A free woman is a woman who stands in the middle of a thunderstorm of pain and bellows “Bring it on!” to her higher power. A free woman is a woman who grabs her suffering with both hands and rides it like a flying saucer in the snow, down a mountainside. A free woman is...

How do we know that we’re successful in the world? One of the aspects of a patriarchal culture, like the one we live in, is that we’ve all been taught a definition of what success is. We’ve been trained to go for certain markers that demonstrate success – external events, or circumstances that our culture...

Do you know what it feels like at the precipice of a huge sea change in your life? Ever been there? Are you there right now? If so, then you know, it ain’t always pretty. It’s vulnerable. It’s open. It’s scary. It’s messy. It’s so tempting to give up, throw in the towel, and pretend...

I ran into a girlhood friend, Nancy. We had not seen one another in more than 40 years. She has a quiet life in the country, married to her childhood sweetheart, and working as a high school guidance counselor, in Vermont. In the last year, she and her husband separated, she battled diabetes, lost a...

If I were to drill down to the very bluest part of the flame, the hottest truest mission of The School of Womanly Arts, it’s about feminine leadership. It is my conviction that women are the greatest untapped natural resource on the planet. Feminine leadership is the medicine so desperately required by this world, at...

My first response was “I can’t.” It was November 9th, the results of our election were incredibly fresh, and just three days later, I was to lead the Fall session of The Womanly Arts Experience, with 900 women. I felt wallopped. And I thought to myself, “I cannot do this.” I cannot stand powerfully in front...

Oh, sisters, mine. I have been pawing the ground like a racehorse. Pacing back and forth in the wings, for a dozen years, waiting for this moment. My brand new book, Pussy: A Reclamation is hitting bookstores everywhere, today. Right now. This book has been burning inside of me for so long, waiting for the...

So, just a couple weeks ago, I packed my little pumpkin off to college. Now, as you probably know, or might suspect, there is nothing ‘little’ about packing your daughter up to send her off to college.  This is a really, really big moment in a mother’s life, and in an emerging young woman’s life....

What do you do when you know—deep in your deepest heart of hearts, in the furthest corner of your soul of souls, and your most profound sense of decorum, decency and good taste—that what you are about to do is going to set a lot of people off? Create an uproar. Offend many. And yet, ultimately,...

There are things I know how to do. When a kid falls and scrapes her knee, I am so good for picking her up and soothing her, whether she’s mine or someone else’s. When a friend needs emotional support, I’m 100% there. But when I read the news these days, I feel kicked in the actual...