Today the Women of Wisdom virtual book tour is visiting Ascroft, eh? I’d like to welcome them and I’m looking forward to hearing their ideas about unleashing women’s potential.  Let’s start with an excerpt from the book.

Have You Put Your Dreams On Hold? by Angeles Arrien

Each one of us has a great dream and a great calling. Many of us have put our dreams on the back burner. We say, “Someday when I have enough time, when I have enough money; then I’ll do what I really want to do, what has fire for me.” At this time there is such a wonderful opening in history, in evolution, if we will just come and take our place.

What I’ve found among many of the indigenous peoples of the world is that they know how important it is to bring our medicine and our dreams to this world. If we want the earth to get better we need to show up and take our place, not with our shrouds of insufficiency, but with our long tall bodies and our deep, deep roots. The warrior’s way or the leader’s way is to show up. And then I can pay attention to what has heart and meaning, which is the healer’s way. I can’t know what has heart or meaning until I choose to show up, until I choose to be present.

Among the shamanic traditions of the world, if you go to a shaman or a medicine person, and you are dispirited, disheartened, or depressed, many of them will ask you one of four questions: “When in your life did you stop singing? When in your life did you stop dancing? When in your life did you stop being enchanted by stories, and particularly your own life story? And when in your life did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence?”

Wherever we stop singing, dancing, being enchanted by stories or deeply comforted by silence, we begin to experience soul loss. There’s not a culture in the world that does not have song, or dance, or story, or doesn’t recognize that in the sweet territory of silence we connect to the mystery in our contemplative and reflective practices.

I know I’m not at home when I’m in appeasement, weak-heartedness, seduction, drama or exaggeration. I know I’m not at home when I am playing the martyr or the victim and wanting someone else to be responsible for my life and therefore guilt induce others. I’m not at home when I’m controlling, because the opposite of control is trust.

I am at home when I have fire; when I am deeply connected to what has heart and meaning, the heart’s fire; when I’m seized by a vision that I want to manifest and bring to the sweet face of Mother Earth. I know I’m on fire when I’ve lost time through some creativity, and when I’ve experienced a moment of tender sweetness and intimacy in a relationship that has substance and depth. I know I’m on fire when I’ve connected to something numinous and extraordinarily beautiful that can only be found when trusting in an unshakable part of myself, in a sacred refuge that I can find in my deep interior.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Women of Wisdom: Empowering the Dreams and Spirit of Women

2008 Award winning finalist for Best New Non-Fiction from USA Book News
2009 Bronze award winner for Body-Mind-Spirit from Independent Publishers.

This is a unique book with inspiring stories, art and poetry combined with strong voices of best selling women authors and leaders in their fields. Throughout the book they share thought provoking ideas that explore the hidden potentials and gifts that reside in the depths of the feminine spirit. Women who are seeking for meaning in their lives will find this book a powerful tool to guide and inspire them.
For seventeen years women have been attending the Women of Wisdom gatherings to uncover and celebrate the power of feminine spirit. In this compilation of spiritual, academic, and artistic contributions from professionals and lay people, poetry mixes with history, visual art with the inner spirit, and the intellect with soulful longing, creating an inspiring kaleidoscope of feminine reverence. This book offers practical and moving guidance that speaks to the divine within us all.

Key aspects of the book:
      Thought provoking essays from some of the greatest women thinkers and writers of our time from the Women of Wisdom Conference.
      Exercises to explore the topics in each chapter gives the reader an experience of their own personal journey towards self-awareness.
      Personal stories sharing life changes from their WOW experience
      Women of Wisdom’s story and development of key aspects of the conference – art, music, ritual theater, and circle leadership.

The reader is taken on a journey through the conference with empowering presentations, workshops, ceremonies, art, poetry, stories, and circles.
Art and poetry displayed throughout the book add a visual element that moves the reader to experience the creative feminine. Many of the poems are songs from well-known musicians from the women’s music movement such as Holly Near, Rhiannon, Cris Williamson, Ferron and Libby Roderick.
Diversity of more than sixty contributors sharing their experience of the power of the feminine voice.

The ten key women presenters discuss many current problems facing women and our society today and offer words of hope and wisdom to help women tackle these problems that relate to their personal life.

Thank you for visiting Ascroft, eh? The excerpt from Women of Wisdom presents some thought provoking ideas. To wrap up, will you tell readers who would like to continue reading, how they can get your book and about your special offer this week?

WOW:  We invite you to go to this page – www.wisewomanpublishing.com/womenofwisdom.html – to access the order page and then go back to this page and enter your order confirmation code and your email address. That will take you to the sign up page for the Women of Wisdom enewsletter, once you join the WOW book group you will be sent an email with a link to the bonus gifts that are available to people who buy the book today. You can later opt out of being on the Women of Wisdom newsletter list if you choose.