Kirjahaku

Kuan Yin: Flowers For Change is a collection of reflections gathered during one hundred days spent contemplating Kuan Yin, goddess of compassion and mercy.

Portrait of an artist finding her path between duty, passion, and love.

The New Parcival is a pro-peace novel about women's experiences in and around war.

Beate Sigriddaughter has dedicated this collection of poetry to Xanthippe, the "not exactly beloved" wife of the revered philosopher Socrates. Xanthippe's name was used for a long time as a synonym for "shrew." Sigriddaughter says that, having lived "for many years among wise and also unwise men, I want to honor her memory, together with the memory of all women, sung or unsung, who have bravely made and continue to make their way through this complicated existence of questionable attitudes with grace and rage and sadness and joy."

Beate Sigriddaughter's Dancing in Santa Fe and other poems will make you remember what it is to be alive in this world. Insightful, rewarding poetry. Skillfully balanced between facing the ominous facts in world news and her enthusiasm for the spirit and beauty in her surroundings, Beate Sigriddaughter's short collection is filled with clear-sightedness. The title poem brilliantly juxtaposes an inherited German history with her current New Mexico situation filled with affection and natural wonders. These pages are for all who seek something both uplifting and realistic; a lyrical wisdom that acknowledges a debt to fairy tales spanning light and darkness. -David Chorlton, author of Reading T. S. Eliot to a Bird

Emily meanders through everyday experiences as a slightly detached witness to the acknowledged beauty of her world and also to its huge disillusionments, misunderstandings, and betrayals. At times even desire fades in the face of tiredness of trying to understand. Wanting to be noble and often wanting to please those around her through compliance with their wishes, she constantly runs into snags. Too early for anyone's taste she begins to question God and her own role in the world, as well as the role of others, especially women, around her. She is troubled by uneasy relationships with other people, notably men. They seem to not just be on different wavelengths, but as though swimming in different oceans altogether, and the connections appear to be elusive. Nothing is ever quite as she expected or hoped for or planned. Fundamentally, however, she is not given to despair, but instead to gratitude for the irrevocable and undeniable beauty of the world.

These are stories longing for peace. All are told from a female point of view. The stories are divided into three sections: hostility out in the world, domestic difficulties, and a few new takes on fairy tales. Stories out in the world include reflections of a goddess observing a young man dying, Mary Magdalen mourning Jesus, an older German woman wanting to hide away from the world after World War II, and a young girl liking an outsider peace demonstator while she is part of a right to life demonstration, among others. The domestic stories deal with neglect, child abuse, fear of being pregnant, and similar complications. The fairy tales all mourn a certain loss of magic in our world.