Ahn's Awakening

By Susan Jo Heitzman

“Ahn’s Awakening” begins with a ten-chapter story of a pre-historic girl. The heroine, Ahn, and her family are walking in a North American forest that guides their understanding of life and death. As they journey, Ahn notices monumental changes in her physical body and her soul as her first menstrual period begins. The story in

• Language: English
• Publisher: URLink Print & Media, LLC
• Release date: Feb 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781643671215

Susan Jo Heitzman

SUSAN JO HEITZMAN's roles as daughter, wife, mother, and grandmother prepared her to receive the gift of the story she now calls "Ahn's Awakening". The story came from her daydream about what a girl's nomadic life in the forest might have been like thousands of years ago. Susan Michelle Burton, a former psychologist who taught human sexuality courses, assisted Susan Jo with editing and revising. Dr. Burton also writes children's stories. Susan Jo is a retired educator and a former Bed and Breakfast owner. She loves nature and feels compelled to walk outdoors on wooded trails as often as possible. She added to her resume in 2014 by winning the Democratic Primary as a candidate for U.S. Congress. Her love of our natural environment guided her candidacy. The two Susan's have a strong desire for this book to reach families before their beloved daughters experience their first menstrual periods.

Book preview

Ahn’s Awakening

A JOURNAL FOR PRE-TEEN GIRLS

Susan Jo Heitzman

with Susan Michelle Burton, Ph.D.

Ahn’s Awakening

Copyright © 2018 by Susan Jo Heitzman and Susan Michelle Burton, Ph.D.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author except as provided by USA copyright law.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, descriptions, entities, and incidents included in the story are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, and entities is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

The opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of URLink Print and Media.

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URLink Print and Media is committed to excellence in the publishing industry.

Book design copyright © 2018 by URLink Print and Media. All rights reserved.

Published in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-64367-107-9 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64367-106-2 (Digital)

Fiction

27.10.18

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Dorothy Irene

and Harriett Josephine and the music of Pot Hole Creek.

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

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