Once upon a time, when women were...

Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.

- Terry Tempest Williams

When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

birds celebrate sing women

Other quotes by Terry Tempest Williams

I am a woman with wings,' I once wrote and will revise these words again. 'I am a woman with wings dancing with other women with wings.' In a voiced community, we all flourish.

- Terry Tempest Williams

The courage to continue before the face of despair is the recognition in those eyes of darkness we find our own night vision. Women blessed with death-eyes are fearless.

- Terry Tempest Williams

The nature of living and loving is the act of reciprocity. As women, we are told that to be the guest is to receive. We are told that to be the host is to give. But what if it is the reverse? What if it is the guest who gives to the host and it is the host who receives from the guest each time she sets her table to welcome and feed those she loves? To be the guest and the host simultaneously is to imagine a mutual exchange of gifts predicated on respect and joy. If we could adopt this truth, perhaps we as women would be less likely to become martyrs.

- Terry Tempest Williams

I wonder how it is we have come to this place in our society where art and nature are spoke in terms of what is optional, the pastime and concern of the elite?

- Terry Tempest Williams

Story is the umbilical cord that connects us to the past, present, and future. Family. Story is a relationship between the teller and the listener, a responsibility. . . . Story is an affirmation of our ties to one another.

- Terry Tempest Williams

What other species now require of us is our attention. Otherwise, we are entering a narrative of disappearing intelligences.

- Terry Tempest Williams

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