It is decided that matter is transitory and illusory like the shadows on a wall cast by firelight that we dwell in a cave, in the cave of our flesh, which is also matter, also illusory it is decided that what is real is outside the cave, in a light brighter than we can imagine, that matter traps us in darkness. Though Woman and Nature ends with the lyrical voice that emerges when woman begins to speak of all that she knows, it begins with a serious somber impersonal voice with no lyricism at all.

These words are written for those of us whose language is not heard, whose words have been stolen or erased, those robbed of language, who are called voiceless or mute, even the earthworms, even the shellfish and the sponges, for those of us who speak our own language. In the epigraph to the book Griffin writes, More recently these words have become the center of the “Morning Blessing” on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. Over the years I have read this passage and others from Woman and Nature aloud with my students, and we have always been moved, most of us to tears. These words are from Susan Griffin’s Woman and Nature which I often recommend as one of my favorite books. We are stunned by this beauty, and I do not forget: what she is to me, what I am to her. This earth is my sister I love her daily grace, her silent daring, and how loved I am how we admire the strength in each other, all that we have suffered, all that we have lost, all that we know.

Woman and Nature by Susan Griffin