Collecting more than two thousand years worth of women's words of wisdom, a unique anthology contains poetry, essays, prayers, letters, and memoirs concentrating on the liberation of spiritual awareness and written by eminent women from across the ages. In many religious traditions, the clamor of male priests and religious functionaries often overwhelms and silences the voices of religious women. Seeking to recover these voices, editor Cahill (Writing Women's Lives, LJ 4/15/94) has put together a beautiful tapestry of religious narratives ranging from medieval Christian mystic Teresa of Avila and Islamic poet Qurrat Al-'Ayn to novelist Tillie Olsen and poet Rita Dove. Cahill's collection of poems, stories, and essays is a rich and powerful testimony to the liberating power of divine love and justice in the lives of women. Highly recommended for all libraries. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. This treasure is loaded with gems gathered from at least 5,000 years of spiritual experience, drawn from diverse traditions, genres, and places. Cahill's brief introduction provides useful background and a cogent description of the process by which selections were made. The suggestions for further reading at the end of the book provide a roadmap for further exploration. Each selection is prefaced by a brief biographical-historical introduction that locates the selection without presuming to tell readers how to interpret it. The richness of the selections derives as much from stylistic diversity as from cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity. In fact, many of the texts are not overtly religious at all--a tribute to the editor's broad definition of spirituality and one important factor in her ability to uncover material that is too often omitted from anthologies such as this one. More than half the book is devoted to material from the twentieth century, but the chronologically ordered material from ancient times through the nineteenth century will probably be the biggest surprise for readers unfamiliar with the territory. The effect of the whole collection, from the twentieth century and before, is a rich encounter (in Catherine de Vinck's image) with the woman--a community of women--dancing the world alive. Steve Schroeder