Here’s the first batch of fun reading from our Small is Beautiful bloggers. Why not click around and find out what’s happeining in the SIB neighborhood. (If you’re not on here, don’t worry, there will be a new batch next saturday. Want to join in the fun? here’s how.)

Happy reading!

Vanessa has her faves up at Rising to the Challenge, including samples from her Sunday Scribbling series and Photobooth Fridays.

Art Play Possiblity you can see the first thirty art cards from a year long project!

Lori-Lyn over at The Dream Life has a eclectic list that includes thoughts for writer/artists and a bit about angels.

Olivia has samples from Sacred Life Sunday over at Happy Luau and some collage to boot.

Diamonds in the Sky with Lucy, probably one of my favorite S.I.B. blog names, has her seven up here.

Catherine uses her list to celebrate her second blogaversary over at Everyday Life as Lyric Poetry. (She writes so well, I’ve added her to my feeds list!)

The list over at Small Reflections is a testimony to you prolific types who are dedicated to marathon blogging.

Seven stunners are waiting for you over at Practicial Spirituality (a site I’m watching for my new gig as contributing editor over at BlogHer.)

Nancy over at the lovely Soliloquy has her list ready.

Lady Vivienne, my west coast neighbor and former guest post-er at Magpie Girl, has good stuff at her place. (That woman takes some great i-love-my-body self portraits. Click around and feel empowered!)

Art of the Firebird, she of all things handmade, gathered her thoughts here.

Mother Bunny is going to help you feel less alone in the wild world of parenting, so click here.

Jena, has her list up — and I always think its a good idea to read stuff from a life coach!

The posting partners over at Stoney Moss have a ‘best of’ series that includes best photo post, best poetry post, best political post, and my favorite category…best american sentence post.

Chez moi has a clean, crisp list, including one of my favorite topics…writing about writing!

Elayna Alexandra’s list includes a post entitled Anyeurism…don’t that just make you wanna go check it out?

Pumpkin Doodle — who’s site is as pretty as the name is sweet– has a year’s worth of goodies narrowed down for you here.

Mary Blake (doesn’t that name just sound like an author?) has her list ready for you.

Poet with a Day job (another fav blog name) has a fun list, including “Restrooms are neither restful nor roomy- discuss.”

And don’t miss the beautiful collage that kicks off Strawberry Musings from a Mermaid’s end of the year round up!

Thank you to all who found their favorites and shared them with us! Check back next Saturday for more….

magpie girl at a recent black-tie wedding

Not bad for 38, wouldn’t you say?

A big ‘thank you’ to everyone who commented or emailed me about the Budding Feminist reviews.

Writing about those two books got me to thinking about just how much those authors have influenced me. Reading them opened a flood gate, and new ideas and rituals came to me by the fistful. To honor that experience, and to express gratitude, here’s a list of posts from my first blog that are representative of what came out of my spiritual feminine awakening…

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A Guided Meditation on the Feminine Divine.

A Healing Rite with Hot Stones

Opening Blessing for the Powerhouse (communal art studio) at the Summer Solstice

Saying Goodbye to the White Guys

Little Altars Everywhere: Up in Smoke

Little Altars Everywhere: Recovering She

The Womb of Life and the concept of We

There’s probably more filed under rites and rituals. If I can, I’ll hunt down the good ones for you.

Thanks for being with me on the journey!

-Rachelle

You would think that a west coast girl born in ’69 would have naturally grown up to be quite the competent feminist. After all, I lived my childhood in the hippie enclave of Santa Cruz, came of age in Berkeley, and spent my college years running an underground press at my stuffy university. Still, I grew up in the church – the evangelical church, to be specific – and those of us who grew up in that particular commune tend to be a bit behind the curve when it comes to feminine enlightenment.

Then, in my late twenties and early thirties, I started raising children – girl children. At the same time I became an ordained minister in a denomination that did not widely welcome my presence. Throw in a few bumps in the road on both of those adventures, add a few fortuitous few books, and viola! A feminist awakening to beat the band!

Does your feminist-self need a shot in the arm? You could adopt a couple of girls, try your hand at being a pastor in an evangelical church….or you could just click on one of the titles below. (I highly recommend the latter option!)

Yours in the Journey,

Rachelle
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The Red Tent
Anita Diamant

Ten years ago, Anita Diamant cracked open the story of Jacob; uncovered his only surviving daughter Dinah; dusted her off and brought her back to life. I could go on, but Gail Hudson says it best in her endorsement:

“Like any sisters who live together and share a husband, my mother and aunties spun a sticky web of loyalties and grudges,” Anita Diamant writes in the voice of Dinah. “They traded secrets like bracelets, and these were handed down to me the only surviving girl. They told me things I was too young to hear. They held my face between their hands and made me swear to remember.” Remembering women’s earthy stories and passionate history is indeed the theme of this magnificent book. In fact, it’s been said that The Red Tent is what the Bible might have been had it been written by God’s daughters, instead of her sons. –Gail Hudson

The idea of my spiritual ancestors preserving the stories women told, giving account to the happenings of their world through a woman’s eyes , has changed my understanding of my God, my vocation and my holy text. I wrote some about it here, and there’s a peek at my reaction here. If something in you is hungry for your great mother’s tales, spend some time in the The Red Tent. Today’s Flavor: exotic and holy.

The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman’s Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine

The Secret Life of Bees
Sue Monk Kidd

Sue Monk Kidd’s novel The Secret Life of Beescracked open my imagination with its story of three sisters who craft their own ceremony to honor a sacred image of the feminine divine. (Here’s just one ritual that came out of that wonderful story.) But it was her autobiographical text, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, which gave me the companionship I needed to find my own way to the feminine heart of God.

The wife of a Southern Baptists preacher, Kidd risked marriage, career, and her place in her community in order to follow her own inner authority into a broader, more inclusive reality of faith, personhood, and deity. While her journey took her to a place different than my own, I was much comforted and emboldened by her story. She was a wonderful traveling companion, and I found myself underlining something on nearly every page. This has now become one of those books that is forever being loaned out to a seeking friend, and I will always be grateful for Kidd’s brave journey of discovery. Today’s Flavor:A great dancing partner.

What book(s) helped you move along the road to a feminist awakening?

“Here there be monsters.”

There is fierceness to your love as a parent, a primordial viciousness that cannot quite be captured by pen or by page. The heat of it feeds you, moves you to the force of living that must be done to rear a child, to create a life.

But it tears at you too, this animal of passion, and the thing that tears deepest is that the one you love so fiercely–this child of womb or of heart–cannot understand this beast, cannot capture it in their reality, or even in their imagination. And you know, in spite of this longing to make sure they know, that they aren’t meant to, aren’t intended to. This kind of knowing is not expected of them.

So this tears then too, this absolute inability to communicate the sheer volume of heartache held for them, the rawness of the love which bears them into existence.

And when the child is not your own and you must live into a place that is not-parent, but rather mentor, or friend, or some indefinable something else–where then does this animal go to dwell? And where does the fierce protectionism burn when the child grows older, finds wings on which to lift away? Where does that energy live, when the cage you’ve built in your heart is no longer large enough to contain its nervous pacing, when there is not enough flesh to keep it fed?

Should there not be a guide book for this wild adventure? A star chart or a river guide? Should there not be an ancient map, a gilt compass, moss on the north of the tree? How do you find your footing when you dwell on the edge of love’s fierce map?

Greetings bloggers! It’s the second weekend in January and high past time to highlight your favorite bits of writing from the past year.

There are over 200 folks on (or waiting to get on) the Small is Beautiful blogroll these days. Who knew Jen and I would light such a fire when gathered a few women-who-wrote into a workshop at BlogHer ‘07? I can’t tell you how life-affirming it is to know that so many bloggers out there are singing at the top of their lungs: “YOUR STORY MATTERS!”

Let’s find some of those hidden jewels of a tale, shall we? Send me an email with a link to your favorite 7 posts from 2007 off of your own blog, and you’ll be featured here next Saturday (and the one after that, and the one after that…who knows how many treasures we will uncover!) Here’s what to do:

1) Gather your fav. posts from your own blog and link to them on one static page, like this.

2) Then email me (moi at mapgie-girl dot com) the permalink to that page, so I can direct everyone your way next Saturday.

Here’s to remembering the stories of our lives!

Much Love!

Rachelle (Magpie Girl)

P.s. If you are waiting to see your blog up on the blogroll, please be patient. I got a bit flooded back in December and I’m still trying to dig out! If you want to join the Small is Beautiful revolution, just click here.

Another Bride, Another Groom, Another Sunny Honeymoon

Ordination Sunday

Raising Souren

Today’s Theme: Abundance

Today’s Theme: Contentment

Beaches and Bodies: An audioblog

Dia Des Los Muertos: Regarding Simeon

Ps. Here’s an old collection of Top 5’s from my previous blog as well: ‘05

There’s nothing like New Year’s Eve to bring out a bunch of resolutions. Because I’ve been unwell since 2003 (migrianes), my resolutions over the past few years have centered around this idea: “Feel Better.”

Maybe one of these books will help you find a feel better place in 2008. Here’s to the hopeful!

-Rachelle

P.s. Remember, any purchase made by clicking on a title below helps support this blog. Find more great book, music, and misc. reccomendations over at Magpie Suggests. Thank you!

Intuitive Eating
Evelyn Trioble and Elyse Resch

How many diet books have you read in your life time? I think my list starts with my mother’s copy of More of Jesus, Less of Me –which I copped from my Mom when I was in 8th grade — and continues through The WeighDown Workshop, 8 Minutes in the Morning, You, on a Diet, The Maker’s Diet, and The Fat Flush Diet — some of which have only recently left the shelves of my personal library.

Last year after a failed attempt at Weight Watchers, I hit my 38th birthday and decided that I’d spent enough of my life obsessing about my weight/body/what I ate. At the ripe old age of 38, I gave up dieting for good and decided to start loving my body.(I’m a slow learner.) The catalyst? Intuitive Eating.

This is book that must be consumed slowly, so you can unlearn old habits and adopt intutivley helpful ways of thinking about food and nutrition. The assingnments take time, but are well worth the resulting mental and emotional reprogramming. For the first time I am eating when I’m hungry, stopping when I’m full, and balancing out at a size my body is comfortable with. Within weeks of begining Intuitive Eating, I stopped feeling guilty about food ,and now I can eat anything guilt free. For the first time this year, I didn’t even THINK of making a resolution that involved losing weight! It’s a small miracle.

P.s. If you are stocking your bookshelves on the topic, Women I Respect have also recommended Eating Mindfully and Slow Food Revolution: A New Culture for Eating and Living. Check ‘em out!

Heal Your Headache: The 1-2-3 Program for Taking Charge of Your Pain
Dr. David Buchholz

When my husband handed me this book in our local shop, I pretty much rolled my eyes and sighed in defeat. After years of tyring everything under the sun to get rid of my migraines, I had pretty much resolved to live with pain for the rest of my life. I thought I knew everything there was to know about migraines and migraine meds — but after just a few pages of Heal Your Headache I’d discovered things none of my dozen-odd medical practioners had ever told me. Intially I was terrified of step one, getting off pain medications and most other meds. But within six weeks I was no longer dependent on pain meds or meds like immitrex, and I had discovered hidden trigger foods that no one had mentioned to me before. My migraines dropped from everyday, to 2-7 per month. After getting them down to this more manageable level, a good atlas chiropractor (we like to call him “Dr. Woo Woo”) got rid of the rest of my headache pain and desensitized me from most of my trigger foods. Now I only have the occasional break through headache — and this after five solid years of headache pain! Believe me, this book is worth taking a chance on!

What books help you Feel Better?

Next Week: books for the Budding Feminist.

The New Year slipped in as we were all snoozing away in snowy Chicago. After a day with all 12 little cousins, the grown-ups were happy to climb in bed long before the big ball dropped!

I’ve no resolutions this year. (I think moving overseas is challenge enough for ‘aught eight!)Please loves, if you make some resolutions, limit it to three and make sure at least one is truly doable. I beg you, be kind to yourselves.

In lieu of resolve, here are three amazing books that just might change your life without even trying. Each one was life changing for me, and I’m pretty darn sure they will help some of you out there as well. This week’s theme is Artist Unleashed. The next four Wednesdays in January will include themes around: Feeling Better, Budding Feminist, Religious Awakening, and Survival Parenting.

Of course, you’re always welcome to list your favorite texts in the comments. We love, Love, LOVE good reads. And as always, any purchase you make by clicking on a title below helps support this site.
Happy New Year to you…may you be much inspired.
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My Name Is Asher Lev
Chaim Potok

Raised in a Hasidic family, young Asher finds that his passion for painting does not jive with the stringent the life of an orthodox Jew. Yet his creative passion refuses to ebb, and he must find away to fuse art and faith.
My Name Is Asher LevThe Chosen are Potok’s finest works. Today’s Flavor: Achingly beautiful.

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Steven Pressfield

I’ve quoted from this book before, but I think it merits another mention. I’ve read a lot of books about writing, but this is the one that helped me make a leap from “dabbling”, to “seriously working.” If this is the year for you to go pro, The War of ArtToday’s Flavor: Short bursts of inspiration.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Anne Lamott

Anne is my priestess and this one of my holy books. All the writing advice in here is golden. Whether she’s writing about the radio station in your head that tells you your no good (“K-FUCK”) , or prompting you to get through your “shitty first draft” Anne’s wisdom comes across loud and clear, without being preachy or cloying. Just click and get it, will ya? Today’s Flavor: A gentle kick in the ass.

Next week’s list: books for Feeling Better.