Spinning Straw, Weaving Gold: A Tapestry of Mother-Daughter Wisdom is Isabel Anders’ sequel to her award-winning book Becoming Flame: Uncommon Mother-Daughter Wisdom.

Phyllis Tickle said in her Foreword to Becoming Flame: “What is here is the eternal feminine in its most sacred presentations; and all people, regardless of gender, yearn to know and be embraced by that hallowed fullness.”

Lyn Sedmina, Christian Literature Editor of BellaOnline, calls the series: “A poetic perfection of biblically inspired values with a folklore feel.”

“Isabel’s dialogues are arranged in conversational form and embrace the collective wisdom of the feminine in short responses that approach Christian parables as well as Socratic dialogue in form and context. The author has included dialogues with questions at the end of the book for individual and group study.” —Diane Marquart Moore.

The Daughter asked, “How do you spin all day, and see so little for your effort, and keep from discouragement?”

The Mother answered: “See this little square of texture and design? It is enough to wrap the universe in comfort and warmth.”

The Daughter was perplexed. “How can this be?”

The Mother replied: “Even a few inches of loving intent can spread to span continents. Ask a ray of sun.”

In Spinning Straw, Weaving Gold, Isabel writes of women, work, and wisdom, as “Woman’s work and woman’s wisdom come to us in literature, as in life, as two inseparable strands, braided within her very person.”

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Why do I write mother-daughter dialogues, and not mother-child? Most of the wisdom dialogues of old, after all, were between men: rabbis, abbots, masters of various traditions teaching male disciples one-on-one. There were reasons for this in their historical contexts. Though there are some writings by desert Mothers in the Christian tradition, they are few compared to their male counterparts.

First, I am a mother of daughters; I write about what I know. Second, I found that using a time-tested form of question and answer but between daughter and mother allows for open-ended responses by the readers themselves.

My emphasis in these writings is on exercising our gift of inner perception or intuition in concert with God’s guidance, wise counsel, and the assent of our own heart. Mother-daughter dialogues are also an encouragement to readers to trust this process—that we too can knead reality and “make” wisdom between us like bread.

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The Daughter loved the Spinning and Sewing Room, where the rough, carded wool was transformed into shimmering, useful thread.

“See,” she said one morning to her Mother, pointing to the results of her effort, “our spinning teaches the wool to connect!”

“Yes,” acknowledged her mother, “and it is our most basic lesson in life, as well, to learn how to Connect.”

—From Spinning Straw, Weaving Gold.