Rising from Deep Places: Women’s Lives and the Ecology of Voice and Silence

Elena Stone’s provocative study of a diverse group of grassroots activists and artists gives new dimensions to a question that has long been an underlying theme in feminist scholarship: how do women find their voices? In this book that interweaves sociological analysis with personal experience, women’s history, and imagery from myth, religion, and the natural world, that question expands to encompass the very meaning of voice itself. Stone’s interviews, primarily with African-American, white working-class, and Jewish women, offer fresh and creative perspectives on gender, race, class, and culture. The resulting chapters explore the many faces of silence and examine the meaning of voice in relation to living in a body, building community, seeking justice, creating art, and affirming one’s connection with the earth. What emerges is a powerful new vision of women’s development that blends notions of personal and social transformation with a growing ecological and spiritual consciousness.