Devi Mother of My Mind Suzanne Ironbiter 128pp., 5.5 x 8.5” (140 x 215 mm), pb, with gatefold, February 2006, ISBN: 81-88204-64-1 (Mapin), ISBN: 1-890206-93-8 (Grantha). Rs.250.00 / US$17.50

"This is wisdom indeed for our time, embedded, gem-like, in familiar stories that catch the eye by their unexpected sparkle." - Rachel Fell McDermott

Devi: Mother of my Mind is a creative interaction with India's Yoga, Shakta, and Tantra traditions. The book uses the epic literary genre to imagine the mind-liberating struggle of these teachings. It combines academic study and translation with the meditative quest and questions of a woman and mother. The goddess Devi symbolizes the wholeness of life, the vital continuum interconnecting body and spirit. She is also the Great Mother, the perennial gestator, birthgiver and nurturer. According to N.N. Bhattacharyva (A History of Shakta Religion, 1973), the goddess traditions of India preserve, develop, and practice the most completely female-oriented system in the religious history of the world. Devi celebrates and proclaims this powerful counterbalance to dominant male-oriented externalized systems. Internalized myths, philosophies, legends, songs, and rituals gradually move the narrator towards their inherent wholeness. 

As a poet, professor and scholar of comparative religion, mother, and practitioner of yoga for more than thirty years, Suzanne Ironbiter writes to integrate literature, learning, and experience. She received her doctorate at Columbia University, where she specialized in the neo-Platonic mystical tradition under the guidance of Professor Paul Oskar Kristeller.

A MapinLit Book/Poetry