unavoidable juncture where everything falls utterly apart.

This is not something I would wish on anyone, and most of us spend the vast majority of our waking hours working to make sure this never is the case. But if you have ever met anyone who found their whole entire life falling swiftly out from under them at a singular point in time (I am one of these people), then you have met someone who was given the opportunity to discover that they are stronger than they thought, that they are more resourceful and creative than they previously realized, and that they have the ability to be more deeply, powerfully empathic and compassionate than they ever were before whatever happened to them, happened.

For some people, it’s a life-threatening illness, for others it’s an unexpected firing or a death. For me it was a husband having a secret affair, and a sudden divorce that also included the end of a working relationship, the end of a job, the end of it making sense for me to stay in the same town, or state, or even part of the country. In other words, it seemed as if the whole full bowl of my life (a bowl of cherries! cherries I really felt I loved!) turned over in one moment and emptied itself out.

I was, at turns, reasonable, centered, thoughtful, intuitive, raging, bawling, frightened, calm, furious, confused, clear. You name it. When all your reference points and bearings are suddenly gone, quite a bizarre mix of feelings can come rushing forward.

At one point, I drove five hours straight in an ice storm, sobbing with each inhale of breath, my face swollen up so much it looked like I had been attacked by a swarm of bees. At another point, I literally crawled underneath my car, parked out in front of my former home, and just lay there, flat against the asphalt, squeezed beneath the undercarriage, because it felt like the only place on the planet I would be able to feel safe and centered—the only place I could think to go where the knots in my stomach might start to unwind. And then there was the all-time sag-fest of a moment, staying in my old bedroom at my parents’ house in Ohio. I watched their geriatric dog walk in and barf on the floor right in front of me as I lay there in my former tiny single bed, and it took me a good forty five minutes to work up the inclination to pivot my neck muscles, so that I could stare towards the blank wall, instead.

These, to me, are what you might call low moments.

But the weeks during which these events occurred – weeks stretching into months, in which