Indian madonna and child, Annabel Landaverde
In this month’s issue of Spirituality and Health Magazine, Rabbi Rami Shapiro interviews me on the Divine Feminine, excerpted here:
Rabbi Rami: In your new book, Birthing God: Women’s Experiences of the Divine, you say humanity desperately needs to hear women’s spiritual experiences. How does the spiritual experience of women differ from that of men?
Lana Dalberg: The experience of Spirit in a body that gestates and nurtures life, or has the capacity to do so, merits exploration. Women, in addition to birthing, seek to meet their infants’ needs long before they can verbalize them. Women have honed this ability and are adept at connection. Their perspective is helpful in understanding the Divine Spirit who births and sustains all of life.
RR: Give us some idea of how women experience the Divine in ways men don’t or maybe can’t?
LD: The women in Birthing God relate a palpable sense of the Divine. They celebrate the Divine in the midst of dancing, singing, walking, wailing, menstruating, or meditating. They see the Divine in the birthing of children and in the dying of their loved ones. Theirs is an embodied experience of Spirit.
RR: How might our relationships and our world change if the Divine was more broadly seen and experienced as mother, midwife and sister?
LD: It would lead to greater compassion and assiduous efforts at making room for others’ experiences and viewpoints, and perhaps even the ability to trust in the surprises that can emerge from the darkness of the womb.
Read the full interview in Spirituality and Health Magazine May/June 2014 issue. Order a copy at
womenspiritandfaith 