Every chapter of this blazingly wonderful book hit home. It gave me strength, comfort and hope." — Sally Field, Academy-award winning actor, bestselling author of In Pieces
“When did we as women start trying so desperately to tame our feelings, our bodies, our ambition? In this powerful and beautiful book, Elizabeth Lesser brings us back to the earliest stories that convinced us to silence our voices, and then forward to a place where we trust ourselves to lead our lives—and the world.” — Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Untamed and founder of Together Rising
“Cassandra Speaks is about the power of love instead of the love of power. Elizabeth Lesser speaks to the value of finding your voice in the wilderness of these times and, of taking a new kind of hero’s journey—one that replaces violence and domination with deep feeling and courageous communication. What a blessing!” — Iyanla Vanzant, author and host of Iyanla: Fix My Life (OWN)
“Blessed are the truthtellers, and Elizabeth Lesser is one of them. Cassandra Speaks is astute and witty, tender and soulful. It’s a tapestry of memoir, cultural commentary, and spiritual fuel that inspires women—and all people left out of history’s storytelling—to reclaim our lineage, to become prophetic alchemists in a world in grave need of healing.” — Jamia Wilson, executive director and publisher of the Feminist Press
“Cassandra Speaks is a nod to the power of storytelling in our journey to build a truly equitable society. It lays bare the relationship between gender and power, and makes a compelling case for deepening our connections and embracing our collective humanity.” — Tony Porter, CEO of A Call to Men
“Elizabeth is a wise and powerful storyteller. Cassandra Speaks helps us understand the roots of women’s shame and guilt and offers a path forward—by changing our stories, we change our lives." — Eileen Fisher, founder of Eileen Fisher, Inc.
"A book that will change women’s lives—and therefore, everyone’s lives—by calling out the stories that have held us back for millennia. Cassandra Speaks delivers an urgent message to women to listen within, follow their instincts, and do power differently." — Alyssa Milano, actor and activist
Cassandra Speaks is about the power of love instead of the love of power. Elizabeth Lesser speaks to the value of finding your voice in the wilderness of these times and, of taking a new kind of hero’s journey—one that replaces violence and domination with deep feeling and courageous communication. What a blessing!
"A book that will change women’s lives—and therefore, everyone’s lives—by calling out the stories that have held us back for millennia. Cassandra Speaks delivers an urgent message to women to listen within, follow their instincts, and do power differently."
Elizabeth is a wise and powerful storyteller. Cassandra Speaks helps us understand the roots of women’s shame and guilt and offers a path forward—by changing our stories, we change our lives."
Cassandra Speaks is a nod to the power of storytelling in our journey to build a truly equitable society. It lays bare the relationship between gender and power, and makes a compelling case for deepening our connections and embracing our collective humanity.
When did we as women start trying so desperately to tame our feelings, our bodies, our ambition? In this powerful and beautiful book, Elizabeth Lesser brings us back to the earliest stories that convinced us to silence our voices, and then forward to a place where we trust ourselves to lead our lives—and the world.
Every chapter of this blazingly wonderful book hit home. It gave me strength, comfort and hope."
Blessed are the truthtellers, and Elizabeth Lesser is one of them. Cassandra Speaks is astute and witty, tender and soulful. It’s a tapestry of memoir, cultural commentary, and spiritual fuel that inspires women—and all people left out of history’s storytelling—to reclaim our lineage, to become prophetic alchemists in a world in grave need of healing.
07/06/2020
Omega Institute cofounder Lesser (Marrow) demonstrates how myth, religion, and history minimize women’s voices and values in this lucid and ultimately optimistic account. Criticizing traditional, male-dominated lists of great books and histories that glorify war, Lesser suggests alternative stories of women who “meet adversity with love,” such as Malala Yousafzai, Antoinette Tuff, and Tammy Duckworth. She advocates “innervism” as a corollary to feminist activism, encouraging women to focus on looking at “our blind spots, our projections, our hypocrisies,” and offers detailed meditation exercises to help women learn how to “Do No Harm and Take No Shit” and find the courage to “give clear voice to... healthy anger.” Citing her work helping 9/11 first responders to overcome their “strong and silent” conditioning and share their feelings, Lesser ties the cultural devaluing of women with the discrediting of feminine-coded values like empathy, sharing, and care, and argues that leaning into these values would improve the world for men and women alike. Emphasizing individual over community work, Lesser does not address whether it’s necessary to build spaces in which women can be heard, and her guidance on how women can tell their own stories is minimal. Still, readers will find this lucid and detailed presentation of feminist ideas motivating. Agent: Henry Dunow. (Sept.)
Xe Sands is a steady, consistent voice for this feminist volume on rethinking spiritual tales across a variety of cultures. She captures the confident, assertive tone of the project overall, which encourages listeners to reconsider the masculine slant of history and historical records. From Eve to the contemporary woman, we are in safe hands as Sands navigates the academic and religious underpinnings of major narratives that silenced women. Listeners who are interested in feminist studies will find much to admire here. This volume can be listened to in the order the chapters are presented or dipped into based on the topics that appeal. Sands makes it an easy as well as informative listening experience. M.R. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
Xe Sands is a steady, consistent voice for this feminist volume on rethinking spiritual tales across a variety of cultures. She captures the confident, assertive tone of the project overall, which encourages listeners to reconsider the masculine slant of history and historical records. From Eve to the contemporary woman, we are in safe hands as Sands navigates the academic and religious underpinnings of major narratives that silenced women. Listeners who are interested in feminist studies will find much to admire here. This volume can be listened to in the order the chapters are presented or dipped into based on the topics that appeal. Sands makes it an easy as well as informative listening experience. M.R. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
2020-06-20
To escape patriarchal assumptions, women must invent a new storyline.
Lesser, co-founder of the Omega Institute, an adult education and retreat center in Rhinebeck, New York, draws on her own life, research on gender, and cultural myths to explore challenges to women’s power. Cassandra seems to her emblematic of women’s subjugation: Cursed by Apollo after she rejected him, she would forever be disbelieved. Although her prophecies told the truth, “her words fell flat.” Cassandra, like Eve, Pandora, and many other mythical and fictional women that Lesser cites, represents men’s views. “So much of the sorry state of our world hangs on the excess of the so-called masculine virtues in our guiding storylines,” writes the author. “So much was lost with the disparaging of anything coded feminine and the erasure of women as protagonists and heroes.” Why, for example, are there no monuments to women’s achievements but countless statues of male warriors? Invisible and silenced because of nature, nurture, and “the wounds of patriarchy,” women, Lesser believes, share a tendency to feel self-doubt, shame, and reticence, internalizing expectations “to stay in a narrow lane: mother, caregiver, keeper of the hearth, mender of the hearts, cleaner-uppers of the mess.” These qualities—nurturing, emotional intelligence, and “relational nature”—shape women leaders who are likely “to be more collaborative” and “less prone to corruption, to instinctively move to fill the empathy deficit, to seek wiser solutions to conflict.” To encourage women who, like her, are “trying to excel and contribute within a system built by and for men,” Lesser offers exercises designed to promote both activism and what she calls innervism: “the part of me that seeks inner change, inner healing.” These include meditation, guided reflection, listing sources of inspiration, prompts to help talk to someone with differing views, and writing one’s own obituary.
An encouraging guide to help women redefine their lives.
