Dear Friends,

The contemporary women's spirituality movement was born in the early 1970s and flourished during the next two decades. This rich period produced a range of classic books on the subject, many excerpted in Keys to the Open Gate: A Woman's Spirituality Sourcebook, originally published in 1994. Although its material is drawn from Judeo-Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, Native American, Sufi, Hindu, Shamanic, Goddess, and other traditions, the book isn’t a female study of comparative religion, but rather a practical resource for any woman who wants to participate in spiritual awakening, deepen her sense of self, and connect more fully with the world. The material, based on writings from those who have traveled the surprising, rewarding, and sometimes perilous terrain of women’s spirituality, functions as a field guide to a territory as yet only partially explored.

Since the book’s original publication, women have made enormous progress in the political, economic and personal spheres. Yet, despite many important advances elsewhere, the issues explored in Keys remain as pertinent as ever. It is my fervent hope that the women's spirituality movement will again flourish and help to ground and balance the feminine powers now arising in so many different ways. This wish inspired me to reprint Keys in its entirety and to make it as widely available as possible.
As Hallie Iglehart Austen put it so well:

The womanspirit movement is a necessity, not a luxury. Without it, we are operating with only half our potential tools and power. What we think we want is based on what we think is possible; one of womanspirit’s most important functions is to create and implement a feminist vision. We need tools such as meditation, personal mythology, natural healing, dreamwork, study of matriarchal history and mythology, and ritual to reach beyond the possibility laid out for us by the patriarchy. We cannot wait until after the revolution for the new order to rise up, phoenix-like, out of the ashes of the old. We need to lay the groundwork now through lifetimes of hard work in researching, experimenting with, and practicing a new integration of “politics” and “spirituality.” We need new ways of healing, self- knowledge, self-power, new ways of being and relating to ourselves, one another, the Earth, and the cosmos. If we neglect them, we will create only a new version of the overly competitive, dualistic, rational, technological patriarchy.
Ultimately the goals of spirituality and of revolutionary politics are the same: to create a world in which love, equality, freedom, and fulfillment of individual and collective potential is possible. If we unite the two approaches to these common goals, we will experience this fulfillment.
From “The Unnatural Divorce of Spirituality and Politics” in The Politics of Women’s Spirituality by Charlene Spretnak.

In addition to the paperback and Kindle versions of the book, the website keystotheopengate.net

contains excerpts, bibliographies, and online updates to supplement the original text. If you find the book interesting or helpful, please let others know. Also, interviews on Amazon are always helpful.
May we all join together to draw upon the feminine principle which lies upstream of political, social and spiritual movements and help to fearlessly bring sanity, kindness, and balance back into this crazy world in our own unique ways.

In the sisterhood of dharma,

Kimberley Snow