Judy Grahn Quotes & Sayings

Menstrual blood is the only source of blood that is not traumatically induced. Yet in modern society, this is the most hidden blood, the one so rarely spoken of and almost never seen, except privately by women ... — Judy Grahn

Those who believe they are ugly / objectify the rest of us. — Judy Grahn

Woman is as common as a loaf of bread, and like a loaf of bread, will rise. — Judy Grahn

Gay people are not in the habit of thinking of ourselves as leading our civilization, and yet we do. — Judy Grahn

From my mother, a rock, / I have learned that rocks give / most of all. — Judy Grahn

The walls of the closet are guarded by the dogs of terror, and the inside of the closet is a house of mirrors. — Judy Grahn

The tribal attitude said, and continues to say, that Gay people are especially empowered because we are able to identify with both sexes and can see into more than one world at once, having the capacity to see from more than one point of view at a time. And that is also an Indian way of seeing. — Judy Grahn

Paris and Helen


He called her: golden dawn
She called him: the wind whistles

He called her: heart of the sky
She called him: message bringer

He called her: mother of pearl
barley woman, rice provider,
millet basket, corn maid,
flax princess, all-maker, weef

She called him: fawn, roebuck,
stag, courage, thunderman,
all-in-green, mountain strider
keeper of forests, my-love-rides

He called her: the tree is
She called him: bird dancing

He called her: who stands,
has stood, will always stand
She called him: arriver

He called her: the heart and the womb
are similar
She called him: arrow in my heart. — Judy Grahn

We lavender folk spray up, spontaneously flowering in the color we had learned as an identifying mark of our culture when it was subterranean and secret. — Judy Grahn

He called her: mother of pearl, barley woman, rice provider, millet basket, corn maid, flax princess, all-maker, weef She called him: fawn, roebuck, stag, courage, thunderman, all-in-green, mountain strider, keeper of forests, my-love-rides — Judy Grahn

What you will do matters. All you need is to do it. — Judy Grahn

Gay culture is far from 'marginal,' being rather 'intersectional,' the conduits between unlike beings. — Judy Grahn

We cannot live in the past, nor can we re-create it. Yet as we unravel the past, the future also unfolds before us, as though they are mirrors without which neither can be seen or happen. — Judy Grahn

The shaman/priest/artist/teacher/leader does not operate for the sole benefit of herself and her kind but for the benefit of the people at large and of the universe and its patterns, as becomes what she perceives as fitting into place, into her sense of natural justice. — Judy Grahn

Everyone wants Love to follow them / down their road; / where is it that Love wants to go? — Judy Grahn