Strong Women

Strong women who speak their truth has been a focus for me this week. There are many! Brooke Hampton has always spoken to me and I wanted to share a little of her here today. I hope you enjoy. 

“When they ask you about me. Tell them I felt all the things that weren’t being said and wrote about them.” Brooke Hampton

From Brooke, a short bio: 

Writer, business owner, and mother I live on a small farm in Texas with my lover, my three wild babies, and my amazing animal and plant friends. I am the author of Enchanted Cedar: The Journey Home and co-founder & owner of Enchanted Cedar -- a local Chaga house and Bookstore in Lorena, Texas. I enjoy living foods, thought provoking conversation, good books, hot tea, sustainable living, knowledge, nature, holy flow parenting, Waldorf education, messy hair, bare feet, raw chocolate, holistic medicine, ordinary magic, common sense, building community, and love.I am on a mission to hack life! I want to re-write parenting, love, learning, relationships and work so that I can create a life unique to me.

A few of my favorite quotes from Brooke: 

“I am not delicate.

I am skinny dipping at 2am;

I am dancing naked under the full moon and playing in the mud.

I am the reverberating echoes of a curse word ricocheting off the steeply sloping mountain you thought I couldn’t climb;

I am bare skin in the deepest depths of winter; I am the song of courage, and the melody of freedom you long to sing.

I am a fearless mother.

I am a passionate lover; a devoted friend.

I am the healer, the witch, the nurturing of your wounds.

I am the heat of a wildfire, the rage of a storm.

I am strong.

Delicate things are pretty-cute, even.

But I am not delicate.

I am wild, fierce and unpredictable.

I am breathtaking.

I am beautiful.

I am sacred.”

“I like old bookstores, the smell of coffee brewing, rainy day naps, farmhouse porches, and sunsets. I like the sweet, simple things that remind me that life doesn’t have to be complicated to be beautiful.”

“Follow your heart and take a chance that you'll be wrong. Take a chance that maybe you'll fuck it all up and everyone will say you're crazy. What's the worst that can happen? Face that fear and accept it. Because to silence your heart and forget your dreams is to die while living. LIVE. Don't let the world scare you into being something you're not. Get out there and risk the unusual or you'll have to settle for the ordinary. So, no-one else has done it before? There is no road map for you to follow? Then, you be the first! Pave the way for someone else. Find your courage and follow your heart.

Be brave, wild one, be brave.”

Many have recorded the following, but this raw rendition by Wyndreth Berginsdottir, I understand as the original, seems to fit perfectly here.