Stories From Women Who Walk

Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is Stories From Women Who Walk with Story Prompt Friday and your host, Diane Wyzga. What Women Still Fight For. We women have to fight for so much: being seen, heard, understood, listened to, recognized, and acknowledged. Despite progress, we are still taking a stand to transform women’s rights, to overcome barriers to the freedom of voice, opinions, and expression. Little Human to Big Human. Maybe like me you wonder if there was a thru-line of advocacy between who you were as a Little Human Girl and who you are today as a Big Human Woman. What if the courage to speak up, to speak out, to say what you mean and mean what you say was always there? What It Takes. Maybe it’s a matter of time, confronting your story, upending your upbringing, and challenging yourself to be a testament to truth. Or a situation that demands a response. Women whose pioneering work laid a foundation for future feminist thought, greater autonomy and independence shared a commitment: I may be one among many but I can draw many to me like fillings to a magnet and together we will do the work that’s calling to be done. Click HERE for 36 examples of women who took a stand  Devil Within. I was a strong-willed handful as a child.  Today we might say I was spirited; but back then I was told “A dimple in the chin means a devil within.” I still have a dimple in my chin. That never left me. What I had to unlearn was a voice that society, religion, patriarchy, and education quieted down. Who am I? The courage to be one’s self begins with digging down into the soil of that self. Who am I? What treasure trove of skills, experiences, wisdom, and more can I uncover? And when I uncover the story of myself how do I bestow permission on me to be that self? For a long overdue lesson in courage I turned to Virginia Woolf who knows well the “supreme difficulty of being oneself.”   "Let us simmer over our incalculable cauldron, our enthralling confusion, our hotch-potch of impulses, our perpetual miracle — for the soul throws up wonders every second. Movement and change are the essence of our being; rigidity is death; conformity is death: let us say what comes into our heads, repeat ourselves, contradict ourselves, fling out the wildest nonsense, and follow the most fantastic fancies without caring what the world does or thinks or says. For nothing matters except life.” ~ Virginia Woolf  Story Prompt: Turn back the pages of time, find that chapter when you were bright and shining, alive and curious, energetic, perceptive, or outspoken. Who is the Little Human Girl that used to be you? Where is she now? Write that story and share it out loud! Thank you for listening. I’m glad to have you here.   You’re invited: “Come for the stories - stay for the magic!” Speaking of magic, Subscribe & Spread this episode with a generous 5-star review & comment—it helps us all—& join us next time! AND!  Stop by my Quarter Moon Story Arts website during reconstruction, email me [[email protected]] to arrange a no-obligation Discovery Call, and stay current with me as Quarter Moon Story Arts on Substack while I renovate that site, too. Stories From Women Who Walk Production Team Podcaster: Diane F Wyzga & Quarter Moon Story Arts Music: Entering Erdenheim by Steve Schuch & Night Heron Music ALL content and image © 2019 to Present Quarter Moon Story Arts. All rights reserved. Enjoy my work? Share & attribute it to Diane Wyzga of Stories From Women Who Walk podcast with a link back to the original source. 

Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is Stories From Women Who Walk with Wednesdays on Whidbey and your host, Diane Wyzga. El Toro Sailing. My US Navy pediatric nurse off-duty days were spent sailing a tiny boat in the shipping channel off the Port of Norfolk. Believe it or not I sailed an 8x4 foot single-masted, centerboard El Toro that flew across the water. An old skipper powered a battered motor boat across the waves, curling around my boat with a great rooster tail spraying, and hurled a white styrofoam block wrapped with an old rope. It landed right in my lap. The block had been hollowed out to fit 2 cold cans of beer. That was a good day! Bad days. But when the days weren’t so good, when I had more downs than ups, kids got worse, some died, moms needed comforting and support when dads were away at sea, self-doubts about working pediatrics crowded my thoughts, or a well-deserved leave was cancelled, I had to learn to “hold fast.” Hold Fast at Sea. For centuries sailing was a dangerous profession, and ships were often caught in storms or rough seas. “Hold fast!” commanded sailors to secure equipment, and ropes or lines to prevent accidents or maintain safety and stability on ships especially during turbulent weather conditions. Sailors would shout “hold fast!” to each other when they needed to grab onto something firmly so that they wouldn’t get thrown off balance by the towering waves. Sailors learned quickly that “hold fast” means to maintain a firm grip on something despite external forces trying to pull it away. It could come down to saving a life or “man overboard” at a time when few boys and men knew how to swim. Hold Fast Today. Over time, “hold fast” came to mean strength, perseverance and determination in facing adversity when challenges threatened to unmoor your own stability. While the old nautical term and the present day variation have distinct meanings, they share a common thread: steadfastness. Whether you’re holding onto a rope during rough seas or standing up for what you believe in, “hold fast” requires unwavering commitment and resilience. The Future Will Prevail. The unprecedented conditions we find ourselves in today demand a grounded personal presence of internal strength and determination, maintaining one’s grip on values, kindness, empathy, and holding on to hope. The worn out, deteriorated, broken-down, and decaying patriarchy is railing against the future. The future will prevail. We must hold fast so that it arrives. Hold fast with all the resilience you can muster even when you feel you cannot hold fast a moment longer. That is the place the tide will turn.   CTA: What if we hold fast and we get things right? Check out World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Vision for 2030 to give yourself a bit more hope: Thank you for listening. I’m glad you’re here.   You’re invited: “Come for the stories - stay for the magic!” Speaking of magic, Subscribe & Spread this episode with a generous 5-star review & comment—it helps us all—& join us next time! AND!  Stop by my Quarter Moon Story Arts website during reconstruction, email me [[email protected]] to arrange a no-obligation Discovery Call, and stay current with me as Quarter Moon Story Arts on Substack while I renovate that site, too. Stories From Women Who Walk Production Team Podcaster: Diane F Wyzga & Quarter Moon Story Arts Music: Entering Erdenheim by Steve Schuch & Night Heron Music ALL content and image © 2019 to Present Quarter Moon Story Arts. All rights reserved. Enjoy my work? Share & attribute it to Diane Wyzga of Stories From Women Who Walk podcast with a link back to the original source. 

Hello to you listening wherever your feet touch the ground! Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is Stories From Women Who Walk with Story Prompt Friday and your host, Diane Wyzga.   Bernard Moitessier sailed around the world single-handed to win the first Golden Globe Race but when the reward was within his grasp he turned away from it and kept sailing for another three months because to keep on the original route (Plymouth to Plymouth) was like “leaving from nowhere to go nowhere.” [The Long Way by Bernard Moitessier]  Winning this race had no connection with Moitessier’s true goal which was to “reach a point in space and consciousness that would enable him to bear witness to the beauty and complexity of the natural world. And to glimpse, however briefly, the sort of person he might become if he permitted himself to cross a kind of international dateline of the soul and merge with those things.” In the end he realized what many of us come to know in time: the journey itself was the destination. Story Prompt: What if the intention of an endeavor is to forge a connection inside yourself? What if the reward to the endeavor lays not in the result to which you were ostensibly striving but in the simple doing of the thing? Write that story and share it out loud! Attribution: Inspired by and adapted from The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon by Kevin Fedarko ---> You will be hooked by the stories about this once upon a time Colorado River!   Click HERE to access Simon and Schuster’s Publishers page to watch a mesmerizing short video and listen to Kevin Fedarko read the opening pages of his book, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon.    YOU'RE INVITED: “Come for the stories - stay for the magic!” Speaking of magic, subscribe & spread this episode  with a generous 5-star review & comment—it helps us all—& join us next time! STOP BY my Quarter Moon Story Arts website during reconstruction. EMAIL ME ----> [email protected] to arrange a no-obligation Discovery Call STAY CURRENT with me as Quarter Moon Story Arts on Substack. Stories From Women Who Walk Production Team Podcaster: Diane F Wyzga & Quarter Moon Story Arts Music: Entering Erdenheim by Steve Schuch & Night Heron Music ALL content and image © 2019 to Present Quarter Moon Story Arts. All rights reserved. Enjoy my work? Share & attribute it to Diane Wyzga of Stories From Women Who Walk podcast with a link back to the original source.

Hello to you listening wherever your feet touch the ground! Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is Stories From Women Who Walk with Wednesdays on Whidbey and your host, Diane Wyzga. Earlier this month I announced the retirement of my 60 Seconds format after 5½ years and Motivate Your Monday episodes after 6½ years. However, my long-running global podcast, Stories From Women Who Walk, is alive and well and evolving for you, my truly global audience. I launched my podcast, Stories From Women Who Walk in April 2020 as a platform for conversations with women who were walking their lives until their lives were flipped upside down by something unexpected, how they met the challenges, and changed to become stronger, even more confident women. I loved every single moment listening stories out of my guests! But then COVID flipped our lives upside down, too. We were no longer commuting to work over long distances or in cars. Who would have the time to listen to a 30 or 45-minute conversation? What to do? Pivot to 60 Seconds. No one was offering this format. Turned out that I was really good at distilling topics, ideas and stories into soundbytes to inform, illuminate, delight, motivate, and comfort my listeners. Today Stories From Women Who Walk has logged over 1,340 episodes and maintains a robust platform wherever you get your podcasts, especially Apple Podcasts and including Pandora Radio. It’s been a great run so far! That’s what 6½ years of dedicated listening and support has produced. Thank you! I’m here because you’re there and I will continue. I promise you this: the voice you have come to know and trust along with the stories, insights, questions and prompts that speak to each of us as if to say, “What! You, too? I thought I was the only one.” [C.S.Lewis]. I plan to channel my creative efforts into producing two weekly  “Diane on Mic” short-form episodes—maybe 4 minutes or so of spoken word—for Wednesdays on Whidbey and Story Prompt Friday, with familiar themes, a deeper and more intimate relationship with you, and a focus on helping women navigate their midlife pilgrimage. Why pilgrimage? As those of you who have followed me know, I have talked about this so often: my life shows up as BC and AC—Before Camino and After Camino. Over the years I’ve learned that the 500 miles of walking across Spain was the destination. I know what it takes to walk the long and winding road to letting our lives speak. As Quarter Moon Story Arts I bring decades of experience as a skillful storyteller in healthcare, business and law. It's time to sharpen my creative focus and work with women of Middle-Earth-Age who are navigating their midlife pilgrimage story.        CTA: Let’s continue making the very most of the time we have together, uncovering, discovering, shaping and sharing our stories. Please let me know what you think. If there is something you’re curious about, something you’d like to hear as my podcast transforms, please email me and let me know: [email protected] or (better yet) subscribe to Quarter Moon Story Arts on Substack. Comments Create Community. We are in this together for the long haul. And thank you for continuing to listen from wherever your feet touch the ground! YOU'RE INVITED: “Come for the stories - stay for the magic!” Speaking of magic, subscribe & spread this episode  with a generous 5-star review & comment—it helps us all—& join us next time! STOP BY my Quarter Moon Story Arts website during reconstruction. EMAIL ME ----> [email protected] to arrange a no-obligation Discovery Call STAY CURRENT with me as Quarter Moon Story Arts on Substack. Stories From Women Who Walk Production Team Podcaster: Diane F Wyzga & Quarter Moon Story Arts Music: Entering Erdenheim by Steve Schuch & Night Heron Music ALL content and image © 2019 to Present Quarter Moon Story Arts. All rights reserved. Enjoy my work? Share & attribute it to Diane Wyzga of Stories From Women Who Walk podcast with a link back to the original source.

Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is Stories From Women Who Walk with Story Prompt Friday and your host, Diane Wyzga. The older I become as a Sterling Silver the more aware I am that the job of a lifetime is to collect memories and revere them for what they represent. What do I mean and why might that be?   As any storyteller knows, memories help us reflect on our past, shape our identity, and inspire us to create new experiences. Memories serve as reminders of meaningful experiences and connections, the rich soil from which our personal narratives arise. Memories are not just the purview of our grandparents and aunties. At any stage of our lives memories beckon us to look back on our past, helping us understand our journey and personal growth from then til now. In this way our memories play a crucial role in shaping who we are, as our experiences define our values and beliefs. Once we have a better grasp on who we are, what we’ve done, accomplished, weathered and overcome we are better positioned to seek out new adventures and create additional meaningful memory moments. Following are a few of the many benefits of collecting memories: • Fostering deeper connections with others, promoting a sense of identity, and providing joy through positive reminiscence • Engaging with cherished memories can reduce stress and improve overall mental well-being as we relive positive experiences and feelings that buffer against stress and anxiety. • Preserving personal memories through documentation can improve self-esteem by recalling personal achievements and strengthen social connections through shared memories with others • Engaging with cherished memories can provide a sense of purpose, contributing to a positive outlook on life • Capturing memory moments through photography and videography creates a visual record of experiences that can be revisited and shared • Writing down experiences and thoughts can help solidify memories and provide a narrative to reflect upon later • Sharing stories and memory moments with loved ones can help keep them alive and create new connections Story Prompt: Whether you collect your memories in shoe boxes or treasure chests, written journals or photo albums, in digital formats or something else, cherish what you have collected so far. For those just starting out, you are embarking on a rich journey. When one of those memory moments surfaces as a story to be told, write that story and share it out loud!     Thank you for listening. I’m glad you’re here!  YOU'RE INVITED: “Come for the stories - stay for the magic!” Speaking of magic, subscribe & spread this episode  with a generous 5-star review & comment—it helps us all—& join us next time! STOP BY my Quarter Moon Story Arts website during reconstruction.  EMAIL ME ---> [email protected] to arrange a no-obligation Discovery Call STAY CURRENT with me as Quarter Moon Story Arts on Substack Stories From Women Who Walk Production Team Podcaster: Diane F Wyzga & Quarter Moon Story Arts Music: Entering Erdenheim by Steve Schuch & Night Heron Music ALL content and image © 2019 to Present Quarter Moon Story Arts. All rights reserved. Enjoy my work? Share & attribute it to Diane Wyzga of Stories From Women Who Walk podcast with a link back to the original source.

Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is Stories From Women Who Walk with Wednesdays on Whidbey and your host, Diane Wyzga. Recently, my dear friend and fellow Camino pilgrim Dennis Pitocco posted an essay entitled Why Is Presence the Most Radical Act of Love? Click HERE to read that essay and HERE for more of his thought-provoking pieces on Exploring Our Shared Humanity, his Substack banner.    The gist of the essay is that our mindful attention to another is a radical gift—so rare as to be almost extinct. What does it cost us to be mindfully attentive to another? Nothing apart from putting aside our self-centeredness and shifting into whole-heartedness. This change in behavior cannot be legislated into practice, like requiring the wearing of seatbelts in a moving vehicle. It does require a shift in us, in a culture that has all too easily been swayed by the siren call of the swipe on a handy device.     Here’s a favorite paired exercise I’ve used for decades while teaching my story skills courses. Each partner is asked to spend one minute talking about something neutral, like their name following a prompt. The listener’s job is to listen—with appreciation. When asked, “How did it feel to be listened to uninterrupted, for 60 seconds?” the responses are universally the same: I felt seen, heard, understood, listened to, calm, present, significant, smiled upon, and valuable. All that from 60 seconds of presence. And the intention to Be. Here. Now. Imagine if we could make the time to offer another the gift of our whole-hearted presence. We might turn fear into love, conflict into solutions, isolation into relationship, and more as we can imagine it all taking shape in ourselves, our homes, our neighborhoods, our communities. My teacher, the Venerable Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh taught four mantras to help change us and change others: 1. Dear one, I am here for you. 2. Darling, I know you are there, and I am so happy 3. Dear one, I know you are suffering; that is why I am here for you 4. Dear one, I am suffering. Please help. Imagine if someone said these words to you with the intention to Be. Here. Now. Imagine if you could ask for help from another—and receive it to ease your suffering. As I write this podcast episode I’m reminded of the song, Imagine by John Lennon. Click HERE to listen to him in 1975 Click HERE to read the lyrics of the song, Imagine CTA: Having been fortified to give it a go to Be. Here. Now. do so. First for yourself and then another. And another. And another. Imagine what might happen next.     YOU'RE INVITED: “Come for the stories - stay for the magic!” Speaking of magic, subscribe & spread this episode  with a generous 5-star review & comment—it helps us all—& join us next time! STOP BY my Quarter Moon Story Arts website during reconstruction.  EMAIL ME ---> [email protected] to arrange a no-obligation Discovery Call STAY CURRENT with me as Quarter Moon Story Arts on SUBSTACK. Stories From Women Who Walk Production Team Podcaster: Diane F Wyzga & Quarter Moon Story Arts Music: Entering Erdenheim by Steve Schuch & Night Heron Music ALL content and image © 2019 to Present Quarter Moon Story Arts. All rights reserved. Enjoy my work? Share & attribute it to Diane Wyzga of Stories From Women Who Walk podcast with a link back to the original source.

Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is Stories From Women Who Walk with Story Prompt Friday and your host, Diane Wyzga. What Women Still Fight For. We women have to fight for so much: being seen, heard, understood, listened to, recognized, and acknowledged. Despite progress, we are still taking a stand to transform women’s rights, to overcome barriers to the freedom of voice, opinions, and expression. Little Human to Big Human. Maybe like me you wonder if there was a thru-line of advocacy between who you were as a Little Human Girl and who you are today as a Big Human Woman. What if the courage to speak up, to speak out, to say what you mean and mean what you say was always there? What It Takes. Maybe it’s a matter of time, confronting your story, upending your upbringing, and challenging yourself to be a testament to truth. Or a situation that demands a response. Women whose pioneering work laid a foundation for future feminist thought, greater autonomy and independence shared a commitment: I may be one among many but I can draw many to me like fillings to a magnet and together we will do the work that’s calling to be done. Click HERE for 36 examples of women who took a stand  Devil Within. I was a strong-willed handful as a child.  Today we might say I was spirited; but back then I was told “A dimple in the chin means a devil within.” I still have a dimple in my chin. That never left me. What I had to unlearn was a voice that society, religion, patriarchy, and education quieted down. Who am I? The courage to be one’s self begins with digging down into the soil of that self. Who am I? What treasure trove of skills, experiences, wisdom, and more can I uncover? And when I uncover the story of myself how do I bestow permission on me to be that self? For a long overdue lesson in courage I turned to Virginia Woolf who knows well the “supreme difficulty of being oneself.”   "Let us simmer over our incalculable cauldron, our enthralling confusion, our hotch-potch of impulses, our perpetual miracle — for the soul throws up wonders every second. Movement and change are the essence of our being; rigidity is death; conformity is death: let us say what comes into our heads, repeat ourselves, contradict ourselves, fling out the wildest nonsense, and follow the most fantastic fancies without caring what the world does or thinks or says. For nothing matters except life.” ~ Virginia Woolf  Story Prompt: Turn back the pages of time, find that chapter when you were bright and shining, alive and curious, energetic, perceptive, or outspoken. Who is the Little Human Girl that used to be you? Where is she now? Write that story and share it out loud! Thank you for listening. I’m glad to have you here.   You’re invited: “Come for the stories - stay for the magic!” Speaking of magic, Subscribe & Spread this episode with a generous 5-star review & comment—it helps us all—& join us next time! AND!  Stop by my Quarter Moon Story Arts website during reconstruction, email me [[email protected]] to arrange a no-obligation Discovery Call, and stay current with me as Quarter Moon Story Arts on Substack while I renovate that site, too. Stories From Women Who Walk Production Team Podcaster: Diane F Wyzga & Quarter Moon Story Arts Music: Entering Erdenheim by Steve Schuch & Night Heron Music ALL content and image © 2019 to Present Quarter Moon Story Arts. All rights reserved. Enjoy my work? Share & attribute it to Diane Wyzga of Stories From Women Who Walk podcast with a link back to the original source. 

Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is Stories From Women Who Walk with Wednesdays on Whidbey and your host, Diane Wyzga. El Toro Sailing. My US Navy pediatric nurse off-duty days were spent sailing a tiny boat in the shipping channel off the Port of Norfolk. Believe it or not I sailed an 8x4 foot single-masted, centerboard El Toro that flew across the water. An old skipper powered a battered motor boat across the waves, curling around my boat with a great rooster tail spraying, and hurled a white styrofoam block wrapped with an old rope. It landed right in my lap. The block had been hollowed out to fit 2 cold cans of beer. That was a good day! Bad days. But when the days weren’t so good, when I had more downs than ups, kids got worse, some died, moms needed comforting and support when dads were away at sea, self-doubts about working pediatrics crowded my thoughts, or a well-deserved leave was cancelled, I had to learn to “hold fast.” Hold Fast at Sea. For centuries sailing was a dangerous profession, and ships were often caught in storms or rough seas. “Hold fast!” commanded sailors to secure equipment, and ropes or lines to prevent accidents or maintain safety and stability on ships especially during turbulent weather conditions. Sailors would shout “hold fast!” to each other when they needed to grab onto something firmly so that they wouldn’t get thrown off balance by the towering waves. Sailors learned quickly that “hold fast” means to maintain a firm grip on something despite external forces trying to pull it away. It could come down to saving a life or “man overboard” at a time when few boys and men knew how to swim. Hold Fast Today. Over time, “hold fast” came to mean strength, perseverance and determination in facing adversity when challenges threatened to unmoor your own stability. While the old nautical term and the present day variation have distinct meanings, they share a common thread: steadfastness. Whether you’re holding onto a rope during rough seas or standing up for what you believe in, “hold fast” requires unwavering commitment and resilience. The Future Will Prevail. The unprecedented conditions we find ourselves in today demand a grounded personal presence of internal strength and determination, maintaining one’s grip on values, kindness, empathy, and holding on to hope. The worn out, deteriorated, broken-down, and decaying patriarchy is railing against the future. The future will prevail. We must hold fast so that it arrives. Hold fast with all the resilience you can muster even when you feel you cannot hold fast a moment longer. That is the place the tide will turn.   CTA: What if we hold fast and we get things right? Check out World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Vision for 2030 to give yourself a bit more hope: Thank you for listening. I’m glad you’re here.   You’re invited: “Come for the stories - stay for the magic!” Speaking of magic, Subscribe & Spread this episode with a generous 5-star review & comment—it helps us all—& join us next time! AND!  Stop by my Quarter Moon Story Arts website during reconstruction, email me [[email protected]] to arrange a no-obligation Discovery Call, and stay current with me as Quarter Moon Story Arts on Substack while I renovate that site, too. Stories From Women Who Walk Production Team Podcaster: Diane F Wyzga & Quarter Moon Story Arts Music: Entering Erdenheim by Steve Schuch & Night Heron Music ALL content and image © 2019 to Present Quarter Moon Story Arts. All rights reserved. Enjoy my work? Share & attribute it to Diane Wyzga of Stories From Women Who Walk podcast with a link back to the original source. 

Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is Stories From Women Who Walk with Story Prompt Friday and your host, Diane Wyzga. The other day my longtime, dear friend and storytelling galpal, Michelle, asked me if I’d like to take over an expiring domain name. Why would I be interested in that? Because the name, Storywerx, was what we called ourselves, a troupe of storytellers who came together when I offered to teach a semester of story skills. We kept on learning, growing, and  eventually performing stories together. I’d not thought about Storywerx in years although a few of us are still in touch. A little older, a little wiser but still storytellers at heart and in practice. I was trying to remember a story that a gentleman in our troupe had told during a Storywerx performance. I vaguely remembered it having something to do with the teller’s past. It was a story about an orphan boy who brought a stone to life. Here’s a secret: the more you get to know a storyteller and listen to the stories she is telling, the more you will get to understand her life and why that story is being told at that time. Meanwhile, leave it to Michelle to know what I was searching for. I’d like to share the story with you as we walk each other home.   Once upon a time there lived a little orphan boy who was so lonely and so hungry that no one wanted to be near him. His mouth was always open, his teeth were always showing and his tears were always flowing down his cheeks. He was such a wild child—wild with hunger and loneliness—that the people in that village had to tie him down at the entrance to one of the skin houses so that he would not try to eat the hunters on their way to the seal hunt. That’s how hungry he was. Sometimes the people of that village would leave him bits of reindeer or seal meat but nothing would satisfy his hunger. As we know it was something more than hunger that was gnawing at him: those deep needs that not even the person themselves understands. Every day the boy stretched his chain a little bit more and a little bit more until he could get near a smooth round stone that was about his size. You see, his mother and father had died one night and their bodies dragged off by bears. All that had been left behind in the skin house where they all had lived was this one large stone. In time the boy got close enough to that stone, so close he was able to wrap his arms and his legs around it and would not let go. Of course his people thought the child had become quite mad. On their way from the hunt with animal carcasses slung over their shoulders they would jeer at him. They would say look and say: Annuk has taken a stone for a wife! It’s good for you to have a wife who is a stone so you cannot use your hunger to eat her. The boy was so hungry and so lonely that he finally reached the end of feeling for his life. He kept his body wrapped around that stone and the stone began to take the heat from his body. The boy began to die as the stone took the heat from his hands, from his legs, and even the heat from his face where he rested it on the stone. Just as the boy was living his last breath the hunters of that village came by on their way home from the hunt. Again they shouted to him, Boy! You are like a bird nesting with that stone like it’s an egg. We should call you Bird Boy! You are good for nothing. Near death the boy shed great icy tears that rolled down his cheeks and those cold cold tears hit the hot hot stone with a hiss and a crack and the stone broke open. Inside was the most perfect little girl the boy could ever want. She said, I am here for you now. You are an orphan no more. She gave him a bow and arrows and a harpoon. The boy and the girl made their house, raised a family and if they are not yet dead they are in that land where the snow is violet and the night sky is black. They are living still. Story Prompt: Recall a time when you felt at your lowest ebb and yet a deep intuition sensed that the darkest hour is just before dawn. And with the dawn would come what you needed to find your way back home. Write that story and share it as you will because we are all walking each other home.   The Stone Child - An Inuit Story from Warming the Stone Child by Clarissa Pinkola Estes You’re invited: “Come for the stories - stay for the magic!” Speaking of magic, subscribe & spread this episode  with a generous 5-star review & comment—it helps us all—& join us next time! AND!  Stop by my Quarter Moon Story Arts website during reconstruction, email me [[email protected]] to arrange a no-obligation Discovery Conversation, and stay current with me as Quarter Moon Story Arts on SUBSTACK. Stories From Women Who Walk Production Team Podcaster: Diane F Wyzga & Quarter Moon Story Arts Music: Entering Erdenheim by Steve Schuch & Night Heron Music ALL content and image © 2019 to Present Quarter Moon Story Arts. All rights reserved. Enjoy my work? Share & attribute it to Diane Wyzga of Stories From Women Who Walk podcast with a link back to the original source.

Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is Stories From Women Who Walk with Wednesdays on Whidbey and your host, Diane Wyzga. Why are stories spoken aloud? Why do we lean into the music of the spoken word? And why do we need to hear a woman’s voice speaking her truth from her heart, her identity? Written text is processed intellectually by the brain but the spoken word resonates deeply. When we hear a woman’s voice take a breath, pause, and speak from the heart, we feel it emotionally. The pauses, the unhurried rhythm, and the warmth of delivery invite listeners to feel like they are right in the moment of the story sitting side-by-side. For just a moment let’s sit together. I’ve been reflecting on how we transform our lived personal experiences, the memories, the moments into story magic that captivates the listener with its universal meaning. Hint: It’s the archeological dig. The archeological dig uncovering the treasure trove of our lived experiences is where we challenge ourselves to discover and make sense of what our story is really all about. Not just the quick, cheap, easy, and superficial answers but what flows like a river under the frozen ice. You and I know we aren’t just talking about words on a page here. We’re talking about how we hold our own lives. Most of the time we’re taught to just report the facts. "Here’s what I did today. Here’s who I took care of. Here’s my role." It’s polite... it keeps the peace...it’s empty and boring. We women of “middle earth age” can no longer deny the quiet, restless ache that shows up in the middle season of our lives. It’s the emotional weight of a deeper question: Who am I... when no one is asking me to be anyone for them? When you finally stop and attend to that ache... that’s where your real story begins. That is the moment of self-discovery and, more importantly, identity. You realize you aren’t just a collection of jobs and titles; you are your own unique engagement with this world. And what about the thing you’ve actually come here to say? The wisdom you’ve earned? It doesn’t need to be shouted out loud. It just needs to be true. It’s the moment of self-definition... where you stop asking for permission to occupy your own life. It’s looking at yourself in the mirror and realizing... my perspective matters. My voice does not need to be softened to be acceptable. When you lean into that... you aren’t just letting life happen to you anymore. You are claiming your narrative. You are saying what you mean... and maybe for the very first time. That’s what depth of inquiry means. It’s having the courage to sit in the quiet... until the surface noise fades... and the truth of who you really are finally rises up. CTA: Today, don’t just live the plot of your life. Lean into the rich, unfolding, joyful, wisdom of it. Say what you mean, mean what you say and let yourself be known - to yourself. You’re invited: “Come for the stories - stay for the magic!” Speaking of magic, subscribe & spread this episode  with a generous 5-star review & comment—it helps us all—& join us next time! AND!  Stop by my Quarter Moon Story Arts website during reconstruction, email me [[email protected]] to arrange a no-obligation Discovery Conversation, and stay current with me as Quarter Moon Story Arts on SUBSTACK. Stories From Women Who Walk Production Team Podcaster: Diane F Wyzga & Quarter Moon Story Arts Music: Entering Erdenheim by Steve Schuch & Night Heron Music ALL content and image © 2019 to Present Quarter Moon Story Arts. All rights reserved. Enjoy my work? Share & attribute it to Diane Wyzga of Stories From Women Who Walk podcast with a link back to the original source.