Change is in the air!

This blog has migrated to a new address: bellyqueen.wordpress.com.

I've consolidated this Belly Blog with The Belly Bulletin. You can subscribe to updates by email and enjoy a new look as well.

To subscribe to The Belly Bulletin through FeedBurner, click the "sign up" link in the column to the right, or click here.

Enjoy!

A literary winner!

Okay, a runner-up, actually -- but I feel like a winner!

My 600-word story, "Poetry At Six," is one of two runners-up in NPR's Three Minute Fiction contest, selected from 3,600 entries. The judge, James Wood, is literary critic at The New Yorker. Whew!

The two requirements for the entries: No more than 600 words, and the first line must be "The nurse left work at five o'clock."

The link to The Woman's Belly Book is evident but subtle. The poetic foot, the iamb, that shares the story's center relates to "limping Iambe" (also known as Baubo, the Belly Goddess) in the Greek legend of Demeter and Persephone and in the Eleusinian Rites as well.

And then there's the "speckled bowl," of course.

"Poetry At Six" is posted here and you can hear about the contest itself here.

(If you activate the audio on that page, you can hear James Wood talk about my story a bit; that part isn't included in the written excerpt online.)

Fun!

What about men?

Every now and then, a woman or a man asks, with respect to my penchant for belly-celebration: What about men?

I appreciate these questions. What I write follows from what I experience...in a woman's body. Although I've heard from some men about their belly-related experiences, I'm not in a position to speak for men's experience.

What I've got to say is pretty much what I've written in the essay titled "What About Men?"

If any man or woman would like to write about this topic in the next issue of The Belly Bulletin, send me your thoughts. Or speak your piece here on the Belly Blog!

Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight

In this long-awaited book, nutritionist Linda Bacon shows us how to boost our health and self-esteem, no matter what our body size may be.

What a gift! Here's liberation from the tyranny of useless weight-loss regimens and the feelings of failure they provoke. When I read this book, I couldn't sit or stand still -- I was dancing around the room!

Linda Bacon details the convincing proof that diets simply don't work. In fact, they set the stage for repeated weight gain. She offers a welcome, practical alternative to obsessing about your weight and shape -- eating and exercising according to your body's built-in wisdom. She shows you how to enjoy sound health and unstoppable self-esteem whatever size your body may be.

If you're ready to escape from self-loathing and discover the pleasures of self-affirmation, toss out those diet books and dump the bathroom scale. Treat yourself to this sane and friendly guide to making peace with your body and nourishing all of who you are.

Linda proves that fat isn’t the problem. Dieting is the problem. A society that rejects anyone whose body shape or size doesn’t match an impossible ideal is the problem. A medical establishment that equates “thin” with “healthy” is the problem.

The solution, she says, is to tune in to your body’s expert guidance. Find the joy in movement. Eat what you want, when you want, choosing pleasurable foods that help you to feel good. You too can feel great in your body right now -- and Health at Every Size will show you how.

Health at Every Size has been scientifically proven to boost health and self-esteem. The program was evaluated in a government-funded academic study, its data published in well-respected scientific journals.

Health at Every Size is not a diet book. Read it and you will be convinced that the best way to win the war against fat is to give up the fight.

Read more

Order

The Body's Center, Chinese-style

As you may know, the power-centering exercises I share in The Woman's Belly Book and teach in my workshops are moves I've adapted from a number of healing arts -- including tai chi, qigong (a.k.a. chi kung), and an invigorating Japanese style of yoga developed by Masahira Oki.

These exercises, gathered into The Gutsy Women's Workout, use movement and breath to energize the body's center. In Japanese, this onepoint within the hara -- the belly -- is called the tanden. In Chinese, it's called the tan tien.

Continuing my love affair with the body's center, I've recently begun studying with seasoned qigong teacher Michael Winn. I've been thrilled to experience the ways in which qigong practices, rooted in the ancient Chinese philosophy of the Tao (the Way of nature), affirm and expand what I've learned in my own journey of discovery during the past several years.

Having taken four of Michael's classes since November 2007 (and always ready for more), I can say he teaches with a deep understanding of the body as an energy field rooted in the belly's center, the tan tien.

If you're interested, here's how, when, and where to start -- with Michael's classes in Asheville, NC in the Inner Smile and Qigong Fundamentals 1 & 2. Click on the links below for more info. And prepare yourself in advance by downloading the free e-book, Way of the Inner Smile, from the top left section at www.healingtaousa.com.

Inner Smile
Evening Lecture & Meditation

Qigong Fundamentals 1 & 2

Day 1: Five Animals Qigong, Six Healing Sounds, and more.

Day 2: Micro-cosmic Orbit, the Taoist meditation that unifies all the core energy centers into a flowing whole.

Times & Valentines

Like many holidays, Valentine's Day holds a secret.

In other times, this day was a celebration of women's pro-creative power — the body-centered power to renew life, and the pleasure of doing so!

Strands of Celtic, Roman, and heretical Christian customs weave through Valentine's Day...

This Valentine came in the mail today—
the fe-male, that is:
Greetings from history in women's terms.

Valentine Day's is a fraud, of course, you know that,
Hall-marked and carded as it is for commerce.

But more than that:
The boy himself's a fraud.
St. Valentine's a fiction, the convenient invention
of some grim Christian churchmen.

What Valentine's Day is:
it's a thin distillation of our
midwinter night fever;
the celebration of our sexual heat and staying alive.

More...

Healing Bodies and Souls

Bodies and Souls is a series of stunning nude portraits of women combined with their personal statements. Presented as a book as well as a traveling exhibit (a selection of photos is available online), the images bring forth what photographer Frank Cordelle calls The Century Project.

As Cordelle photographs women of many sizes, shapes, and ages -- from newborn to nearly 100 years old -- his purpose is to "give voice to women through pictures and words which project, among much else, courage, vulnerability, strength, diversity, multiplicity, and uniqueness."

O, the Oprah Magazine, raved about the book in its March 2007 issue and tens of thousands of people across the continent have viewed the exhibition. The photos provoke powerful responses. For example:

"When I left the exhibit, I was a changed woman."

"Never have I been in a room with more beauty, more talent, more freedom. Never have I felt more in love with myself."

"To see an image of a nude woman that is not sexual is rare. To see an image of a woman who is nude, old, proud, powerful, honest, and beautiful -- this is amazing."

Celebrating women and our bodies as subjects, not objects, The Century Project will be on view in 2008 with exhibitions in Kentucky, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. I heartily invite you to consider bringing an exhibit to your community. See The Century Project's website for details.

Check out readers' reviews and order Bodies and Souls at amazon.com or your local bookstore.