"How might your life have been different if there had been a place for you....a place of women,
where you were received and affirmed?
A place where other women perhaps somewhat older, had been affirmed before you, each in her time, affirmed,
as she struggled to become more truly herself.
A place where, after the fires were lighted, and the drumming, and the silence, there would be a hush of
expectancy filling the chamber....a knowing that each woman there was leaving old conformity to find her
self....a sense that all of womanhood stood on a threshold.
And if, during the hush, the other woman, slightly older, had helped you to trust it and quietly and
prayerfully to nurture it . . . .
How might your life be different?" -Judith Duerk, Circle of Stones