At the Root of This Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger and a Feminist Thirst - Hardcover

Flinders, Carol L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062513141 ISBN 13: 9780062513144

Publisher: HarperOne, 1998

Synopsis

"My feminism and my spirituality have always been closely connected, laying claims on me at the same level. I'd taken up meditation out of a driving and, yes, aching need for self-knowledge and meaning. My feminism had arisen out of that same well of feelings, and in many regards the life I'd chosen had satisfied it. Part of me, though--the part that never lost awareness of the attitudes that demean woman and girls so universally and sytematically--was like a muscle that was sore from continual strain and misuse. It was hot to the touch. If after all these years it was still flaring up, then surely it was time I attended to it."

-- from At the Root of This Longing

In this brilliant exploration of the apparent conflicts and tensions, between feminism and spirituality, Carol Lee Flinders, author of the highly acclaimed Enduring Grace, here uncovers how she found that a life of meaning, self-knowledge and freedom absolutely depends on both.

In At the Root of This Longing, Flinders identifies the four key points at which the paths of spirituality and feminism seem to collide--embracing silence vs. finding voice, relinquishing ego vs. establishing "self," resisting desire vs. reclaiming the body and enclosure vs. freedom--and sets out to discover not only the sources of these conflicts, but how they can be reconciled.

With a sense of urgency brought on by events in her own life, Flinders deals with the alienation that women have experienced not only from themselves and each other, but from the sacred. Providing historical and mythical context to our contemporary struggles, she finds inspiration in the story of fourteenth-century mystic Julian of Norwich and her direct experience of God and in India's legendary Draupadi, who would not allow a brutal physical assault to damage her sense of personal power. She also draws widely from the voices of mystics across the ages, feminist theory and history, anthropology, women's psychology, contemporary fiction and film, and her personal experience as a meditation instructor to weave a shimmering tapestry of stories and insights that will forever change our understanding of how we can--and why we must--begin to satisfy both our spiritual hunger and feminist thirst.

About this title

About the Author

Carol Lee Flinders, author of the highly acclaimed Enduring Grace and At the Root of This Longing and coauthor of the million-copy-bestselling Laurel's Kitchen, holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and is a well-known speaker and teacher who has taught writing and mystical literature courses at the University of California, Berkeley.

From the Back Cover

Bestselling Author and Professor Explores the Paradox After living through the sixties and seventies in a spiritual community of work and service where meditative practices defined, nourished, and sustained her very being, Carol Lee Flinders experienced an awakening. She heard the clamoring bells of feminism and glimpsed its imminent clash with her spiritual practice. At The Root of This Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger with a Feminist Thirst is the memoir of her journey to understand what seemed to be irreconcilable. What does spirituality look like when it coexists with feminism's sharp critical faculties? And what does feminism do when it is steeped in spiritual perspectives? Author of the critically acclaimed Enduring Grace and co-author of the bestselling cookbook Laurel's Kitchen, Carol Lee Flinders has written a poignant and deeply moving memoir of her internal battle to find her way as a woman and a genuine spiritual seeker. "I feel as though I am looking at two distinct cultures, with two sets of values, for whom the same world could well have two different meanings." In At the Root of This Longing, Flinders identifies and explores four key points at which the path of spirituality and feminism collide:

Vowing Silence vs. Finding Voice: How does one reconcile the spiritual practice of being silent and stilling the mind with the feminist practice of finding a voice and making oneself heard in the halls of oppressive institutions?

Relinquishing Ego vs. Establishing Self: How does one reconcile the spiritual discipline of putting oneself last and unseating the ego with the feminist call to "know who you are" and establish and live up to one's authentic identity?

Resisting Desire vs. Reclaiming the Body: How does one reconcile the spiritual practice of re-channeling one's desires and dis-identifying with one's senses with the feminist insistence on reclaiming the body and its desires from all those who objectify and demean it?

Enclosure vs. Freedom: How is one to reconcile the discipline of turning inward and disentangling oneself from external and public activity with the feminist discipline of moving freely and "taking back the streets"?

Flinders finds inspiration in the enrapturing metaphor of Draupadi--the beautiful, competent, and wise princes-goddess who was known to be extremely devout and proficient in the spiritual disciplines from the great Hindu epic the Mahabharata--who fell into a meditative dance causing her sari to endlessly unfurl as her aggressors attempted to harm her, to forge her conciliatory path. At the Root of This Longing is a fascinating chronicle of the "synchronicities" that Flinders finds on her inner pilgrimage. What she discovers is that, like some of the medieval women mystics such as Julian of Norwich and spiritual teachers such as Ghandi, is that there is a well of strength, courage, and creativity within that can be drawn from through spiritual practice. "We must be capable of speaking from real depths. To be truly and effectively open toward one another, women must find their way into a genuine, active interior life. Through prayer and meditation practiced in disciplined, systematic ways, women can ground themselves in the interior and exterior life-spirit, mind, and body." At the Root of This Longing re-focuses feminism over and against its traditional rejection of spirituality and finds its true strength as a resistance movement based in sacred. Carol Lee Flinders is co-author of the best-selling vegetarian cookbook Laurel's Kitchen and has written about food for newspapers and magazines for over twelve years. In 1993, she published the critically acclaimed Enduring Grace: Living Portraits of Seven Women Mystics. She is an adjunct professor of writing and comparative literature at the University of California at Berkeley. She lives with her husband and son at the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation, located near Petaluma, California.

Reviews

In an intriguing combination of personal and scholarly prose, Flinders (Enduring Grace) works through the details of her attempt to reconcile the conflicts she found between her "commitments to feminism" and her "spiritual path and practices." Living most of her adult life in a "spiritual community" with author and meditation teacher Eknath Easwaran, Flinders has contemplated the works of women mystics including Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila and Clare of Assisi. But how can these women's (and her own) experiences of peace and God jibe with the often angry feminist Flinders finds herself to be? In historical context, she examines today's sexism and violence against women?the legacy of patriarchy that, she says, is not a natural condition at all?and uncovers parallels between Gandhi's Indian revolution against British colonialism and the challenges facing Western women today. Flinders concludes that reclaiming the ancient "sacred feminine" is not at odds with political feminism, but rather necessary for it. In the spirit of Women Who Run with the Wolves and Reviving Ophelia, this book has the potential to change women's lives. $30,000 ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

On turning 50, Letty Cottin Pogrebin observed, "I stood on a fault line, feeling the world rearranging itself beneath my feet." For Flinders (literature, Berkeley), the shifting sands of 50 have less to do with beauty lost or opportunities missed than with as simple (and as nebulous) an issue as reconciling her own tensions between spirituality and feminism. A member of a northern California Hindu spiritual community for more than 20 years, she categorizes Western women as "cultural orphans...barely connected to a living ethnic tradition." Of her own emotional reconstructive work, Flinders claims closure and lobbies hard for American feminism to craft its own meaningful spiritualities and rituals outside the purview of traditional orthodoxies. Although her work is somewhat limited?by her own admission, it is personal and local in scope?spiritual questers and students of meditation will find a kindred spirit within. Recommended where interest is high.?Sandra Collins, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Lib.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Enduring Grace (1993) brought Flinders to the public eye as a writer on women in religion. Here she expands on her research on medieval women mystics, especially Julian of Norwich, who she feels were able to find spiritual truth within a patriarchal context. She also shares much of her own spiritual journey as a woman living in an American ashram dedicated to life in harmony with an Indian spiritual leader's teaching. Absorbingly written and very revealing, the book documents her struggle to reconcile her feminism and her spirituality. She defines four practices in which religion seems to encourage women to contradict feminism: silence, "self-naughting," redirecting desires, and enclosure. Oddly, she never asks whether there is a spirituality more suited to women, though she mentions goddess-honoring friends in passing. Many women for whom patriarchal religion remains central will be touched and intrigued by Flinders' intellectual struggle and will warm as well to her passion for both her subjects. Patricia Monaghan

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0062513141
• ISBN 13: 9780062513144
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384