Ahn’S Awakening: A Journal for Pre-Teen Girls

By Susan Jo Heitzman and Susan Michelle Burton, Ph.D.

Ahns Awakening is a fictional account of a prehistoric girl in North America. Ahn, her grandmother, and two uncles are walking through the forest when Ahn begins to notice the monumental changes in her physical body and in her soul that come with a girls first menstrual period. Pre-teen girls will find blank lines on the left-hand side of the pages where they can journal their response to the fictional account of a life lived in close harmony with our natural world. Adult mentors and mothers will appreciate the guidance found at the end of the story. These questions, suggestions, and prompts to explore their own first menstrual stories will inspire them to turn the talk into an ongoing conversation. Ahns Awakening ends with a ritual that may help adult mentors and mothers see the sacred nature of our bodies natural functions and how they interconnect with our souls journeys.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524640408

Susan Jo Heitzman

Susan Jo’s roles as daughter, wife, and mother among her other life relationships prepared her to receive the gift of the story that became Ahn’s Awakening. She first published this book as Your Story, Ahn’s Story, and Our Stories in 2007. The story came to her as she daydreamed about what a girl’s nomadic life in the forest might have been like thousands of years ago. Susan Jo is publishing this second edition with the help of Susan Michelle, a former psychologist who has taught human sexuality courses. This version of Ahn’s Awakening has a more fluid storyline and has even more materials and resources for mothers or mentors who are guiding pre-teen girls. The two Susans have a strong desire for this book to reach families before their beloved daughters and/or mentees experience their menarche (first menstrual period). Amazed that a fictional account of menarche is a rarity, Susan Jo and Susan Michelle are eager to get this book to mentors, mothers, and their beloved pre-teen girls. Both women believe that additional fictional accounts of menarche would augment the many nonfiction books that teach girls the biological details of this monumental passage. The fact that menarche is often ignored in our current cultural stories is tragic. Susan Jo loves nature and feels compelled to walk outdoors in wooded areas as often as possible. At this point, her story is unique because her main character lives in total connection with the Earth as she explores her experience of her menarche. Susan Jo is a retired educator and a former bed-and-breakfast owner. She added to her resumé in 2014 by winning the Democratic primary as a candidate for U.S. Congress in Indiana’s Sixth Congressional District. Her love of our natural environment also guided her candidacy.

Book preview

2016 Susan Jo Heitzman with Susan Michelle Burton, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/14/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-4041-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-4039-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-4040-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016915408

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Information for the Adult Mentor

To Begin…

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

To Be Continued…

Sharing Our Stories

Reflections and Questions for the Adult Mentor

The Adult Mentor and Stories of First Menses

Creating Rituals for Menarche (First Menses)

Encouraging Further Exploration

Acknowledgements

Sources to Further your Knowledge about Female Adolescent Sexuality, the Natural World, and the Feminine

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Dorothy Irene

and Harriett Josephine and the music of Pot Hole Creek.

Information for the Adult Mentor

Thank you for purchasing Ahn’s Awakening: A Journal for Pre-Teen Girls. You may be a mother, foster mom, aunt, teacher, grandmother or play some other role in the life of a beloved girl. One characteristic that you all share is that you want to help prepare the beloved girls in your lives for their first menstrual periods.

Please start by reading Ahn’s Awakening in its entirety. The first section is about Ahn, a fictional pre-historic girl on the North American continent. You will notice blank pages on the left-hand side of the text. These pages allow pre-teen girls the opportunity to share their reflections on the book as they read. If your girl is right-handed, suggest she turn the book upside down to journal. The hope is that their reading and writing will prepare them for the monumental changes in their bodies and souls that often come with first menses. The adult mentors can record their reflections and stories about their own menstrual experiences on the blank pages at the end of this book.

Once you present this book to a girl, you might want to read Ahn’s Awakening together, a little at a time. You will most likely find that it takes three minutes to read each of the ten chapters aloud. Thus, the actual reading of the printed text will take a total of 30 minutes of your time. The most valuable part of each reading session will be the discussion that you have afterward. The focus questions you will find near the end of this book will help you decide when and where to pause and discuss your own sense of living as a female in our time.

One of the positive results to come from the Women’s Movement of the late 20th-Century was women more openly sharing their life experiences with other women. We now often discuss subjects that were once completely taboo. The adult mentors also need to share their stories with the beloved girls in their lives. The paragraphs and focus questions in this same smaller font at the end of the book may be of help to you in mentoring a girl through this crucial stage. The sources at the very end of the book can give you further background and suggestions for guiding girls who are nearing their first menses. You can help make this a pivotal, sacred time in a girl’s life. It is important that you read Ahn’s Awakening and its introduction and conclusion prior to sharing this book.

To Begin…

This is the story of a girl, maybe a little older or a little younger than you. She may have lived close to where you live, but she lived a long time ago. She lived