When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams

Word by word, the language of women so often begins with a whisper. 

Within silence our voice dwells.

The blank pages of a Mormon mother's empty journals become the basis for Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds. Words that create, sustain, and enrich.

The degree of our aliveness, depends on the degree of our awareness.

There are two important days in a woman's life: the day she is born and the day she finds out why. 

It has never been more urgent for women to live the why we are here.

Finding one's voice is the process of finding one's passion.

The success of any teacher is to recognize what one doesn't know.

For a woman or man to speak from the truth of their heart is to break taboo.

We can no longer deny the destiny that is ours by becoming women who wait - waiting to love, waiting to speak, waiting to act. This is not patience, it is pathology.

What are the consequences when we go against our instincts?

And I realize, I'm never going to journal here. I may catalog, label, write our days, write our adventures, write of our lives, laugh here, and ponder here, but this space will never be a journal.

For far to long we have said yes when we wanted to say no. When we don't listen to our intuition, we abandon our souls. And we abandon our souls because we are afraid if we don't, others will abandon us.

Soul utterance: to speak through our vulnerability with strength.

I leave names off this space. Who am I, to utter the lives of others? They may read my words, if they wish, but it's not for another to search them out. They too, will choose what to share, and what to savor.
 
True eloquence has an edge, sharp and clean.

I am learning to live with my edges. I am learning to let go of what others think. There is so little time. No time. No time to waste caring what the world thinks, except for those who cannot care for themselves. There is no time to waste, thinking about thinking about what others are thinking about. Me.

My voice is born repeatedly in the fields of uncertainty.

We can choose to move like water rather than be molded like clay.

Beside a well, one won't thirst; beside a sister, one won't despair.

The sin we commit against each other as women is lack of support.

I have found what I need most to heal a broken bond is time together - the very thing I avoid is the thing most desired. 

If we have no shadow, it means we are invisible. 

There shall always be sacred spaces, sacred utterances, that are mine alone.

If I leave,
blank pages,
possibilities,
for the children,
I have REALLY lived.

If I leave Nushu,
secrets,
for the sisterhood,
we shared wisdom.
 
If I leave,
old notebooks,
it's okay,
burn them.

I thought,
once,
I'd give my journals,
to a women's museum.

I was young.

But then I grew.

Older.

I knew,
you'd know,
how crazy, I was.

So I hid,
them,
in the rafters.

High,
for a season.

Then, I,
burned them myself.
Smoke,
floating high.

Then, I
started,
more journals.

~ Kim

 Another tome comes to mind: Booked, in which Karen Swallow Prior explores how books brought her to God, and to herself. Recommended.

Be aware of what can never be tamed. 

~ The Little Prince