What story would Eve have told about picking the apple? Why is Pandora
blamed for opening the box? And what about the fate of Cassandra who was
blessed with knowing the future but cursed so that no one believed her?
What if women had been the storytellers?
Elizabeth Lesser believes that if women's voices had been equally heard
and respected throughout history, humankind would have followed
different hero myths and guiding stories--stories that value caretaking,
champion compassion, and elevate communication over vengeance and
violence.
Cassandra Speaks is about the stories we tell and how those stories
become the culture. It's about the stories we still blindly cling to,
and the ones that cling to us: the origin tales, the guiding myths, the
religious parables, the literature and films and fairy tales passed down
through the centuries about women and men, power and war, sex and love,
and the values we live by. Stories written mostly by men with lessons
and laws for all of humanity. We have outgrown so many of them, and
still they endure. This book is about what happens when women are the
storytellers too--when we speak from our authentic voices, when we flex
our values, when we become protagonists in the tales we tell about what
it means to be human.
Lesser has walked two main paths in her life--the spiritual path and the
feminist one--paths that sometimes cross but sometimes feel at
cross-purposes. Cassandra Speaks is her extraordinary merging of the
two. The bestselling author of Broken Open and Marrow, Lesser is a
beloved spiritual writer, as well as a leading feminist thinker. In this
book she gives equal voice to the cool water of her meditative self and
the fire of her feminist self. With her trademark gifts of both humor
and insight, she offers a vision that transcends the either/or
ideologies on both sides of the gender debate.
Brilliantly structured into three distinct parts, Part One explores how
history is carried forward through the stories a culture tells and
values, and what we can do to balance the scales. Part Two looks at
women and power and expands what it means to be courageous, daring, and
strong. And Part Three offers "A Toolbox for Inner Strength." Lesser
argues that change in the culture starts with inner change, and that no
one--woman or man--is immune to the corrupting influence of power. She
provides inner tools to help us be both strong-willed and kind-hearted.
Cassandra Speaks is a beautifully balanced synthesis of storytelling,
memoir, and cultural observation. Women, men and all people will find
themselves in the pages of this book, and will come away strengthened,
opened, and ready to work together to create a better world for all
people.
