Wise Women: Over Two Thousand Years of Spiritual Writing by Women

Front Cover
Susan Cahill
W. W. Norton & Company, 1996 - Literary Criticism - 395 pages
Spiritual experience has always been, and is especially today, a liberating source of women's identity and their resistance to oppression. These selections feature centuries of this tradition's most intuitive writing: women ancient, medieval, and modern articulate the spiritual dimension of life. From Ishtar of Babylonia and Isis of Egypt to the medieval mystic Hildegard of Bingen, the contemporary African American poet Lucille Clifton, and the Buddhist shaman Joan Halifax, these visionaries see justice and love, loss, aging, and freedom; and it inspires artistic expression and political action. This deeply moving collection of poetry, essays, prayers, letters, memoirs, stories, and theologies by wise women is a source of empowering and uplifting thought for women in any time, at any age.

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Contents

The Goddess Isis of Egypt Isis Queen of Heaven
9
The Story of Judith and Holofernes
18
Lady Wisdom From The Book of Proverbs
32
The Song of Songs
38
Rabia 717801 Prayers
55
Mechthild of Magdeburg 1207c 1297? From
64
Christine de Pisan 1365c 1429 From The Treasure of the City
77
Joan of Arc 14121431 From the Transcript of the Trial of Joan
85
Natalia Ginzburg 19161991 The Little Virtues
200
Madeleine LEngle 1918 From A Circle of Quiet
209
Amy Clampitt 1920 A Silence
217
Denise Levertov 1923 O Taste and See Work That
223
Flannery OConnor 19251964 Letters from The Habit
231
The Erotic
238
Lucille Clifton 1936 Poems from The Book of Light
244
Marge Piercy 1936 The common living dirt
252

Mirabai 14981565 Song
91
Margaret Fell 16141702 Letter to the Quaker Womens
106
Sidqi d 1703 Ghazel
112
Sarah Grimké 17921873 Letter to
120
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 18061861 From Sonnets from
127
Elizabeth Cady Stanton 18151902 Introduction The Womans
134
Florence Nightingale 18201910 Letter From Cassandra
143
Christina Rossetti 18301894 Poems
151
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
157
Florida ScottMaxwell 18831979 From The Measure of
168
Dorothy Sayers 18901957 From Unpopular Opinions
174
Iris Origo 19021988 From Images and Shadows
184
Hannah Arendt 19061975 From The Human Condition
188
Tillie Olsen 1913 DreamVision
194
Marian Wright Edelman 1939 From The Measure of
259
Linda Hogan 1947 From Department of the Interior
274
A History
280
Rita Dove 1952 Gospel
288
ACCORDING TO SHAMANS SCHOLARS WITCHES AND THEOLOGIANS
305
Lessons From
321
Diana Eck 1945 From Encountering God
341
Joan Halifax 1944 The Way of Compassion from
354
Gods Dice
368
Suggestions for Further Reading
381
Teresa of Avila 15151582 From Interior Castle
389
About the Editor 397
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