Sacred Voices: Essential Women's Wisdom Through the Ages [Hardcover]

Mary Ford-Grabowsky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 5, 2002

Moving chronologically through millennia of women's history from the earliest times to the present, this unique collection contains writings from over 173 of the world's women sages and saints.

Containing poetry, prayers, chants, meditations, and contemplative prose from all great religious traditions, this treasure trove gathers together for the first time the best of women's spiritual wisdom.

Women's spiritual experience has been suppressed through much of modern history and is only now been recovered in its full richness. This anthology contains writings from hundreds of women from the past five millennia and a wide range of cultures. The collection encompasses all areas of women's sacred experience from the most radically mystical encounters with the divine-including visions, locutions, and auditions-to simply daily awareness of the holy in all things.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The idea for assembling this outstanding anthology of Sacred Voices came to editor Mary Ford-Grabowsky while she was packing up her possessions for a move to a new household. Sorting through her stack of spiritually inspirational quotes written on Post-It notes, it suddenly occurred to her that almost all of the quotes were by men. "How could I have ignored the sacred wisdom of my own sex?" she asks. The answer, of course, is that it was an easy oversight considering the historical credence given to the masculine perspective of the divine over the earthier, fleshy, relationship-centered perspective of the feminine.

Thus began Ford-Grabowsky's quest to assemble an anthology of women's spiritual writing. "I had expected the spiritual beauty and tenderness, the love and quiet wisdom, but not the towering, tested, truly holy strength," writes Ford-Grabowsky, who took five years to gather this powerful collection. Those seeking more traditional or orthodox religious writings will have to look elsewhere. But others who long for a feminine vision--whether to heal a spiritual crisis or simply find a quote to stick by a computer monitor--will find this anthology deeply satisfying. The first half is devoted to historical voices, such as Julian of Norwich, England; the Ashanti women of Ghana; and Lady Kasa of Japan. In the second half, "Voices of Our Times," readers will find the likes of Isadora Duncan, Virginia Woolf, Pema Chödrön, Sharon Olds, and Amy Tan. --Gail Hudson

From Publishers Weekly

Ford-Grabowsky (Prayers for All People) has produced a rich anthology of spiritual writing by women. The product of the editor's decades-long journey into feminist spirituality, this collection is distinguished by its dizzying breadth. It includes both medieval mystics, such as Julian of Norwich, and contemporary memoirists, like Kathleen Norris. Christians, like nun Joan Chittister, are side-by-side with Vodou practitioners (Karen McCarthy Brown) and pagans (Starhawk). Ford-Grabowsky has even made sure to include many different genres: poetry, like Emily Dickinson's "I Had Been Hungry All the Years," complements excerpts from novels by Amy Tan and Virginia Woolf. She is to be commended for her choice of distinguished translations: poet Jane Kenyon translates Anna Akhmatova, and Langston Hughes eloquently renders Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral's "Prayer." One only wishes for a few more conservative voices. Jewish renewal rabbi Tirzah Firestone is here, but where is Orthodox Jewish Torah teacher Avivah Zornberg? Mainline Protestant (and scholar of Hinduism) Diana Eck writes an essay called "Encountering God in Other Traditions," but where is Frederica Mathewes-Green on her conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy or Ruth Bell Graham on evangelism? Ford-Grabowsky has provided concise, informative and lively biographical sketches of each contributor, and she concludes the book with a useful guide to further reading. This lovely collection will make an excellent gift, an inspiring bedside companion or a handy resource for preachers, writers and spiritual dreamers.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne; 1 edition (March 5, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062517023
• ISBN-13: 978-0062517029
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #554,654 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sacred Voices: A Banquet of Women's Wisdom, April 2, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Sacred Voices: Essential Women's Wisdom Through the Ages (Hardcover)

Almost 175 women of all cultures and times, from a priestess of the goddess Inanna (2000 BCE) to contemporary storyteller Clarissa Pinkola Estes, are chronicled in this volume. A brief biography of each woman introduces her words: poems, letters, dreams, polemics, stories, sayings, visions, journals, even a recipe.

The reader meets famous women like Hildegard of Bingen or Georgia O'Keeffe, and obscure or anonymous women: Bibi Hayat of Persia, Sarada Devi of India, and Bedouin, Pygmy and Hopi women. One of my favorite entries is this poem where the erotic meets the mystical, from someone I'd never heard of, Rabia Al-Adawiyya, Persian, 717-801:

STARS ARE SHINING

O my Lord, stars are shining
And the eyes of men are closed.
Kings have shut their doors
And every lover is alone with his beloved.
Here I am alone with you.

Sacred Voices' entries bring us diversity of age, race, sexual orientation, historical period, geography, literary form, and spiritual perspective. It is a collection of the wisdom of old women, girls, mothers, artists, philosophers, mystics. We meet extravagant women, modest women--all passionate in their own ways, all truth-telling, all women of wisdom, all now, thanks to this book, part of our heritage.

The volume is encyclopedic but not intimidating, to be kept near at hand for inspiration, comfort, and challenge. Don't try to gulp it down in one swallow. I've been reading a few entries every day--what a treat!

Mary Ford-Grabowski has dug deep into the immense treasure of women's experiences and reflections. She deserves our thanks for bringing it to us in such a beautiful and useful volume.