"Conception, labor, and birthing — metaphors thick with the image and experiences of women — offer a body parable of the process of awakening. The parable tells us things we need to know about the way awakening works — the slow, unfolding, sometimes hidden, always expanding nature of it, the inevitable queasiness, the need to nurture and attend to what inhabits us, the uncertainty about the outcome, the fearful knowing that once we bring the new consciousness forth, our lives will never be the same. It tells us that and more.
"I've given birth to two children, but bring them into the world was a breeze compared to birthing myself as a woman. Bringing forth a true, instinctual, powerful woman who is rooted in her own feminine center, who honors the sacredness of the feminine, and who speaks the feminine language of her own soul is never easy...