Reviews: Daughter of Spirit - Daughter of Peace

In the days since 911 we've seen a rather curious emergence of patriotism in the most unexpected places. Visits to Pagan web sites, usually bastions of anti-patriotism, offer bumper stickers and decals of the American flag emblazoned with the caption “Goddess Bless America.” In concert, Crosby, Stills & Nash, once the defacto harmonizers of anti-war sentiment, extol praises to these great United States. Even Gary Trudeau has claimed in his comic strip, “Doonesbury,” that the terrorist attacks have given the flag and patriotism back to liberal, ACLU loving, Americans. The creed of both the hippie freaks and the right wing militia types, “I love my country but fear my government,” seems to have been replaced with, “Praise Bush and launch the cruise missiles.”

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As a response to the craziness, blind patriotism and fear that's engulfed our nation and the rest of the world since last September, Dr. Claudia Rose has written Daughter of Spirit - Daughter of Peace: A Prayer for Humanity, a spiritual guide for women in these troubling times. Tiny in size, weighing-in at only 86 five-by-four inch pages, this book would seem to be made to be carried in a purse. Spend twenty or thirty minutes once to read it cover to cover, then keep it handy to find a page at random anytime spiritual solace is needed. Any page will do. Any paragraph will help in the discovery of a spiritual expression that is unique to women.

“Men have been in charge for a long time,” she writes. “It was meant to be this way. Women chose to lie down to rest, for men had much to learn that already existed in women's hearts. Men played their games of war and aggression, top dog and little dog, rich man and poor man. The world today is a result of the games men played as they explored power, knowledge and the ways of making things happen on the earth.”

During the last couple of decades it's become politically incorrect to consider women's strengths as being different from men's strengths. Post second-wave feminism has encouraged women to find equality by emulating male qualities and by denying that women have special qualities that men do not or cannot have. By definition, this is a bargain that most women are predestined to loose and one that makes feminists co-conspirators for the patriarchy. 911 should tell us that the viewpoints of the maiden, the mother and the wise woman, views that are unique to women, need to be heard. When women are encouraged to be like men, we end up with teen-aged Palestinian girls wearing belts of dynamite to become warriors for the cause, just like their brothers.

In a book as small as Daughter of Spirit, Ross has neither the space nor the inclination to mince words on this subject. Near the beginning, she calls on women to listen to the spirits of their ancestors, then adds, “Do you wonder why only female ancestors come forward? Why do the old crones call you from beside the fire? They are the keepers of this wisdom. No man knows this land. It is woman’s work, not of the head, but of heart and body. It is Earthwork.”

Be assured that this is not a tome on feminism or feminist theory. Despite the quoted paragraphs, this is not a feast of male bashing. Instead, it is a primer on spiritual and psychological empowerment specifically for women. Like many before her, Ross (who has a Ph.D. in psychology) points out that uncontrolled ego is responsible for most, if not all, of humanity’s ills.

“The human ego is the dream,” she writes, “though it has a purpose. Ego tells you that you are separate from a chair and a door. It tells you that you occupy a certain space that is yours alone. Ego gets carried away and wants to keep you separate from your own true self. Ego knows nothing of this self, this part of you that is a part of the Creator. Ego can create nothing real. But ego doesn’t want you to know its limitations. So it waves its arms and screams and causes chaos.”

Which brings us back to the events of September 11, 2002, which Ross addresses directly in the book’s Epilog. “Do you think it is an accident that millions in Russia, Norway, Germany, England and Japan mourn with Americans?” she asks. “Shared grief unites hearts.

“Shared grief opens hearts. It can take a tragedy for humanity to cross the artificial lines that separate rich from poor, educated from illiterate. Tragedy awakens individuals to unite in purpose, see beyond appearances and acknowledge what is real and true in their hearts.” Daughter of Spirit – Daughter of Peace: A Prayer for Humanity may be dismissed by some as an example of pop spirituality. If so, it’s pop spirituality at its best.

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