Wild Woman: A Footnote, the Desert, and My Quest for an Elusive Saint
A Footnote, the Desert, and My Quest for an Elusive Saint
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- USD 25.99
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- USD 25.99
Descripción editorial
Runaway. Castaway. Prostitute. Hermit. Desert dweller. Saint. Boundary breaker. Archetypal wild woman. In the corner of a library, in a dusty stack of books, in the footnote of an obscure text, journalist Amy Frykholm discovered a short citation about Mary of Egypt, all but unknown to most, and herself a footnote in ancient history. Not knowing why or from where, Frykholm felt called by this ancient woman's story. Thus begins the story of her decades-long search to uncover the truth about the woman who, by her own devices, figured out how to acquire what she most wanted--and when she did, discovered that it wasn't enough.
With a scholar's eye and a mystic's heart, Frykholm offers a look at an elusive and dynamic figure from history while offering insights into our own inner--and potentially rewilded--lives. In search of Mary, the author traveled throughout Egypt, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, walking deeper and deeper into the desert, across thresholds of space and time, to find the meaning of Mary of Egypt's life--as well as her own embrace of the wild and sacred within.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this sharp meditation, journalist Frykholm (Rapture Culture) recalls her pilgrimage in which she sought to connect with the spirit of Mary of Egypt. Traveling through Egypt, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, she found that the desert saint's legacy is elusive, and her own travels were replete with "dead ends closed chapels." Nevertheless, Frykholm views her quest with a mystic's eye, finding meaning in dreams, small breakthroughs, and even emptiness, as with the "life-giving mystery" of life in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a "monument to emptiness" that forces one to consider the nature of absence. Frykholm's lyrical reflections on Mary of Egypt as an "icon of desire" are stirring ("At the edge of yourself, you stumble onto her. She is already ahead of you in the wilderness—the Wild Woman, that deep woman of myth, who goes away from outer authority to find an inner authority, who goes out into the wilderness to seek bewilderment"), though her attempts to tease out Mary's story never reach a definitive conclusion, and readers will likely find this works better as a spiritual reflection than as a travelogue. Despite this, patient readers will find many intelligent takes on the value of pursuing the sacred in one's life.
