I was born to a Marxist, materialist family in 1940. I wrote my first paper about Marx and his materialism, for a study group, at the age of 12. I was taught to see history in terms of recognizable and tangible forces, driven along by the struggle between classes. We did not pray in my family, we did not observe Jewish holidays (except Passover and Channukah, which is interesting in itself. These two holidays celebrate a revolt and an escape from slavery, both legitimate Marxist concerns). I don't think we ever uttered the word God. Yet, nevertheless, when I was in my twenties, I started to have what I came, somehow or other, without a teacher or a school or a synagogue, to recognize as mystical experiences: a sense of inherent meaning, of "something far more deeply interfused;" the sense of a presence enfolding our lives, a feeling that we were put here on earth to work for the good of others and for the earth itself. Eventually, these feelings developed into thoughts about the existence of god, then the Goddess, then a type of politics I came to call the Politics of the Small. If I am very honest with myself, I would have to admit that what matters most to me in life is spiritual awareness, awakening and development. Some years ago I even thought that I wanted to become a Saint and be shut away in a Cloister. Now, (to everyone's relief) I see that this hankering for sainthood was the beginning of a novel I am planning to write about the Beguines, a women's spiritual movement in the middle ages.
 The Hunger Song (Poems) |
 The Flame Bearers: A Novel |
 Reinventing Eve: Modern Woman in Search of Herself |
 Sex and Other Sacred Games (with Renate Stendhal) |
 A Different Kind of Listening: My Psychoanalysis and Its Shadow |
 In My Father's Garden |
 Cecilia Bartoli: The Passion of Song (with Renate Stendhal) |