Wild Mercy: The Wisdom Of The Feminine, An Evening Of Teachings With Mirabai Starr

Purchase Tickets

As the fierce and tender voice of the feminine rises again, we are gifted with renewed access to the women mystics and wisdom beings across the spiritual traditions, such as, Teresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich, Mary Magdalene, the Shekinah, Rabia, Fatima, Tara, Quan Yin, Kali, and indigenous Mother goddesses. In this gathering we engage in contemplative readings from the mystics, group reflections, inter-spiritual chanting and silent sitting, weaving these luminous elements into a basket of awakened community.

About the book, Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce & Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics

The feminine mystic is one who gathers the pain of the world into her arms and transmutes it with “wild mercy”—a merging of fierce courage with the unstoppable forces of forgiveness, compassion, and love. And she is needed now more than ever. “Women across cultural boundaries are rising with our echoing yes in response to the collective call to step up and repair the broken world,” writes Mirabai Starr. “We are rooting ourselves in our resounding no in the face of injustice to our fellow human beings and our Mother Earth.” With Wild Mercy, Starr inspires you to awaken your own inner mystic as you immerse yourself in the guidance of sages such as Teresa of Ávila, Mary Magdalene, Hildegard of Bingen, the ecstatic poet Mirabai, and the Sufi saint Rabia Basri; join with the archetypal energies of figures like Kuan Yin, Tara, Kali, Sophia, and the Shekinah; and find the light to guide your own journey of spiritual awakening and service in the world.

About Mirabai Starr:

Daughter of the counter-culture, Mirabai was born in New York in 1961 to secular Jewish parents who rejected the patriarchy of institutionalized religion. Intellectual artists and advocates of social justice and environmental responsibility, Mirabai’s family was active in the anti-war protest movement of the Vietnam era.

In 1972, Mirabai’s mother, father, and her younger brother and sister uprooted from their suburban life and embarked on an extended road trip that led them through the jungles of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, where they lived for many months on an isolated Caribbean beach, and ended in the mountains of Taos, New Mexico. There, the family embraced an alternative, “back-to-the-land” lifestyle, in a communal effort to live simply and sustainably, values that remain important to Mirabai to this day.

As a teenager, Mirabai lived at the Lama Foundation, an intentional spiritual community that has honored all the world’s faith traditions since its inception in 1967. This ecumenical experience became formative in the universal quality that has infused Mirabai’s work ever since. Mirabai was an adjunct professor of Philosophy and World Religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos for 20 years. Her emphasis has always been on making connections between the perennial teachings found at the heart of all the world’s spiritual paths, in an effort to promote peace and justice.

Mirabai speaks and teaches nationally and internationally on the teachings of the mystics and contemplative practice, and the transformational power of grief and loss. She is available for interviews, speaking engagements, workshops and contemplative retreats. She lives in the mountains of Northern New Mexico with her husband, Jeff Little (Ganga Das). Between them, Mirabai and Jeff have four grown daughters and six grandchildren. Mirabai’s youngest daughter, Jenny, was killed in a car accident in 2001 at the age of fourteen. On that same day, Mirabai’s first book, a translation of Dark Night of the Soul, was released. She considers this experience, and the connection between profound loss and longing for God, the ground of her own spiritual life.