This book rocked my little world in 2004. Sue Monk Kidd had been my "spiritual mentor" for a number of years. We were both Southern Baptist, and deeply spiritual. She was a SB minister's wife; I was a SB minister's daughter. I could count on her books to "make my heart burn" with love for God. I had already entered a time of transformation--so much so that I had entered the Catholic Church two years before I read this book for the first time. But this book shattered my idealistic, still-remaining images of faith and what it meant for me as a woman. It took a number of years for me to "morph" into my new self--or as Kidd's writes, to give birth to my new self. I will forever be grateful to Kidd, for the life she's lived, and the crashing apart of that life she wrote about in this book. On page 2, she writes of the whale breaching and its symbolism of a woman sending out her own vibrations as she speaks her story...I have been riding Kidd's vibrations, as I still seek to give voice to my own story. Probably one of the most transforming books I'll ever own.

So, this book gets a 5 stars for me personally in my journey to understanding the feminine self. It's a hard book to read because it took a long time to get through. So even though I marked several passages, I still couldn't wait to just FINISH it. It reminded me of another one of her books that I NEVER finished. I'm glad this was a book group choice that forced me to finish, because it WAS well worth the read.

After I had read The Shack I needed to explore more of the feminine God, and this book crossed my path. You may not like it as much, but for me it was the right book at the right time and enabled my exploration into Divine Feminine without the patricarchal religious guilt I had grown up with. Her bibliography is wonderful and I've added many to my shelves. It's a book you want to read over and over at different times. I wish she'd write more-or where she is on her journey now.

This is an excellent memoir. I am actually not a huge fan of Kidd's fiction, but this was a fascinating account of her transformation from Christian model daughter/wife to following Jungian principles of female gods. It's a bit out there with the rituals and ceremonies, but that is after all the point. Is it more crazy to do a drum circle than take a wafer in mass? If it is, it's only because we've normalized some crazy stories over others.

Best selling author (“The Secret Life of Bees”) Sue Monk Kidd was born into a conservative Christian family and married a conservative Christian minister. For years, she wrote inspirational Christian books. What, then, made her decide to step away from church teachings regarding the place of women and embark on a journey to find the sacred feminine?

Kidd had long been uncomfortable with how her gender was treated, both in society and in her church. Told repeatedly that woman was to serve man because Eve had tempted Adam into sin, she finally had enough when she went her young teen daughter’s work to pick her up, only to find the girl kneeling to stock the bottom shelf and hear one man say to another “That’s the way I like to see women- on their knees”. That started a journey of several years as she read, meditated, traveled and talked with other women as she tried to make sense of what was changing in her, spiritually.

Her reading took in both modern feminism and ancient texts. She found that in old Hebrew texts and the Old Testament there was a female deity as well as a male, but somewhere along the line she had disappeared. This, along with female deities from other cultures (Minoan Crete, ancient Greece, Native American), convinced her that there was a basis for a feminine spirituality. Eventually, she found that she could manage to hold both a deep feminine spirituality and to the Christian church.

Kidd writes of her journey step by step. It’s interesting and moving and her pain is palpable and there is an amazing amount of synchronicity, but after a certain point in the book the immediacy of her feelings seems to disappear. The narrative, for whatever reason, goes flat. It’s still useful and interesting, but it drags and a few parts felt like a chore to read- and read like they had been a chore to write. I’d recommend this book for any woman who is questioning the gendered aspects of modern religion as a beginning book. Even if they only read the first parts, it will head them in the right direction.

Ummm...where was this book ten years ago when I needed it? When my heart was crying out for it? It's lovely, it's specific, it's universal, it's eye-opening, and it's a damn decade too late haha! I already arrived and have had the revelation that this book is meant to inspire. I loved it, I lived it, and wish I'd known about it sooner. I will say the redemption of the snake was a new narrative for me and I greatly appreciated it.

Sue Monk Kidd takes us on the journey from white evangelical patriarchy to the sacred, transcultural feminine. The most amazing part of this entire narrative is that her family went with her. NOT my experience. But bless her. Glad that's how it worked out. I also do not know much about Jungian dream interpretation, which influenced her heavily, so I found this interesting as an academic study, although not a personal one.

I am so grateful that this experience and this book exists. I hope more women discover this and themselves and the sacred that exists in both masculine and feminine forms. It is the only way we will heal this world, I am utterly convinced.

This memoir set me on a course of searching out more books about feminism and religion. I really liked the way Kidd lets the reader into her inner world and describes her journey, but does not become too theoretical or abstract. She keeps it real by writing about concrete experiences with specific details.

author writes about her transformation from good patriarchal daughter to embracing the feminine soul/spirit,
kinda long winded but last section practical, explaining in her implementation of her new outlook.
she was southern Baptist and mainstream Christian magazine writer, but quit all that.

Some great quotes from the book:
“What she is dismantling is the woman who was once asleep in her relationships, her religion, her career, and her inner life, the woman who never questioned any of it but blindly followed prevailing ideas and dictates. She is the woman dependent on the masculine, whose life is composed of adaptable femininity. She is the woman severed from her own true instinct and creativity. She is the woman in collusion with patriarchy.” (113)

incongruity between my public image and my inner truth (114)

voice of patriarchy becomes internalized as the “self hater” (116)

Messages:
“Get back in line. And be quiet.” (117) “just a woman”

“benevolent patriarchy is still patriarchy”

my creative life is my deepest prayer (123)

“God is she, he, and neither.” I AM transcends he or she (136)

“lack of a divine female image supported an imbalance in our consciousness that diminished our wholeness as persons” (139)

“discover the Divine in yourself as powerfully and vividly feminine” (140)

El Shaddai “the breasted one” (146)

“root word for the idea of compassion or mercy in Hebrew is rechem, or womb” (146)

“think of baptismal waters a uterine waters or approach the Eucharist through the imagery of breastfeeding of emphasize the intimacy and nurture between the Divine and her children” (146)

“The term for spirit of God or Holy Spirit is a feminine term” (146)

We-Consciousness
“knowing and feeling oneself intimately connected with a part of everything that is, and coming to act and relate out of that awareness. It is experiencing oneself not as I, but as We.” (154)

we are part of a “divine and communitarian oneness”

“Goddess is that which unites, connects, and affirms the interrelatedness of all life, all people.” (155)

I'm remembering how much I love feminist literature lately, and this book was an excellent addition to my already-sagging "feminist books" shelf. Sue Monk Kidd provides a critique of the patriarchal culture of the Christian church, and delves into how she feels it's let women down. Then she writes about her quest to find the feminine divine in her world, including how the quest impacted her marriage. This is one of the few books I have that I won't be loaning out as I have notes in the margins already and have journalled on passages throughout the book. I found myself making notes like "THIS IS MY WHOLE LIFE!" Not too telling, but it was so exciting to read others had the same experience as me. As always, Kidd's prose is clear but beautifully constructed. She is a shining example of what women authors can aspire to be and this may just be my favorite book by her yet.

This book made me start doing what I might have once referred to as "hippie shit." Recently I was at a picnic that was being held at dusk at the lake, and I wondered away from the crowd and offered up a blessing to the Goddess. I blame/thank Sue Monk Kidd for this. Got to be unafraid to seek the divine in a way that fits and feels right.

This is the first book I read on women's spirituality and, to say the least, I was floored. I didn't know other women felt as betrayed by Christianity as I did and I'm so glad she put it in writing. Although I can't take the seemingly expensive and extensive spiritual trips she takes or agree with every spiritual conclusion she reaches, I am grateful that Kidd decided to share her journey with me. I encourage all women to read it and take from it what's true for them and leave the rest.