Gradually, I began to notice that I was replacing "giving birth to myself" with other phrases to complete the stem - "I am a woman.” Then one night I dreamed of WomanStones - healing and empowering affirmations in women's language, the language of touch and earthiness and sensuality; affirmations that women could not only read and remember but also touch, carry, feel, and hold. Words have so much power for me, and to have affirming and empowering words inscribed into something I can hold and touch in to is truly empowering. I started making stones out of polymer clay and inscribing them with affirmations. I carried them with me everywhere, choosing the one I needed for the moment - or the week or the month or the year! I started hand making stones for friends and counseling clients, and every woman I gave them to loved them and encouraged me to make them available to other women. While I struggled with trying to figure out how to do that, I wrote the book I Am A Woman Finding My Voice, which put into one place all the affirmations I had been working with and more.
Now, finally, I am thrilled to have found a way to share these tools with women everywhere. The ten stones are made of cultured marble (marble powder and resin) from molds that were taken of my original designs. Each stone is inscribed with the phrase I am a woman on the front, and then one of 10 affirmations taken from my book on the back. The stones have been designed to be pleasing to look at and sensual to touch. They are there to be held and touched into, reminding, empowering, focusing intent and hope for healing and wholeness, joy and celebration. It is my deep heart-wish that these little stones can find there way into as many palms and pouches as there are women who would find them helpful.
May your journey bring you to deeper and deeper knowing of yourself as woman - whole, beautiful, powerful and forever connected to the Infinite Source.
With love,
Janet F. Nuria Quinn,
Author, Artist and President,
Wisdom Stones, LLC
WomanStones were born out of my own journey towards healing and wholeness. At a time of great pain and loss in my life, I began to remind myself that "I am a woman giving birth to myself.” I had heard this phrase often in women's circles, and I took some comfort in this idea, knowing that birth was neither painless nor pretty yet presumably worth it (though even this was questionable to me at the time!). I began to use the phrase as a sort of mantra or affirmation when I was lonely, hurting, angry or especially when I was afraid of where my process was taking me. I held a small stone in my hand, one I'd been given by the river, and I chanted the affirmation into the stone, so that I could carry and touch into it - literally - throughout the day.
