41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Delve Into The Sacred Feminine, April 6, 2005
This review is from: Secrets and Mysteries: The Glory and Pleasure of Being a Woman (Paperback)
Every once in awhile I come across a book that fits my current questions and circumstances like a synchronistic glove. Secrets and Mysteries - The Glory and Pleasure of Being a Woman is one such book.
Secrets and Mysteries will give you a profound understanding of what it means to be a woman. Full of passion, mysticism, and practical information, it will tap the source of your power at the depths of your soul. Through her own extraordinary life experience and her knowledge of native cultures around the world, the author reveals how you can activate ancient wisdom to become the magnificent embodiment of strength and grace. In other words, how you can become a Glorious Woman!
In the first chapter, the author shares her personal story, including the realization that she was a people pleaser. This negative pattern hounded her for decades, much like it does for many women. Rather than listening to her own needs, she discovered that the major decisions she made were based on what others wanted from her. She began to ask herself difficult questions such as Am I willing to stop putting other people's needs ahead of mine? Am I ready to let go of the need to please everyone? Can I stop taking care of everyone else, and start caring for myself? These questions came on the heel of being told that she had breast cancer. Because it's a popular belief in the New Age movement that you "create your own reality", Linn longed for compassion, understanding and support but feared accusations such as "You created this. What's eating at you?" or "I knew you had to slow down, you were working too hard." She was so judgmental of herself that she couldn't bear being judged by others. So she didn't reach out for help.
She took a month of for some deep soul searching, and the cancer disappeared.
The stories and struggles that Linn shares in this book parallel those of many women I've talked to, including my own. It's encouraging to read a book from someone who's been there, and how she navigated through self-doubt and trying times. It's also refreshing to read such honesty about her own personal journey, rather than an author pontificating on what others "should" be doing or how we need to buck up and "get over it".
Chapter 2 talks about the historical roots of the Goddess and how to embrace Her. Linn writes: "Goddess worship can be traced from the Paleolithic period, as early as 2,000,000 B.C., until less than 5,000 years ago when God became a man. In other words, God has been a male for one quarter of one percent of human history, and God has been female for 99.75 percent of the rest of the time. A male God is a relative newcomer on the divine scene. Yet, in modern culture, there is an ingrained belief that God is, and always has been, male." She explains that the distortion of female history and the Divine feminine has left many women feeling dispossessed of their spiritual identity as women, and that they have not been taught to explore their strengths. Linn also lists the names and attributes of Goddesses from various traditions and how to integrate their strengths into everyday life.
Chapter 3 talks about the allies of women, including angels, ancestors, animal spirits, plant and mineral allies, as well as herbs, flowers, and tree allies. She also shares how to discover your own allies, and provides several lists for the meanings of personal totems from these realms.
Chapter 4 covers the secrets of the shamaness, which includes honoring divine feminine cycles, discovering your spirit name, shape-shifting, exploring the lower, middle, and upper worlds, and shamanic power objects and symbols. Chapter 5 instructs women on how to access their inner warrior or the "holy bitch". Linn writes: "You can tell when you have truly awakened your inner Warrior Woman, because you will rarely need her."
Chapter 6 gives incredible practical wisdom on the shadow, including where it came from and how to face it. Chapter 7 is about cherishing your body, and explains the function of the 7 chakras, the importance of self-nurturing, movement, and eating healthfully.
Chapter 8 conveys the secrets of feminine radiance, including re-connecting with our senses--which is what promotes sensuality. The author shares an interesting Pleasure Quotient test that you can use any time you want to take a quick assessment of how much pleasure you're really experiencing in a day--and how to increase the pleasure quotient of even the most mundane activities!
Chapter 9 addresses sacred sexuality, the healing of sexual wounds, and how woman can honor their breasts and their womb. Chapter 10 is about the art of adornment, including how putting on a make-up, clothes, and jewelry can become a ritual and a physical symbol of our intentions.
The fascinating qualities of water and its connection to the feminine is explored in Chapter 11. Linn talks about the amazing research of Masaru Emoto and his experiments with water, and how water is a source of purification, rejuvenation, and healing.
Chapter 12 is about manifestation and gratitude, and Chapter 13 extols the virtues and importance of creativity in a woman's life. She shares several methods of creativity, as well as wisdom on releasing the inner critic, finding your creative voice, and tapping into muses. Dance, writing, painting, and music are among the ways women can cultivate and express their creativity. The last chapters speak of how to reinvent, rejuvenate, and rebirth ourselves as women.
The author's encouragement, enthusiasm and personal stories are infectious, and left me wondering how I ended up "forgetting" the feminine parts of my psyche! I found this book incredibly nurturing, insightful, and practical. Linn's words sparked a deep longing in my being that I'm sure many women also share.
So why bother re-discovering the Divine feminine and embracing the pleasures of being a woman? I believe Linn says it best:
"Like a great tide rising, this ancestral cellular memory is beginning to resound in our soul. Many women desire to return to the spirit of the divine feminine. In the deepest place within the female soul, we yearn to reclaim not only the part of our history that has been vanquished and the womanly traditions that have been expunged, but also the corresponding missing parts of our psyches...and until this reclamation is complete, we are not whole. Thus, it is immensely valuable that we begin to awaken the mysteries of the Great Goddess that dwells within us."
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