Morning has broken, like the first morning.
—Cat Stevens
Imagine a woman who descends into the richness of her own life. A woman who awakens to her truth and wisdom, her gifts and capacities. A woman who grows in knowledge and love of herself. Who remains loyal to herself, regardless.
Imagine a woman who gathers the gifts of her awakening … a freed imagination, a courageous rebellion, the acceptance of her body, the accumulation of her years, the expression of her wholeness and wisdom. A woman who offers these sacred gifts to our vulnerable world — out of balance, estranged from wisdom, and addicted to power.
Imagine a circle of awakened women, who love themselves. Women who reorder the world by giving birth to images of inclusion, poems of truth, rituals of healing, experiences of transformation, relationships of equality, strategies of peace, institutions of justice, and households of compassion. Women, full of themselves for the sake of their children and their children’s children, for the sake of their beloved planet.
Imagine sitting in the circle of women, past, present, and future, as you read the insights and stories gathered by Patricia Fero, inspired by the question What Happens When Women Wake Up? The storytellers’ voices are strong and tender, inviting us to awaken from our sleep,
to rise out of our stupor, to return home after the long exile.
One by one they speak the truth of a woman’s life told with their hearts, minds, and bodies. They gather our brokenness into their words. As we listen, an impulse toward wholeness awakens within us and we become again, as we once were, whole.
We rise from our slumber, splash cold water on our faces, welcome the new day, and in the company of women from every age, we reorder the world with clarity, courage, and strength.
And so it is!
Patricia Lynn Reilly
Author of Imagine a Woman in Love with Herself
“The title of Patricia Fero’s book, What Happens When Women Wake Up?, is intriguing. Through first-person narratives, women tell what it meant for them ‘to wake up’. Girls andwomen become numb to what they really feel, know and perceive in an effort to be pleasing, or to be needed, or from fear of rejection or anger. To go through the motions, out of touch with authenticity and without spiritual sustenance, is not sustainable.
The women in this book tell us how the woke up, what they did next, and what they learned. Through her commentaries, Pat Fero presents the larger planetary context in which this is happening. Her book is a call to consciousness and action.”
- Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.,
author of Goddesses in Everywoman
and Urgent Message From Mother
