Imagine A Woman

Posted March 7, 2012

Summer Sisters

I spent my junior year of college suffering from anorexia.

I spent my senior year full steam ahead in my recovery.

One of the most helpful parts of my recovery was reading.

I borrowed every book in entire state of Ohio college and university library consortium on eating disorders (from memoir to clinical manual), feminism, and spirituality. I simply devoured information as if my life depended on making sense of  myself – because it did.

Back then I’d go to the pick-up desk at my school’s library nearly each day and sink into my latest arrivals. One of the books that arrived was Patricia Lynn Reilly’s Imagine a Woman in Love with Herself: Embracing Your Wisdom and Wholeness. Reilly takes a astonishingly deep and astute poem she wrote and turnes each stanza into a fully fleshed out chapter exploring qualities that encourage women to love themselves and steer the ship of their lives.

In the song “Killing Me Softly” by the Fugees, Lauryn Hill croons “…singing my life with his words…”

That’s how I felt when I read this poem – like Patricia Lynn Reilly was singing my life with her words.

10 years later my heart feels full when I see that I no longer have to imagine this woman.

I am this woman.

If you’re not familiar with “Imagine a Woman” I’m excited to introduce you…

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“Imagine a Woman I”

Imagine a woman who believes it is right and good she is a woman.
A woman who honors her experience and tells her stories.
Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life.

Imagine a woman who trusts and respects herself.
A woman who listens to her needs and desires.
Who meets them with tenderness and grace.

Imagine a woman who acknowledges the past’s influence on the present.
A woman who has walked through her past.
Who has healed into the present.

Imagine a woman who authors her own life.
A woman who exerts, initiates, and moves on her own behalf.
Who refuses to surrender except to her truest self and wisest voice.

Imagine a woman who names her own gods.
A woman who imagines the divine in her image and likeness.
Who designs a personal spirituality to inform her daily life.

Imagine a woman in love with her own body.
A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is.
Who celebrates its rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource.

Imagine a woman who honors the body of the Goddess in her changing body.
A woman who celebrates the accumulation of her years and her wisdom.
Who refuses to use her life-energy disguising the changes in her body and life.

Imagine a woman who values the women in her life.
A woman who sits in circles of women.
Who is reminded of the truth about herself when she forgets.

Imagine yourself as this woman.

“Imagine a Woman” © Patricia Lynn Reilly, 1995

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“Imagine a Woman II” 

Imagine a woman who is interested in her own life.
A woman who embraces her life as teacher, healer, and challenge.
Who is grateful for the ordinary moments of beauty and grace.

Imagine a woman who participates in her own life.
A woman who meets each challenge with creativity.
Who takes action on her own behalf with clarity and strength.

Imagine a woman who has crafted a fully-formed solitude.
A woman who is available to herself.
Who chooses friends and lovers with the capacity to respect her solitude.

Imagine a woman who acknowledges the full range of human emotion.
A woman who expresses her feelings clearly and directly.
Who allows them to pass through her as naturally as the breath.

Imagine a woman who tells the truth.
A woman who trusts her experience of the world and expresses it.
Who refuses to defer to the perceptions, thoughts, and responses of others.

Imagine a woman who follows her creative impulses.
A woman who produces original creations.
Who refuses to color inside someone else’s lines.

Imagine a woman who has relinquished the desire for intellectual approval.
A woman who makes a powerful statement with every action she takes.
Who asserts to herself the right to reorder the world.

Imagine a woman who has grown in knowledge and love of herself.
A woman who has vowed faithfulness to her own life.
Who remains loyal to herself. Regardless.

Imagine yourself as this woman.

“Imagine a Woman” © Patricia Lynn Reilly, 1995

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Somehow Imagine a Woman slipped my mind when I put together my list of life-changing books. It should absolutely be on this list:

11 Books That Changed My Life.