The Mama Sutra: A Story of Love, Loss, and the Path of Motherhood

A “beautifully written and self-revealing” memoir of motherhood—in all its messy glory—as a spiritual practice, by a longtime yoga and dharma teacher (Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance)

Sutra is the Sanskrit name for a short spiritual teaching, and it comes from the same root as the English word suture, or stitch. This story of motherhood as a path to awakening is, says yoga and meditation teacher Anne Cushman, “an homage to the long threads that run through all human lives, stitching up what’s shredded in our hearts.”

The Mama Sutra spans an eighteen-year journey through motherhood as a spiritual practice, chronicling Cushman’s first pregnancy, her daughter's tragic stillbirth, the joyful birth of her son, the “home retreat” of early motherhood, the challenges of parenthood, the diagnosis and gifts of her son’s developmental differences, the meltdown of her nuclear family and its reconfiguration into a new and joyful form, and more. This is a powerful story of the rawness and beauty of life.

Anne Cushman is a longtime yoga and meditation teacher whose writing has been published in the New York Times, O Magazine, Lion’s Roar, and more. She teaches at Spirit Rock, Kripalu, and other venues worldwide. A former editor of Yoga Journal and Tricycle, she is the author of several books, including Moving into Meditation and the novel Enlightenment for Idiots.