Quoting!

I don't know why I love quotes so much!  Yes, I do.  It's because someone else has looked inside of me and said, here, let me put that thing into actual words rather than colors or feelings or sounds.  Or it's because I read something and I have that wonderful "aha!" or "yeah, yeah!" or "click!" moment.

Did you know that the "yeah, yeah!" or "click!" moment is what women's consciousness raising groups were all about?  Those moments when some other person shares from her own experience and something inside of you rises up and says, "YEAH, YEAH!"  I love those moments.  I live for those moments.  It's what I'm looking for when I read about women.

Back to quotes.  I have my little quote board to the side here so I can dip back into them at any point.  They allow me moments of divine clarity.  I eat them up.  Recently I read a book called Women Who Run With The Wolves by a woman named Clarissa Pinkola Estes.  She's a Jungian analyst and a cantadora, a storyteller.  In this book she unwraps old stories and pieces together the bones to help women rediscover their wild nature.  It's beautiful, helpful, fascinating and true.  Man, I love books.  This woman is also a quote machine!

Behold!  Clarissa gets her own quote board in this post:

“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”

“I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and you laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.” 

“Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one’s mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down.” 

Clarissa shakes me up.  Clarissa makes me sit still.  Today, I'm thankful for the hard work that other women have done that allow me this moment on my couch or on my computer, going, "YEAH, YEAH!"