The Divine Feminine Tao Te Ching

• Restores the feminine essence of the Tao Te Ching as well as the simplicity and poetic undertones of the chapters • Offers commentary for each of the 81 chapters and key Chinese characters to reveal their profound wisdom • Translated from ancient silk and bamboo slip manuscripts, the oldest known copies of the Tao Te Ching • Paper with French flaps In this book, Rosemarie Anderson shares her discoveries of the Divine Feminine Tao alongside her original translation of the Tao Te Ching. Working from ancient silk and bamboo slip manuscripts, the oldest known copies of the Tao Te Ching, the author slowly translated all 81 chapters over the course of two years, allowing each section to reveal its intimate poetic and spiritual nature. To her surprise, she discovered that the Tao was unmistakably feminine, consistently referred to as “mother,” “virgin,” and the “womb” of creation. Anderson explains how the Tao is a feminine force, the Dark Womb of Creation, the Immortal Void renewing life again and again in ordinary times and in times of crisis. She offers commentary for each of the 81 chapters to help reveal their profound wisdom. The author also restores the chapters’ simplicity and musical undertones, explaining how, in the original Chinese manuscripts, the text is poetic and rhymed because the Tao Te Ching was often recited or sung--yet most English translations are written in scholarly prose with long sentences and complex syntax. She shows how the great Tao’s message of wei wu wei--“act without acting” and “do without doing”--offers a path of peace and well-being for ourselves and for our relationships with others and the earth, a path that arises from spontaneous action that seeks no gain for the self. Capturing the original feminine nature of this ancient text, Anderson’s translation sheds new light on the esoteric wisdom contained within the Tao Te Ching and on the mystical feminine essence of the Tao.

The Tao Te Ching, attributed to Lao Tzu, is considered a foundational text of Taoism.The following version of The Tao Te Ching is based upon a translation from Lionel Giles, The Wisdom of the East: The Sayings of Lao Tzu (The Orient Press, 1904). This adaptation replaces masculine pronouns and references with the feminine, providing a text that speaks directly to women in the female voice. No longer do women have to infer that a text is meant to be inclusive when reading. It now addresses women directly. This publication is part of the Feminine Sacred Texts Project, which aims to add the female voice to traditional works by reversing male gender pronouns and wording to the feminine, rather than simply providing gender neutral translations. Written in the feminine, these traditional sacred texts speak directly to the sisterhood of women.

For centuries women have remained quiet, suppressed by society. Yet in their silence a singing can be heard, celebrating their truths. In The Tao of Women, female voices speak out. Finally, the wisdom of Taoist philosophy is linked with the deep and mysterious wisdom of women. The Tao of Women captures and presents the power and wisdom generated by centuries of women's lives with the hope that this wisdom will not be lost. These brief and poignant meditations amplify the voices of our grandmothers and their mothers before them, they illuminate the connections over time and space and culture, allowing us to understand the women who came before and the daughters who will follow. In 1950, a secret language was discovered near Hunan Province, China. It was not until 1982 that anyone collected and translated this secret "women's script." Known as Nu Shu, this ancient language was developed and used by women to communicate with each other when their society would not allow them to learn to read and write. For the first time in America, 81 original Nu Shu illustrations and their translations can be seen in The Tao of Women.

For centuries women have remained quiet, suppressed by society. Yet in their silence a singing can be heard, celebrating their truths. In The Tao of Women, female voices speak out. Finally, the wisdom of Taoist philosophy is linked with the deep and mysterious wisdom of women. The Tao of Women captures and presents the power and wisdom generated by centuries of women's lives with the hope that this wisdom will not be lost. These brief and poignant meditations amplify the voices of our grandmothers and their mothers before them, they illuminate the connections over time and space and culture, allowing us to understand the women who came before and the daughters who will follow. In 1950, a secret language was discovered near Hunan Province, China. It was not until 1982 that anyone collected and translated this secret "women's script." Known as Nu Shu, this ancient language was developed and used by women to communicate with each other when their society would not allow them to learn to read and write. For the first time in America, 81 original Nu Shu illustrations and their translations can be seen in The Tao of Women.

An updated version of James Legge's classic translation of The Tao Te Ching with gender neutral text.

This version of the Tao Te Ching is in gender-neutral language, in English, and with American spelling. It is based on the English translation of the Tao Te Ching done by James Legge as part of volume 39 of The Sacred Books of the East series, issued in 1891 by Oxford University Press (note that this translation is in the public domain). For this book, that translation was then changed into gender-neutral language and American spelling by Nancy Quinn Collins. The gender-neutral language is used in the whole book; for example "Not to value and employ people of superior ability" is used rather than "Not to value and employ men of superior ability"; the only exceptions are that quotes are left as they originally were, and it is written that (as it really was historically) only princes and kings call[ed] themselves 'Orphans, 'Men of small virtue, ' and as 'Carriages without a nave.'

When you lose your place in the world, you need only return to stillness. Through stillness, you return to the Way. These are the words from the Tao te Ching, which presents timeless wisdom about following the way of nature. Tao te Ching, the Poetry of Nature is a beautiful interpretation that captures its original poetic style, and is a compilation drawn from the many ancient Chinese sages who studied it. As a tool for meditation, its simplicity has made it the most widely read text about Taoism: "While carrying on with life in your head, can you embrace its mystery and not let go?" Celebrating what is timeless and valuable about existence, the second section of this book includes a collection of ancient Taoist poetry.

More than ancient erotic love poetry, this celebration of the human relationship with Wisdom can be a companion for your own spiritual journey. The Song of Songs is the Hebrew Bible’s deeply erotic poem of love, sexual yearning and consummation. Holding it sacred yet troubled by its thinly veiled eroticism, Jews and Christians for millennia have read the Song of Songs as an allegory of God’s love for Israel—the classic Jewish understanding—or Jesus’s love for his Church—the classic Christian understanding. This fresh translation restores the Song’s eroticism and interprets it as a celebration of the love between the Divine Feminine and the contemporary spiritual seeker. Scholar and award-winning teacher Rami Shapiro renders this ancient love song as Lady Wisdom offering seekers physical and spiritual intimacy with her so that they might awaken to and participate wisely in the unity of God, woman, man and nature. His intriguing facing-page commentary provides historical, religious and spiritual insights from Christian and Jewish wisdom traditions as well as clear comparisons to other translations. Now you can understand the poetry, beauty, genius and mystery of the Song of Songs with no previous knowledge of the Hebrew Bible or wisdom literature. Compelling in its novelty and accessible in its presentation, this version of the Song of Songs will beckon you more deeply into Jewish-Christian sacred texts while offering you wisdom teachings and practices rooted in but not limited to religion.