By the end of the spring session in April, we hope to publish a booklet of ITWOW poetry/prose/fiction/words! This is an new, exciting venture for us, and we need your wonderful words!
Feel free to submit poems, essays, short fiction pieces (less than 1000 words), etc. You may submit as many as you like. However, if you submit more than one piece, there is no guarantee everything you submitted will be included.
The deadline for submission is April 19 (subject to change).
So, write your heart out and email your best work to itwow.sfv [at] gmail [dot] com!
Remember that one time, you were biking up a huge hill and you just kept telling yourself, “Slow and steady, slow and steady, just keep pedaling slow and steady and you *will* make it!” And remember how you decided to adopt that mantra in your life to keep yourself focused and encouraged–even though so many times other people zoomed right past you making you doubt where you were in your process and progress toward your dreams?
Well, I just wanted to say thanks–for sticking it out, for not giving up. Because it isn’t all in vain. Because you are becoming. Because things are h a p p e n i n g. Because I’m proud of you. ♥
Sym·bi·o·sis.noun \ˌsim-bē-ˈō-səs,\: a cooperative relationship; an intimate association or close union of two dissimilar organisms.
In the Words of Womyn = body of womyn writers. Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural = transformative arts space & community center. ITWOW + Tia Chucha’s = symbiosis.
ITWOW began with an experience…a resounding void of womyn voices on the mic at a weekly open mic event. That experience turned into ideas and vision. Those ideas turned into dialogue. And dialogue turned into action: the creation of a womyn’s writing circle workshop on January 15, 2010.
Since 2010, In the Words of Womyn has held six 10-week workshop sessions connecting with over 60 womyn from all over San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles County. During that time, more womyn are stepping up to the mic each week at open mic; ITWOW showcased five womyn poets at Tia Chucha’s 2011 annual Celebrating Words Festival; in 2011, ITWOW teamed up with singer/songwriter Tapia Corel to create a quarterly event called Womyn’s Words and Music Night showcasing the talents, artistry, strength and beauty of womyn musicians and writers; and ITWOW website has published over 75 poems, stories, and memoir excerpts.
While the vision for ITWOW began as mine, it has become a community vision adopted not only by the many womyn inspired by and empowered by ITWOW, but also by Tia Chucha’s without which this vision never would have had a place to be planted and BLOOM!
I am so thankful to Tia Chucha’s co-founder Trini Rodriguez along with her incredible staff who have enthusiastically supported the ITWOW vision and mission from the very beginning. Tia Chucha’s has lavished gracious hospitality in allowing ITWOW to be held at the Centro weekly and has also created countless opportunities for womyn writers to be inspired, nurtured, and empowered. I have been deeply transformed by the people, the art, the opportunities and the community of Tia Chucha’s–both as a writer and as an individual.
Tia Chucha’s has the incredible opportunity to create a documentary and book highlighting the transformative work accomplished in the Northeast San Fernando Valley through arts programming. Tia Chucha’s is a non-profit independent bookstore and community cultural center. Not only is it the only bookstore for miles…and miles around, but is also one of the only spaces in the area offering FREE workshops and programming in music, art, culture, gardening, healthy living, and much more to kids, youth, and adults.
I’m inviting you to join with In the Words of Womyn to support the incredible work being done through spaces like Tia Chucha’s, where art and minds meet for a change and where Art Transforms Communities. If you, or someone you know, has been inspired and transformed through the presence and programming of Tia Chucha’s, please offer up your gratitude and support by donating. Whatever amount you can give–from your heart to Tia Chucha’s–will be sown into fertile ground and the harvest will indeed be bountiful!
To learn more about Tia Chucha’s and to donate, please go to their website. For those of you who already know and love Tia Chucha’s, check out this video clip and information about the Art Transforms Communities documentary/book project; you can donate there as well.
Thank you friends, family, and community!
With much love and respect, ~Jenuine
In the Words of Womyn celebrates it’s first birthday! Wooohooo!
What an incredible first year we had! In January 2010, ITWOW was born out of conversations and experiences and a passion for empowering the voices of womyn everywhere. ITWOW began as a writing circle workshop and grew into this website featuring online publications of womyns’ writings. As I reflect upon 2010, I celebrate abundance: the completion of three, 10-week sessions of ITWOW workshops held at Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural; over 25 womyn having participated in those workshops throughout the year; over 75 writings having been published on this site; and countless testimonies having been shared by womyn who are finding their words, their voices, their true selves!
I am overwhelmed by the honor and privilege it is to share with my sisters in this adventure of writing, growing, and healing. In the Words of Womyn has become one of the greatest delights of my life; it is a gift of priceless worth to my soul.
I extend my deepest gratitude to Tia Chucha’s for providing me with space, support, and nurturing–without which I would not be able to develop, host, and continue the work of In the Words of Womyn. I offer my utmost respect and sincerest appreciation to each of the womyn who have dared to share herself by telling her story, by participating in the workshops, by stepping up to the mic, and by publishing on this site.
I have been so profoundly inspired, encouraged, affirmed, nurtured, and blessed by this incredible community of writers that I truly stand in awe. There is healing that may not have been stirred; there is new life that may not have been coaxed; there are poems that I would not have written; there is courage I may not have found; and there is a me I might not have discovered, had it not been for ITWOW.
So thank you all and may we continue to give sound to our stories and volume to our voices in this new year!
The womb is where life begins.
As women we are the mighty warriors of life giving creatures. Our womb speaks. Many times we are not aware. We don’t often listen to the powers of its growth and impact on our daily lives. This blog revolves around when I began to listen to my womb thru my miscarriages.
Recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) takes “balls” to live with. It means persevering when all your hope has been washed away. Growing strength in areas you never knew you’d visit or even existed.
Walking, falling, crawling humbly with all your might.
Holding your heart, your tears, bare foot, broken on the path that has twists, storms, mountain’s to climb with no guarantee at the end.
Each day. Each minute is a mystery.
My womb spoke to me in way I didn’t expect. Not like when my son was born. That was joy, bliss, & the meaning of the miracle of my womb. My precious womb was alive. Despite my loss’s. My womb worked. My womb did what mother nature intended it to do.
It’s alive. It works.
My mind and heart are empty. But, my womb works. It’s doing it’s job. Sometimes, with RPL it can be interpreted that the womb isn’t working. It feels like the womb isn’t producing the life it was meant to give when there is a miscarriage. However, I believe in my womb.
In the midst of all the grief and pain, I know my womb is wise.
I know she hears my tears and yearning to carry another full term life. I believe in her.
God placed in her my body. Mother nature is wise. Together they will do miracles, as they already have.
“…be attentive to what is arising within you, and place that above everything else…What is happening in your innermost self is worthy of your entire love; somehow you must find a way to work at it.
~Rainer Maria Rilke
…Innermost self…worthy of your entire love…
Empowerment. Ultimately we are the only ones who can give ourselves permission to love, “what is rising within us,” above everything else. How many among us are able to grant ourselves that? I was born into a culture that revers ideals that represent the opposite of what Rilke encourages; self-sacrifice & martyrdom are fed to us, especially to females from the time of conception.
We are guided and prized along a path of continuous service. Service to our parents, our siblings, our faith. All needs, wants, desires, that rise within us are set aside to attend to the others: warm your father’s and brother’s tortillas; wash their dishes; do their laundry; make their beds; sweep the floors; mop…an endless circular list of chores. The older attend to the younger, females to males, younger to elderly.
We are encouraged to yearn for the day we will be the zero to the right of a man that will choose us based on our virginal worth. A silent partner that will give him courage, strength, and value. To raise our children in line with the values we have been raised with.
We have, many of us, been raised to distrust what may ever happen in our “innermost self.” We are provided with stories of fallen women, social discards, continuing examples of what could happen to us.
And then there are those among us who–so loved, were they, for their uniqueness by their mothers, fathers, a “strange” aunt or grandparent–were allowed, and who allowed themselves to escape to their innermost selves!
God was in love when He made me. His eyes were focused on something in the distance when His hands slid across clay to form my face. He stared for a long time in that direction, His warm fingers at rest against my rough, wet cheeks. As He pushed at the clay, I could feel a likeness being formed. A gentle frown creased His scarred brow as He corrected inconsistencies, perfected the proportions of eyes to nose, nose to mouth, mouth to chin.
Between two palms He rubbed a line of clay, steaming hot from friction, folded it in half, pressed it flat, then rubbed it round again; three times He did this, tempering and strengthening the rod until it curved in a subtle S.
God spun each rib with a practised hand, easily connecting each of eight to sternum and spine and tethering the floating ribs to harbor. But it was clear from the emptiness of His eyes that building my ribcage was not first in His thoughts that day.
He pulled at the layers of clay clinging to his hands, pushing the excess out of the scars in his hands. He kneaded the cracked and drying clay into a ball of earth between His fingers absent-mindedly. He looked down at it as if for the first time and put it in my ribcage, still warm and soft from His touch.
My belly He churned like whipped cream, and laid down the soft foam over my spine to fill my pelvis. He tucked it up into my ribcage, insulating my heart and lungs on a cushion of stomach and intestines. Sometimes He would become restless and bury His chin in it. We would lay there like that, He strewn across His workbench like a lazy child, and I only alive enough to feel the blush of pleasure from His closeness. Then His focus would return, and the pressure on my stomach would lift, and the starry sensation of being Made would begin again.
Into the back of my skull He carved a cavity and filled it with water. He pulled more of the clay off of his fingers and, finding it dry, dipped it into His mug next to the muddy water bowl. Feeling the hotness of his drink, He looked down to see the lump was stained black and dripping with coffee. Seeing it was good, he set it to float in my skull. With a smirk, He pulled down the back of my head and sealed it without a seam.
Having done all of these things, God decided He was satisfied with His work for now. He took me to His beloved and pushed me into your arms, saying I Was Working And The More I Looked At Her, The More I Thought Of You. And when you smiled down at me, I couldn’t help but laugh at the goofy look on His face, how much He blushed when you called me beautiful, and how He clicked His heels when He thought He was far enough down the hallway that you wouldn’t notice.
A note written at the request of Paulo Coehlo. He wanted to know if I believed in Angels
I believe in Angels.
Angels can be as big as a planet or as small as a microscopic speck of dust.
Angels can speak through a ray of sun,
which then, can speak through the sparkles of the leaves of trees.
Angels can blend through the colors of this world
and also, touch through the aroma of nature.
Illuminations occur through the eyes of children,
Also, throughout numerous interactions in my life,
with the homeless, suffering, mentally ill.
Angels reveal themselves through the eyes of passers-by.
When death is eminent, Angels arrive in gently unyielding force;
especially when friends and family are in disarray, and faith is fragile.
Angels ride on the notes of music and swim around in the soul.
A breeze caresses and how can that not be,
at one time, or possibly another, a sweep of an angel’s wing.
Angels need not have wings, but some most certainly do …
One can ramble on and on and on about Angels …
they are born from the inhaling and exhaling of God … just for us (I’d like to think) …
My Angel’s name is … MERCY.
No doubt that I am surrounded by all sorts at all times.
But, the main one who is there for me always is MERCY.
I believe this for the simple reason that I often sing a quiet, little tune to myself. … “mercy, mercy, mercy…. Mercy meee…oh mercy mercy MERCY, yes MERRRR- CEEEEE” ….
Like a lullaby / chant. … and my body gently rocks.
It is sung in the line at the grocery store; it is sung throughout a rigorous day at work;
and it is sung while riding through the L.A. traffic.
It is sung while looking into my daughter’s eyes;
it is sung while all understanding is blurred.
It is simple, and it is a miracle. My Angel is my song …
and the song flows through this life…
That is an exhalation for you, Paulo Coehlo with regards to angels, and whoever else may read this.
Again … one could ramble on and on and on about Angels… most likely for an eternity…
I hurried into a religious bookstore one day anxious to pick up a book previously ordered. Old-time church hymns played on overhead speakers. As I waited in line a nearby magazine caught my eye, the caption reading, “Woman of the Year.”
My eyes traveling upwards saw a blond woman with long softly curled hair, pictured in a white skirt and blouse. The blouse buttoned to the neck with a long bow draping over a pink brocaded vest. Continuing further up the page I saw the title: VIRTUE.
The choir hymns droned on, their words echoing in my mind like indigestion repeating. The walls seemed to narrow, the air diminished as the room for self-expression evaporated. I choked attempting to swallow this standard of womanhood for myself. Each breath became progressively more suffocating, evoking memories of agonizing contortions in appearance and belief to gain acceptance into this fellowship of women, thus pronouncing me valid for relationship with men.
I handed my money to the woman at the register as she smiled warmly yet seemingly vacantly of any inkling that womanhood could be anything more that what she had been told. I groped for the door and gasped fresh air as oxygen once again filled my lungs.
Sitting inside my car I gazed out through the window trying to name my sadness. Noticing a nearby tree I got lost in its configuration of branches. Each branch was different from another. Some branches were thick and sturdy, some thin and willowy, each were free to grow in its own direction, unique and distinct, yet still very much a branch.
When realizing women have shared this same freedom I understood my grief. As I drove away I thought, nothing is more stultifying to genuine feminine expression and growth than a superimposed standard of womanliness.
It’s hard to explain what I mean when I say that I don’t believe in “God” anymore, so I don’t really bring it up. Some people who love me, they get sad.
It seems that what they hear is loss and despair–fearfully, desperately I claw my way through the dark unknown. But it is more like: exhilaration and relief! With hope and joy I fly into a limitless blue sky; or, fall slowly and safely into a good and happy, never-ending, fully accepting awesome. Things are better than they have ever been. I am more brave than I was ever allowed to be. The only thing that I really grieve is how firmly the feet of old friends and family seem to be planted on the shore from which I am gladly sailing away. I tell them, “How wide and clear is the horizon! Anything is possible now.” And I fly a flag that means freedom.
It is alright with me that the people who understood me once no longer do so. I only wish that we could all dare to dream that everything we’ve ever wanted might actually be true.
