There are so many women out there today who are on a mission to discover who they truly are and following a desire to live completely authentically. The reason for this seems obvious. The centuries and millenia of restriction, suppression and expectations are shifting and the doors are opening for women to break free, so to speak. Our generation (and perhaps a few more to come) have the task to unravel all the programming we have internalised and rediscover our power and potential.
Naturally then, there are many books being published by women who are going through this process of self-discovery. Each woman has her own way to get to this point. We all have different circumstances, talents, and dreams, and accordingly we will be approaching this development in different ways.
Here are a few books that spoke to me strongly on different levels and have supported me in my personal “home coming”. The title suggests every woman should read these but I am aware that they may not speak to everyone, depending on your vibe, of course.
1. “Women Who Run With The Wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
I would argue that every woman has some form of a ‘wild side’. Clarissa Pinkola Estes has coined the term the ‘wild woman’, which has been all over Social Media, because so many women can relate to this archetype. It refers to the powerful force, living in each woman providing her with creativity and healthy instincts and a deep sense of ‘knowing’. While it lives in us all, we have become disconnected from it because of society’s ways of ‘civilising’ us.
Estes uses cross cultural folklore and fairy tales to reconnect us to the understanding of the innate wild woman that lives in us all.
It is this book that was the inspiration to the Jewellery pieces in the SD collection that feature the signature ‘wild’ texture of the core collection.
2. “If Women Rose Rooted” by Sharon Blackie
One thing this book has in common with the previous one, is the use of cultural myths to reconnect with the authentic self. The book is a bit like a personal memoir of the author’s journey of self-discovery but you find yourself relating to so many of her experiences even if your life looks very different. The struggle and yearning seems to be a universal theme for women of our time. Among the themes that I find so important is the value she gives to the aging woman. We have internalised that our value as women lies in child baring and the beauty of our youth. We are constantly fed the ideal that we have to look young and somehow stop our aging process. Reading this book made me feel so much better about aging and allowed me to see the beauty and wisdom that our later years have to offer.
Sharon Blackie discusses the problems of western society, suppression of women and devastation of our planet and suggests a way for women to rise into power by rooting firmly into the natural world of their ancestors, where all wisdom can be found.
3. “The Wise Heart” by Jack Kornfield
This beauty of a book is one that should be read by everyone and doesn’t exclusively speak to women. It is the single best book for westerners to understand the teachings of Buddhism and how it can support us in our human experience.
For everyone going through dark periods in their life, this book is a beautiful guide to cope with the human experience in all its facets. It teaches not to be afraid of the suffering we all inevitably face at some point in our life and suggests a path of surrender to the facets of human experience and conscious observation of the mind for the purpose of navigating life with a more peaceful heart.
It’s the kind of book you want to just leave out on the coffee table and re-read whenever you need a little reminder to step back and sit in silence for a while. It worked wonders for me in a difficult time of my life and has been the book I gift or recommend to anyone in need of a bit universal wisdom.
