Sara Avant Stover - The Book of SHE: Your Heroines Journey into the Heart of Feminine Power

More praise for The Book of SHE

Womens bodies and minds are different from mens, and the best way toward a healthy, satisfying life is to embrace that difference. Provocative and thorough, The Book of SHE explores the mystery and alchemy of what it means to be a woman. Sara Avant Stover will guide you toward reclaiming the power and beauty of your own amazing body in this groundbreaking book.

Sara Gottfried, MD, author of The Hormone Cure

Sara Avant Stover knows that to give form to your dreams, you must recover your feminine field. Instead of tracking linear pathways for success, The Book of SHE calls for embodying your sacredness. Stover has created a priceless map for how to live from the beauty you contain.

Tami Lynn Kent, author of Wild Feminine, Wild Creative, and Mothering from Your Center

Praise for The Way of the Happy Woman by Sara Avant Stover

Filled with health-promoting delight, pleasure, and truth. Just lovely.

Christiane Northrup, MD, author of Womens Bodies, Womens Wisdom

Stover offers a wide range of practices to help readers simplify, slow down, and be in tune with natural cycles.... A winner of a read.

Library Journal

The Way of the Happy Woman is the positive self-help product of Saras own healing journey.... Heartfelt and rich with personal stories, this book presents practical wisdom for women of all ages who are seeking to live a healthier, happier life.

Yoga Journal

In this inspiring volume, Sara Avant Stover speaks as a wise best friend, offering up secret recipes and simple ways to keep your body in sync with the four seasons.... She takes us on a personal journey of health and well-being, then sends us off as if weve completed a rite of passage, and will never be the same again.

Conscious Dancer

In The Way of the Happy Woman, Sara Avant Stover offers hundreds of baby steps simple yet deceptively profound toward living a happier, healthier, more balanced life. Even a few of these, practiced regularly, could be transformational. Highly recommended!

Timothy McCall, MD, medical editor of Yoga Journal and author of Yoga as Medicine

Rest in the nest of this beautiFULL book, and allow it to soak in and beam its wisdom to you. Your way is that of the happy woman, and these words will awaken, inspire, and deeply support you on your way-finding.

SARK, artist, creative fountain, and author of Glad No Matter What

This lovely, born-of-experience book is a primer on how to live in accord with the energies of the natural world. Clear and thoughtful, it will help you remember that even amid the demands of work, school, family, and incessant email, youre still a goddess.

Susan Piver, author of The Wisdom of a Broken Heart and The Hard Questions

Also by Sara Avant Stover

The Way of the Happy Woman: Living the Best Year of Your Life

Copyright 2015 by Sara Avant Stover

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

The Way of the Happy Woman is a registered trademark of Sara Avant Stover.

The material in this book is intended for education. It is not meant to take the place of diagnosis and treatment by a qualified medical practitioner or therapist. No expressed or implied guarantee of the effects of the use of the recommendations can be given nor liability taken. Except in the case of well-known figures introduced by first and last names, identifying details such as names and characteristics have been changed, or composites have been created, to protect the privacy of others.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stover, Sara Avant, date.

The book of she: your heroines journey into the heart of feminine power / Sara Avant Stover.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-60868-289-8 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-60868-290-4 (ebook)

1. Feminist spirituality. 2. Self-realization in women. I. Title.

BL625.7.S766 2015

204'.4082dc23

2015022625

First printing, October 2015

ISBN 978-1-60868-289-8

Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Kogen Ananda Keith Martin-Smith, for our love.

To Sofia Diaz, for shining the light.

And

to Mary, for leading me home.

God is within her. She will not fail.

Psalm 46:5

Contents

When a new infusion of love is needed, Mary Magdalene shows up. Our only real choice is whether or not to cooperate.

Cynthia Bourgeault, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene

Santa Fe, New Mexico; October 30, 2010

Devils Night, some call it.

I drew the thick maroon curtains shut and opened one of the windows just a crack to let the night air in. Click. I switched the lamp off and pulled the covers up over my shoulders. Alone in the inns musty guestroom.

It was the night before I was scheduled to perform the talk that Id spent the previous four days preparing, the one Id later give on my book tour. The next morning Id stand, without notes or podium, before my circle of six female peers and my public speaking instructor. Just me, my story, and my heart. My body trembled, but my heart roared, Im ready. I could feel the fertility of something new beginning.