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The Mother Tree: Discovering the Love and Wisdom of Our Divine Mother
Who is Heavenly Mother, and do we have an individual imperative to seek Her as we do the Father and the Son? If so, how do we come to know Her? In The Mother Tree, poet and landscape architect Kathryn Knight Sonntag addresses the rising world-wide hunger to know a Mother God by asking these and other stirring questions. What follows is an exploration into the symbolic realm of the tree of life, Mother's chosen metaphor in scripture, to discover Her regenerative powers in root work, the sturdy now of Her trunk, and the divine wisdom of the heavens in Her leafy crown. The Mother Tree presents a generous new framework for spiritual ascent—the feminine path of transformation through the archetypal tree—as a complement to the more familiar masculine way, pointing ultimately to the harmony of feminine and masculine wisdom; it is a balance needed for the healing of the soul and the world.
109 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 6, 2022
48 people are currently reading
480 people want to read
About the author
Kathryn Knight Sonntag
3 books25 followersKathryn Knight Sonntag is the author of The Tree at the Center (BCC Press, 2019) and The Mother Tree: Discovering the Love and Wisdom of Our Divine Mother (Faith Matters Publishing, 2022). Her poetry appears in Image Journal, Colorado Review, Dialogue, Blossom as the Cliffrose: Mormon Legacies and the Beckoning Wild (Torrey House Press, 2021), and others.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
September 2, 2022
Lucky me!! I got a signed copy, with a note to me from Kathryn Knight Sonntag! 💜 So excited for this one.
The cover art is gorgeous!!
So many good gems in these pages. It’s written so beautifully, so expansive. I felt new seeds planted, new hope as I read. This book came along at the perfect time for me.
Lots of inky pages, here are a few favorite moments:
Our Origin Story p17-27 is easily my favorite section.
Words that stand out: discerning, understanding, choice, meaning, sun, moon, stars, sing, pray, joy, listen, free, creation, wisdom, sensitivity, interconnected, paradox, herself, fertility, powers, offer, everlasting. It’s Eve’s story in poetry. Love love love.
My jaw is on the floor. God commanded Adam to not eat from the tree BEFORE Eve was formed. In every account, the instruction was given to Adam alone. There’s just a lot of thinky thoughts to go along with this new realization. How did I not notice this before and in case I didn’t, why has no one ever pointed this out to me? And why is the story always told in a different order?? I cannot handle how much I love seeing what was there all along, which then cannot be unseen.
“Just as the seed contains the tree, and the tree the seed, so the hidden world of God contains all creation, and creation is, in turn, a revelation of the hidden world of God.” p77
“We see many attempting a purely upward trajectory, demarcated by performative markers. . . . without doing the radical (and radial) soul work required. They attempted to build an outward manifestation of what they should have been cultivating inside: communion with God.” p93
The cover art is gorgeous!!
So many good gems in these pages. It’s written so beautifully, so expansive. I felt new seeds planted, new hope as I read. This book came along at the perfect time for me.
Lots of inky pages, here are a few favorite moments:
Our Origin Story p17-27 is easily my favorite section.
Words that stand out: discerning, understanding, choice, meaning, sun, moon, stars, sing, pray, joy, listen, free, creation, wisdom, sensitivity, interconnected, paradox, herself, fertility, powers, offer, everlasting. It’s Eve’s story in poetry. Love love love.
My jaw is on the floor. God commanded Adam to not eat from the tree BEFORE Eve was formed. In every account, the instruction was given to Adam alone. There’s just a lot of thinky thoughts to go along with this new realization. How did I not notice this before and in case I didn’t, why has no one ever pointed this out to me? And why is the story always told in a different order?? I cannot handle how much I love seeing what was there all along, which then cannot be unseen.
“Just as the seed contains the tree, and the tree the seed, so the hidden world of God contains all creation, and creation is, in turn, a revelation of the hidden world of God.” p77
“We see many attempting a purely upward trajectory, demarcated by performative markers. . . . without doing the radical (and radial) soul work required. They attempted to build an outward manifestation of what they should have been cultivating inside: communion with God.” p93
August 8, 2025
Beautiful. Profound. Enlightening.
July 1, 2022
This book felt like gospel to me. The fusion of science and scripture and poetry spoke to my heart, and I am so grateful that Kathryn's insights are out in the world. I wish all LDS men and women would read this to better understand that if we want to achieve Zion, we must honor the divine feminine and restore Her rightful place in our theology.
May 15, 2023
Can’t recommend enough, so much depth and beauty in understanding my Heavenly Mother more. Would recommend for anyone seeking a female divine.
April 11, 2024
Absolutely incredible and beautiful book. So inspired. She opened a door I’ve been searching for for a long time.
May 24, 2024
The employment of words in Sonntag’s book is truly engaging and masterful. Her questions, invitations, and suppositions are meticulous and inviting. It is not a breezy read. Each page is packed with abstract concepts that demand an attentive mind. I appreciate her thoughtful role in this conversation.
It took me months to slowly chew the ideas she presents. At first I was annoyed; I have been bothered in the past by others' "urgent" attempts to paint a picture of Her, simply for the sake of attaching *something*--to prove She is there. In my perception, our Heavenly Mother has *always been there*--right next to the Father--in communion with Their children and in leading Their work. Because of the perfect unity of deity, when "God" speaks, it is the voice of both of Them; and when we speak to "God," They both hear. I am not concerned with the gender-specifics. Scripture (3 Nephi 18:19–20) has directed us to begin our prayers by addressing our Heavenly Father, and I know too much of (moral) marriage to assert that addressing one is not addressing both. When, in every reference to Heavenly Father, could it not also be implied that Heavenly Mother is right there with Him? How can He love us perfectly and completely, without transcendent unity with female?
Yet, Sonntag's laboriously careful proposals quickly changed my annoyance into receptivity. Here are some of my thoughts. All understanding (including our perception of female presence) is something to be grown into. Mercifully, God always meets us where we are. As Sonntag points out (something I believe already all too clear): we live in an age of reason, a characteristically male attribution. Today, the way we (as males and females) process things is heavily trained on facts. Society swings from emphasizing fact to emphasizing feeling, and back. This is evidenced on a wide scale from the factual age of the Roman Empire, to the emotional superstitions of the Middle Ages. The ways we experience an unchanging religion as an imbalanced society will appear...changeable. Is the male to be blamed for the place it is today? Sonntag is right that there is a female "flavor" in our teaching whose role has been forgotten by many, particularly those immersed in the thinking of this age. However, I think it is wrong to assert that God's inspired organization of His gospel is a root to our flawed understanding. I also see profound evidence that this necessary "female flavor" is not lost on our prophetic leaders--time and again they have asserted society's need for the female voice to be advanced in homes, wards, and communities. I truly believe the female voice missing is the one many females are silencing *in themselves,* not one their male counterparts are seeking to quiet. By silencing their "femaleness," some women believe they are asserting their strength and equality to men.
To that end, I am not in the camp that men are or have been thoroughly malicious oppressors. Yes, there are terrible situations which honest disciples disavow, but they are not THE story of human existence that some feminist representatives would have us believe. The vast majority of both men and women (the workforce behind social endeavors both inside the home and out) act from true tenderness of heart. Giving benefit of doubt is not only kinder, but also most often the truth. Especially in the case of male church office, I am aware of heavy dependency upon their female counterparts (wife and council women). To me, this is an irreplaceable vehicle toward greater unification of the male/female perspective. If men do not remain the only qualified holders of specific office, where is their impetus into the deeper layers of understanding of what is uniquely female? Additionally, if women do not feel the need to teach female perspectives so that they have a place on "male" councils, where is their impetus? With male priorities (facts and reason) most often in command in both men and women's thinking today, there appears little need for the counterpart of this argument--to justify or explain men's views to women--though that is also necessary in this structure.
A word of caution. As we discuss proposed changes in any institution, it is important to be aware of our male-dominated societal priorities. Social justice warriors are an example of this. Social justice warriors believe that "the central fact of human existence is power and how it is used. ...Everything in life is understood through relationships of power....There is no such thing as objective truth; only power. Who decides what is true and what is false? Those who hold power" (Rod Dreher). The changes that our society needs will not come in redefining power structures, but in the steady, quiet, life-giving presence of female heartbeat. Truth is truth no matter who has momentary "power."
What are these female values of which I speak? Sonntag's book addresses many of them in a fairly philosophical way. Let me put them more clearly. Femininity nurtures the *feeling* of truth. Femininity works through stories, music, melodic expression, imagination (defined by one as "the thinking of the heart"), the *wisdom* to apply facts, the ability to *feel* the message between the lines. Have I lost you to fluff? That is evidence of the pervasive scourge of our mind-based society. There is no "fluff" in the exalting female qualities which acquaint us with truth. Consider his longing for deeper manifestations of our Mother God when President Nelson states: "My dear sisters, whatever your calling, whatever your circumstances--we need your impressions, your insights, and your inspiration. We need you to speak up and speak out in ward and stake councils. We need each married sister to speak as 'a contributing and full partner' as you unite with your husband in governing your family. Married or single, you sisters possess distinctive capabilities and special intuition you have received as gifts from God. We brethren cannot duplicate your unique influence." Both men and women long for the arts of female deity to be expressed in our existence today. It was said, "The heart feels; it doesn't analyze. In the end, it's the heart that shapes who we are." Hours of conference talks cannot produce the same experience that one inspiring song can. Our leaders do understand this, but how many of us walk out of the room as soon as the music plays--as if it's not part of the necessary message but a cue for halftime? I believe women have a great ability to see and account for truth beyond factual basics, to the deeper essence of a thing. However, many of us would need to stop acting like the debatable facts that society values are the only witnesses of value.
Our Mother God will become more clear to us as we embrace feminine qualities within ourselves, marrying those priorities with the masculine. I feel certain that all of us will see Her presence more symbolically around and in us, as has been Sonntag's experience shared in this book. While "emotional appeal" has been used to distract an audience from facts, it is not to be negated as truthless. Our *feelings* also teach us things to know, leading to a deeper knowing. This advancement of the female voice must not be done using male procedures. Our Mother God's attributes are *nurtured* into understanding. They are the job of a *nurturer.*
Is the Mother God gone from the core of our teachings? Or have we simply silenced our perceptions that reveal her? On page 68 Sonntag asks "What would it be like to have our Mother restored to our most sacred scripts and visionary spaces of the temple?" It might just look like more dwelling on symbolism, growing into "eyes to see." Perhaps it would look like more parabolic learning, less weight given to clear and factual statements, more value in connection, and more opportunities to learn through imagination (for "imagination alone enables man to realize eternity. The ordinary conceptions of the mind cannot embrace infinity or God." --Romancing the Heart by Marlene Peterson). In this campaign, we allow for a deeper understanding and living of Christ's gospel--of our harmonized selves. It is not brought about through argument, criticism, or fact-calls. Deep [gospel] living is nurtured into place through the gentle, feminine arts of the heart.
Nuggets from the book to chew on:
I enjoyed seeing Sonntag quote from Women Who Run With Wolves--a personal favorite of mine. (p 10)
How to be in the pain to find pain’s cure: “Turning into our own pain, we allow it to fully express itself so that our hearts can experience it completely.” (P 10)
You be the Master: make yourself fierce, break in:
Then your great transforming will happen to me,
And my great grief cry will happen to you. —Rainer Maria Rilke (11)
The creation story is so familiar that sometimes we are not able to hear it. (17)
Deeply enjoyed Sonntag’s Creation retelling. Would love to hear this performed (8-21)
Original wound—patriarchy? What is patriarchy in a unified marriage? (27)
We are always in the process of uncovering our true selves. (42)
Wisdom is not knowing more, but knowing with more of you, knowing deeper. (42)
Through all things…our Mother, with our Father and Jesus, emanates from the creation of Her own hands. (43) Who is “Mother Earth?”
Every body is unique and will access its innate knowing differently. (44)
In modern life we have become so busy with our daily activities that we have lost this essential art of taking time to converse with the heart. What does your heart want you to remember? What does it need you to feel? Sit in stillness…allow your heart to reveal itself to you, whether for the first time or after a long separation. (45)
In the constancy of the sacred center, we feel the presence of the sacred within the daily mundane, carrying us through strains and sorrows. (46)
Through rituals “The finite is made eternal” (46).
Is the Mother missing from the temple?? (51) Be not blind!
“What it means to carry an unborn child, surrendering oneself in order for someone else to live and breathe, is known only in the female experience.” (54) Certainly male experience can never be female's. But do men not experience surrendering their own life pursuits in order to sustain their wives and children? What of giving their lives in protection of another?
Are our creative powers feared? (P 54) Do men have any power of us? Or is the belittling, minimizing, and ingratitude for our role coming from our own voice?
“Our bodies are inherently wise.” (55)
“So much possibility for connection comes from making room for the feminine experience in conversation…” (55) We are here to be heard. It is on us to teach our men how to hear us. They don’t naturally know!
“Our environmental crisis derives largely from a disassociation between people and the places they live.” (58)
“What would it be like, now in our times, to truly belong to each other and the earth.” (P 60)
We do not live in a painting where nature is nearly a backdrop but in a world where the divine is infused into every living thing: within our own limbs and hearts, within the food we eat and the soil that makes food possible, within the sun and moon that give light to our eyes. The seemingly paradoxical nature of deity being in and through all things as well as existing in their own bodies of flesh and bone is not, on second thought, paradoxical at all but the very definition of what it means to be divine and to experience the kind of *beingness* that our heavenly parents desire for us. (P 61)
Prosper=presence (to prosper in the land is to be in the Lord’s presence) (61)
“Attentiveness to creation offers epiphany, revelation, and transcendence.” (62)
What messages does nature tell me?
-You and I are bigger than your problems.
-everything is in kilter
-you are seen
-you are loved
-you are supported
-air, water, earth, fire, ether
We learn that being open to not knowing will bring more knowing. (62)
Mother God asks for the resounding reality of our oneness to be expressed to each other now, in this life. (63)
We are unique beings, yet we are full of forces and energies that collide and intertwine. (63)
Communion in community is everything to Mother Earth and Mother God. (64)
Joy is not found in storing up earthly treasures where moth and rust corrupt but in forging eternal bonds. (65)
What does it mean to be a vessel between the eternal and mortal realms? Pregnancy carries a cosmic and simultaneously intimate reach. (67)
While my world shifted and a new reality of who I was grew inside me, I turned to poetry, as a way to weave together all I had learned. By opening myself to this soup-expanding medium, I would co-create a new depth of perception. (67)
Christ pointing us to our “Mother” is simply reminding us of the need to gravitate away from the logic of our culture back to a better balance with heart & soul? (69)
To me, Sonntag's idea of cyclical, looping learning (69) is not a new one connected only with our Mother God. It IS line upon line learning. Check out Lifelong Conversion by Renlund, 2021.
Traveling down a straight path of masculine understanding…with the female path nowhere in sight? (69) While male understanding is encountered again and again in church leadership and in our homes, female understanding is right there next to it! Counseling in the Lord's way includes hearing all sides, making a unified decision (even if that means one bowing to the other, as long as one feels capable of unifying to the decision), moving forward, and learning from and honestly evaluating the outcomes together. This method is guaranteed to move all parties closer to a balanced center of truth. In the long run, male domination never has the final word.
“Just as the seed contains the tree, and the tree the seed, so the hidden world of God contains all Creation, and Creation, in turn, a revelation of the hidden world of God.” Roger Cook (77)
Wisdom (Mother God) as the anointing oil? Exo 30:23-25
As Alma teaches, [faith] is not a complete knowledge but our chosen relationship with the world. (85)
Faith is the ecstatic space between the realized and the yet to be. (85)
Imagination (84)
Your tree of life grows inside you, manifesting your eternal soul to yourself. Manifesting the divine inside yourself--a vision of the cosmos. You are a vision of the cosmos. (92)
Real faith ruptures boundaries. (95)
It’s not that men oppress, but that we as a people oppress the idea of heart as equal value to mind.
Love that she calls Her "Lady Wisdom." (80)
It took me months to slowly chew the ideas she presents. At first I was annoyed; I have been bothered in the past by others' "urgent" attempts to paint a picture of Her, simply for the sake of attaching *something*--to prove She is there. In my perception, our Heavenly Mother has *always been there*--right next to the Father--in communion with Their children and in leading Their work. Because of the perfect unity of deity, when "God" speaks, it is the voice of both of Them; and when we speak to "God," They both hear. I am not concerned with the gender-specifics. Scripture (3 Nephi 18:19–20) has directed us to begin our prayers by addressing our Heavenly Father, and I know too much of (moral) marriage to assert that addressing one is not addressing both. When, in every reference to Heavenly Father, could it not also be implied that Heavenly Mother is right there with Him? How can He love us perfectly and completely, without transcendent unity with female?
Yet, Sonntag's laboriously careful proposals quickly changed my annoyance into receptivity. Here are some of my thoughts. All understanding (including our perception of female presence) is something to be grown into. Mercifully, God always meets us where we are. As Sonntag points out (something I believe already all too clear): we live in an age of reason, a characteristically male attribution. Today, the way we (as males and females) process things is heavily trained on facts. Society swings from emphasizing fact to emphasizing feeling, and back. This is evidenced on a wide scale from the factual age of the Roman Empire, to the emotional superstitions of the Middle Ages. The ways we experience an unchanging religion as an imbalanced society will appear...changeable. Is the male to be blamed for the place it is today? Sonntag is right that there is a female "flavor" in our teaching whose role has been forgotten by many, particularly those immersed in the thinking of this age. However, I think it is wrong to assert that God's inspired organization of His gospel is a root to our flawed understanding. I also see profound evidence that this necessary "female flavor" is not lost on our prophetic leaders--time and again they have asserted society's need for the female voice to be advanced in homes, wards, and communities. I truly believe the female voice missing is the one many females are silencing *in themselves,* not one their male counterparts are seeking to quiet. By silencing their "femaleness," some women believe they are asserting their strength and equality to men.
To that end, I am not in the camp that men are or have been thoroughly malicious oppressors. Yes, there are terrible situations which honest disciples disavow, but they are not THE story of human existence that some feminist representatives would have us believe. The vast majority of both men and women (the workforce behind social endeavors both inside the home and out) act from true tenderness of heart. Giving benefit of doubt is not only kinder, but also most often the truth. Especially in the case of male church office, I am aware of heavy dependency upon their female counterparts (wife and council women). To me, this is an irreplaceable vehicle toward greater unification of the male/female perspective. If men do not remain the only qualified holders of specific office, where is their impetus into the deeper layers of understanding of what is uniquely female? Additionally, if women do not feel the need to teach female perspectives so that they have a place on "male" councils, where is their impetus? With male priorities (facts and reason) most often in command in both men and women's thinking today, there appears little need for the counterpart of this argument--to justify or explain men's views to women--though that is also necessary in this structure.
A word of caution. As we discuss proposed changes in any institution, it is important to be aware of our male-dominated societal priorities. Social justice warriors are an example of this. Social justice warriors believe that "the central fact of human existence is power and how it is used. ...Everything in life is understood through relationships of power....There is no such thing as objective truth; only power. Who decides what is true and what is false? Those who hold power" (Rod Dreher). The changes that our society needs will not come in redefining power structures, but in the steady, quiet, life-giving presence of female heartbeat. Truth is truth no matter who has momentary "power."
What are these female values of which I speak? Sonntag's book addresses many of them in a fairly philosophical way. Let me put them more clearly. Femininity nurtures the *feeling* of truth. Femininity works through stories, music, melodic expression, imagination (defined by one as "the thinking of the heart"), the *wisdom* to apply facts, the ability to *feel* the message between the lines. Have I lost you to fluff? That is evidence of the pervasive scourge of our mind-based society. There is no "fluff" in the exalting female qualities which acquaint us with truth. Consider his longing for deeper manifestations of our Mother God when President Nelson states: "My dear sisters, whatever your calling, whatever your circumstances--we need your impressions, your insights, and your inspiration. We need you to speak up and speak out in ward and stake councils. We need each married sister to speak as 'a contributing and full partner' as you unite with your husband in governing your family. Married or single, you sisters possess distinctive capabilities and special intuition you have received as gifts from God. We brethren cannot duplicate your unique influence." Both men and women long for the arts of female deity to be expressed in our existence today. It was said, "The heart feels; it doesn't analyze. In the end, it's the heart that shapes who we are." Hours of conference talks cannot produce the same experience that one inspiring song can. Our leaders do understand this, but how many of us walk out of the room as soon as the music plays--as if it's not part of the necessary message but a cue for halftime? I believe women have a great ability to see and account for truth beyond factual basics, to the deeper essence of a thing. However, many of us would need to stop acting like the debatable facts that society values are the only witnesses of value.
Our Mother God will become more clear to us as we embrace feminine qualities within ourselves, marrying those priorities with the masculine. I feel certain that all of us will see Her presence more symbolically around and in us, as has been Sonntag's experience shared in this book. While "emotional appeal" has been used to distract an audience from facts, it is not to be negated as truthless. Our *feelings* also teach us things to know, leading to a deeper knowing. This advancement of the female voice must not be done using male procedures. Our Mother God's attributes are *nurtured* into understanding. They are the job of a *nurturer.*
Is the Mother God gone from the core of our teachings? Or have we simply silenced our perceptions that reveal her? On page 68 Sonntag asks "What would it be like to have our Mother restored to our most sacred scripts and visionary spaces of the temple?" It might just look like more dwelling on symbolism, growing into "eyes to see." Perhaps it would look like more parabolic learning, less weight given to clear and factual statements, more value in connection, and more opportunities to learn through imagination (for "imagination alone enables man to realize eternity. The ordinary conceptions of the mind cannot embrace infinity or God." --Romancing the Heart by Marlene Peterson). In this campaign, we allow for a deeper understanding and living of Christ's gospel--of our harmonized selves. It is not brought about through argument, criticism, or fact-calls. Deep [gospel] living is nurtured into place through the gentle, feminine arts of the heart.
Nuggets from the book to chew on:
I enjoyed seeing Sonntag quote from Women Who Run With Wolves--a personal favorite of mine. (p 10)
How to be in the pain to find pain’s cure: “Turning into our own pain, we allow it to fully express itself so that our hearts can experience it completely.” (P 10)
You be the Master: make yourself fierce, break in:
Then your great transforming will happen to me,
And my great grief cry will happen to you. —Rainer Maria Rilke (11)
The creation story is so familiar that sometimes we are not able to hear it. (17)
Deeply enjoyed Sonntag’s Creation retelling. Would love to hear this performed (8-21)
Original wound—patriarchy? What is patriarchy in a unified marriage? (27)
We are always in the process of uncovering our true selves. (42)
Wisdom is not knowing more, but knowing with more of you, knowing deeper. (42)
Through all things…our Mother, with our Father and Jesus, emanates from the creation of Her own hands. (43) Who is “Mother Earth?”
Every body is unique and will access its innate knowing differently. (44)
In modern life we have become so busy with our daily activities that we have lost this essential art of taking time to converse with the heart. What does your heart want you to remember? What does it need you to feel? Sit in stillness…allow your heart to reveal itself to you, whether for the first time or after a long separation. (45)
In the constancy of the sacred center, we feel the presence of the sacred within the daily mundane, carrying us through strains and sorrows. (46)
Through rituals “The finite is made eternal” (46).
Is the Mother missing from the temple?? (51) Be not blind!
“What it means to carry an unborn child, surrendering oneself in order for someone else to live and breathe, is known only in the female experience.” (54) Certainly male experience can never be female's. But do men not experience surrendering their own life pursuits in order to sustain their wives and children? What of giving their lives in protection of another?
Are our creative powers feared? (P 54) Do men have any power of us? Or is the belittling, minimizing, and ingratitude for our role coming from our own voice?
“Our bodies are inherently wise.” (55)
“So much possibility for connection comes from making room for the feminine experience in conversation…” (55) We are here to be heard. It is on us to teach our men how to hear us. They don’t naturally know!
“Our environmental crisis derives largely from a disassociation between people and the places they live.” (58)
“What would it be like, now in our times, to truly belong to each other and the earth.” (P 60)
We do not live in a painting where nature is nearly a backdrop but in a world where the divine is infused into every living thing: within our own limbs and hearts, within the food we eat and the soil that makes food possible, within the sun and moon that give light to our eyes. The seemingly paradoxical nature of deity being in and through all things as well as existing in their own bodies of flesh and bone is not, on second thought, paradoxical at all but the very definition of what it means to be divine and to experience the kind of *beingness* that our heavenly parents desire for us. (P 61)
Prosper=presence (to prosper in the land is to be in the Lord’s presence) (61)
“Attentiveness to creation offers epiphany, revelation, and transcendence.” (62)
What messages does nature tell me?
-You and I are bigger than your problems.
-everything is in kilter
-you are seen
-you are loved
-you are supported
-air, water, earth, fire, ether
We learn that being open to not knowing will bring more knowing. (62)
Mother God asks for the resounding reality of our oneness to be expressed to each other now, in this life. (63)
We are unique beings, yet we are full of forces and energies that collide and intertwine. (63)
Communion in community is everything to Mother Earth and Mother God. (64)
Joy is not found in storing up earthly treasures where moth and rust corrupt but in forging eternal bonds. (65)
What does it mean to be a vessel between the eternal and mortal realms? Pregnancy carries a cosmic and simultaneously intimate reach. (67)
While my world shifted and a new reality of who I was grew inside me, I turned to poetry, as a way to weave together all I had learned. By opening myself to this soup-expanding medium, I would co-create a new depth of perception. (67)
Christ pointing us to our “Mother” is simply reminding us of the need to gravitate away from the logic of our culture back to a better balance with heart & soul? (69)
To me, Sonntag's idea of cyclical, looping learning (69) is not a new one connected only with our Mother God. It IS line upon line learning. Check out Lifelong Conversion by Renlund, 2021.
Traveling down a straight path of masculine understanding…with the female path nowhere in sight? (69) While male understanding is encountered again and again in church leadership and in our homes, female understanding is right there next to it! Counseling in the Lord's way includes hearing all sides, making a unified decision (even if that means one bowing to the other, as long as one feels capable of unifying to the decision), moving forward, and learning from and honestly evaluating the outcomes together. This method is guaranteed to move all parties closer to a balanced center of truth. In the long run, male domination never has the final word.
“Just as the seed contains the tree, and the tree the seed, so the hidden world of God contains all Creation, and Creation, in turn, a revelation of the hidden world of God.” Roger Cook (77)
Wisdom (Mother God) as the anointing oil? Exo 30:23-25
As Alma teaches, [faith] is not a complete knowledge but our chosen relationship with the world. (85)
Faith is the ecstatic space between the realized and the yet to be. (85)
Imagination (84)
Your tree of life grows inside you, manifesting your eternal soul to yourself. Manifesting the divine inside yourself--a vision of the cosmos. You are a vision of the cosmos. (92)
Real faith ruptures boundaries. (95)
It’s not that men oppress, but that we as a people oppress the idea of heart as equal value to mind.
Love that she calls Her "Lady Wisdom." (80)
December 11, 2024
I so appreciated the permission to wonder, think about, and explore our Mother. I believe it changes how we see everything, including ourselves.
Some of my fav parts:
In Genesis, Moses, and the Book of Abraham, the man Adam, spirit and element, receives instruction from the Gods not to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil before Eve is created and housed in flesh. I believe that this element is underemphasized and exposes a crucial theological gap, which is that Eve is an independent source of agency and discernment in the Garden. If it is true that God did not instruct Eve not to partake of the fruit, then the instruction would have come through Adam, and God would have made that choice for a reason. God knew what would unfold, and God knew that Eve was capable of using her knowledge of the plan of salvation, her bodily intuition and spiritual gifts, to determine a path forward for the children she would bring into the world. Her creative desires and wisdom have long been denigrated by Christian theologians, which has created suspicion about women's role in the Church that is completely unwarranted. With the tree of life planted in the Garden, Eve would have felt the influence of the Mother, a guide on the path to mortality and Eve's role as Mother of All Living.
While we know from Genesis 3 and Moses 43¹ that she is aware of the command and its source, the order of events from these accounts asks us to consider Adam separate from the authority of Eve and from the creative ordinances of women. The ordinances of women include ordinances of embodiment. As Valerie Hudson puts it so beautifully, "The word ordinance means a physical act with deep spiritual meaning. So certainly pregnancy, childbirth, [and] lactation are all ordinances of the gospel. They cannot be otherwise. They are clearly the priestesshood ordinances presided over by women."32 Surely Eve, as Mother of All Living, presided over the ordinances of embodiment and had knowledge from the Mother to make her decision.
Was it possible, then, for the Gods to ask Eve to go against herself and the very purpose of her creation?
Mother God teaches that “wisdom is not knowing more, but knowing with more of you, knowing deeper.”
Let’s look at some of the signs pointing us to Asherah, Lady Wisdom, in the Book of Mormon. Daniel C. Peterson, among other scholars, makes the connection between the tree of life in Lehi's vision and Asherah. Lehi and his family were contemporaries of the prophet Jeremiah who lived during the purges of the Jerusalem temple. Peterson argues that Lehi and Nephi would have known of Asherah and Her symbol as the tree of life and that this association would make sense of the instant recognition by Nephi of the tree as "the love of God." In Peter-son's words, "Nephi's vision reflects a meaning of the 'sacred tree' that is unique to the ancient Near East. Asherah is ... associated with biblical wisdom literature. Wisdom, a female, appears as the wife of God and represents life."
Some of the Israelite descendants turned away from the Mother into wickedness, while others learned from Her wis-dom. In Mosiah 8, King Limhi has just learned about seership and connected its absence to the children of men hardening their hearts against wisdom. Perhaps wisdom and seership were still connected in his mind. Perhaps he inherited some knowledge of Her: "O how marvelous are the works of the Lord, and how long doth he suffer with his people; yea, and how blind and impenetrable are the understandings of the children of men for they will not seek wisdom, neither do they desire that she rule over them.”
Learning to see the Mother in the world begins with learning to love our physical bodies-their transient materiality, limitations, and pains, as well as their capacity for awe, joy and transcendence. By listening to what they communicate, we cultivate their unique wisdom, increasing our capacity to con- nect with ourselves and each other in loving ways.
Reapproaching our relationship to the female body opens us to wisdom unique to the female experience and rooted in the cycles of the female body. The overly masculinized world doesn't adequately value the balancing of these cycles, which are intrinsic to our Mother and mirrored in the earth. Rever- encing Her has everything to do with trusting in the mysteri- ousness and sacredness of these cycles. How menstruation, for example, is seen as something dirty, secret, and outside of the world demonstrates this disconnect. Disdain for and ignorance of the reproductive cycle of a woman's body, and the embar- rassment women are taught to feel about their sexuality, negate the sacredness of their place as the source of life from which we all come.
Many women are taught from a young age, directly and indirectly, that the primal workings of their bodies are some- thing to hide and never speak of, unless they are mentioned somewhat disparagingly. Yet these processes are the very fabric of creation, allowing the sacred work of soul union-spirit and body-to happen, allowing all our heavenly parents' children to come into mortality. If Mother God is the archetype of the woman, it makes sense that seeing the sacredness in Her daugh- ters is a precursor to seeing and honoring Her. The generative power in a woman's body-a tree of life in its own right-is the representation of the creative mystery that is the Mother.
Many women face the life-death-life cycle of creation in pregnancy. For many, carrying a child can feel like balancing on the precipice of life and death, waiting for the mysteries of creation working in one's womb to unfold. Within that hidden chamber of the womb, cells speak to cells, and life is either granted, refused, or taken. In that holy of holies, cells become heart cells or lung cells-the Gods brooding over the face of the waters-singing into being, speaking the language of fiber and tissue, of marrow and sinew.
Pregnancy is nine months of unparalleled transforma- tion. More chemical changes occur in a woman's brain during pregnancy than at any other time of her life." The DNA of her male child or children becomes incorporated into hers. Many women leave pregnancy scarred with a range of ongoing com- plications: hip and spinal misalignments; diastasis recti; tinni- tus; receding gum lines; incontinence; joint pain; postpartum depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), to name a few. After my first child was born, I experienced post- partum depression that lasted for over a year. In this absence of vitality, I found myself often feeling ambivalent about life and my new child. While I tried to work through the root cause and seek help, I struggled to verbalize my experience to anyone; it felt like an illness of loneliness. Even in my husband's care, there was no way to communicate with him in a way he could understand, as a man who would never birth a child. It felt impossible that many of those I loved continued on without grasping the severity of my condition and were unable to truly ever reach me; mental illness is not something you can see. I did not really know of its severity until I found my way out of its grasp. I am different now. I live with a new capacity for both disconnection and vulnerability, which can be scary and has brought me greater intimacy with those who have suffered in similar ways.
Jesus’s very life is testament of-the embodied way, the completed one, the union of our Mother and Father, ultimately He points us to Them.
I see Him pointing us to Her. He knows we each need one on one time with our Mother.
As we have seen, an unknown Mother means our vision of ourselves is not healthy.
While pregnancy and childbirth are quintessential in their expressions of the divine ordination of women to creative powers, mothers aren't necessarily privy to a greater understanding of our Mother. As children of Mother God, we are all formed from Her sacred being, and every woman carries the symbolism of the tree of life in her body, whether or not she is a mother on earth. Like any other spiritual knowledge, the specificity of how we, all of heavenly parents' children, come to understand the symbolism of the female body and its unique meaning in the world is dependent on our own personal inquiry and development.
In coming to understand the female body, we all live our unique doctrine that affirms our physicality as divine, capable of sacred union with spirit and mind, from which the wisdom of our heavenly parents emerges and expands our eternal capacities. Our bodies are inherently wise, not inherently sinful. Learning what it is to truly inhabit our bodies and to respect the bodies of others is a major part of our earth-bound quest.
So much possibility for connection comes from making room for the feminine experience in conversation and storytelling, in learning and speaking with reverence about lived experiences. Female wisdom about the cycles of life can inform the way we all live-moving in harmony between periods of productivity and rest, for example-and weave into how we demonstrate reverence for sacred life all around us as we make small and large decisions.
Beautifully, the female body stands for the opposite of hierarchy; it represents networks of healthy systems that are dependent on each other and that cannot exist in isolation or prize one life above another. The female body expresses the beauty, value, and love found in relationality. Understanding its real power and sacred symbolism allows us to love wholly and integrally, to create space for the feminine in our collective healing, which is the same as creating space for the Mother. Changing our discussion about, and portrayals of, the female body to reflect eternal truths communicates to our Mother that we want Her to be a part of our lives and that we want to hear what She has to say.
These accounts of imaginal trees of life from scripture add incredible depth to the idea that we carry the kingdom inside us. Our celestial home is not only a future, glorified Earth; "heaven is... a state into which we are invited now."
Eternity is now.
We see the divine and sacred woven throughout all of creation. We move closer to seeing as the Gods, with "all present before our eyes." We fulfill prophecy: "And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams."39 We trust our imaginations. In this sense we are beginning to rise above all things. We become free from the desires of a telestial realm.
She is the recognition of sorrow as the true wild. Our Mother Tree teaches us that sorrow, fear, loss, death, dissolution, and decay make joy, love, connection, and rebirth possible. She teaches us how to go to the grief and to not turn our back on it. She teaches us that our imagination catalyzes compassion. Our ability to bridge our intellectual and sensorial expe- riences of life into an empathetic imagining of another's sorrow binds us together in tender acknowledgment and reverence. We surrender to heartbreak, knowing that it is in sorrow with someone else that we truly learn what is worth living for. In love for all that is tender inside ourselves and the world, we find that life and death are two hands folded together. She is with us as we learn how sorrow sustains and roots us to ourselves. She asks for us to feel past all our intellectual work of making the world into a series of symbols, to just be in presence with the sentient beings all around. She knows that in this sacred space of consciousness with all creation, we will find integrity. And through integrity, communion. She sets us on the path toward the profound and saving compassion that Jesus perfectly embodies.
Through the whisperings of Lady Wisdom, I have come to see enlightenment as intimacy with all things. My covenantal commitment to mourn with those who mourn and to comfort those who stand in need of comfort is the only path to illumina- tion and, thus, joy. For it is only in going to the place of sorrow with those who are sorrowing that I can truly mourn with. It is a joining of sorrows, a weaving of roots, a tender turning to each other that bears the fruit of love. Seeing ourselves in each other, my sorrow as your sorrow, yours as mine, is love. And in that love is the only joy. This kind of joining is the only path to knowing Mother and Father God. And that knowing is life eternal. That knowing is joy.
With all that the tree symbolizes-immortality, the divine center and source of life, sustenance of life, life everlasting, wisdom, the abode of the gods, the ascension of the soul-we learn what it means to uncover our true identities, to be healed and whole, sovereign children of the Divine Father and the Divine Mother. Access to this path of healing is offered to us through the grace of Christ's atonement, which is the result of the fully integrated love and power of the feminine and masculine powers of creation and being.
As children of God, it is in our nature to seek soul work and communion. The essence of goodness inside each of us yearns for the wisdom of our Mother, for unity and love, because we know intuitively, instinctually, that we are nothing alone. Without love we are nothing. Without connection we are unable to feel. It is only through others that we learn patience, sorrow, anger, frustration, and regret. As hooks states, "When we choose to love we choose to move against fear-against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect to find ourselves in the other."
The Mother teaches me that love is the fabric of creation, the only true power and authority. I feel this truth reverberate inside me, and I consider creation made of the same love that literally runs through each of us.
Like the structure of a tree's canopy, in Mother God's pattern of spiritual growth is repetition with variety: we are repeatedly asked to break our hearts open so that they may grow and accept more and more love, though each specific way we come to that breaking point changes over the course of our lives. Feminine wisdom interweaves the necessity for cyclical ascents and descents into the realm of the roots with the more masculine movement of linear progression. United, they create an upward spiral of transformation.
In contrast, we see many attempting a purely upward trajectory, demarcated by performative markers. This futile path, described in scripture as "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth," is exemplified by the Pharisees of the New Testament and in the story of the Tower of Babel. Those invested in the tower tried, as many have, to get to heaven without doing the radical (and radial) soul work required. They attempted to build an outward manifestation of what they should have been cultivating inside: communion with God. Thinking they could climb to heaven, they rejected their own transformation path, their hearts, and God Themselves in the process.
As expressed in the conceptualization of yin and yang, the feminine and masculine reside inside each of us. As children of divine parents, we each hold within ourselves the potential of a full realization of feminine and masculine qualities. And because we are all unique individuals, unique expressions are expected. There isn't a prescribed way to manifest these parts of us or the expectation that we must relate with all iterations on an infinite spectrum. Part of coming to know deity (and ourselves) is being able to sift out what true femininity and true masculinity are for us as opposed to traditions or cultural con- structs. It takes a balance of perspectives and gifts to fully actu- alize our potential. It requires that the masculine awakes from the slumber of the Garden and remembers wholeness is not without the feminine, and that the feminine in turn learns to recognize and trust healthy expressions of the masculine. It is a never-ending journey toward a more integral form of self that develops sovereignty and true power, anchored in generosity.
Just as the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was insufficient to save Eve and Adam, the knowledge alone of good and evil in our lives is not enough to save us. All the sets of dualities of the tree of knowledge transform by purpose and love through the tree of life, the tree of wisdom. Described by Nephi as the fruit of the tree of life, the offspring of the Mother, Jesus is reborn through His reconciliation of the disparities of this world. We, in turning to the tree of life, awaken to the reality that we must also become the reconciliation. It is our destiny also to become whole through the tree of life.
As we see so perfectly manifest in Jesus, in His balancing of the feminine and masculine principles of spiritual growth, it is impossible to have unity with ourselves and God without submitting to the mysteries of God's hidden world. It feels more than possible that Mother God taught Her son, Jesus, how to contain multitudes." Multitudes of souls, identities, ideas, and perspectives-all the shades of darkness and light necessary to embody every living soul and so then be empowered to know the world wholly. In this knowing is the power to harmonize the world, to grow Her children, to push them to the edge of their knowledge and then teach them how to weave new patterns: how to co-create the world anew alongside the Gods.
Real faith ruptures boundaries.
Finding our individual balance of the feminine and mas- culine wisdom that our Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father have allows for our souls' rest. Now. In this life.
Greater sovereignty in our spiritual journeys teaches that there is not just one Sacred Grove but that there are groves everywhere, and you and I can and must enter as part of the rolling out of light and truth, the expansion of the ongoing Restoration. The Mother is also our guide into the heart of our groves. She is here to teach us obscured portions of the ascension path, to round out our theology of argumentation and creed with the theology of the body, a theology of the ineffable, the mysterious, the symbolic, the cellular song, the intuitive knowing so beautifully expressed in Her Son, Jesus the Christ. She confirms His teachings that there is no domination in God.
She is the veil parted, the signs given, our spiritual eyes open, our tongues loosed with the gift of prophecy. "She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her; those who hold her fast will be blessed." I await the return of Lady Wisdom and see many engaged in preparing a way for Her to usher in an order and peace that weaves together all knowledge and truth in one great Restoration.
I imagine Mother God, the Mother Tree returned from exile-our inner landscapes unburdened by the blindness of mortality, our attachment to power surrendered, and Earth finally at rest. I envision a world anointed by Her dew-Her love-and hope quickens my heart.
Some of my fav parts:
In Genesis, Moses, and the Book of Abraham, the man Adam, spirit and element, receives instruction from the Gods not to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil before Eve is created and housed in flesh. I believe that this element is underemphasized and exposes a crucial theological gap, which is that Eve is an independent source of agency and discernment in the Garden. If it is true that God did not instruct Eve not to partake of the fruit, then the instruction would have come through Adam, and God would have made that choice for a reason. God knew what would unfold, and God knew that Eve was capable of using her knowledge of the plan of salvation, her bodily intuition and spiritual gifts, to determine a path forward for the children she would bring into the world. Her creative desires and wisdom have long been denigrated by Christian theologians, which has created suspicion about women's role in the Church that is completely unwarranted. With the tree of life planted in the Garden, Eve would have felt the influence of the Mother, a guide on the path to mortality and Eve's role as Mother of All Living.
While we know from Genesis 3 and Moses 43¹ that she is aware of the command and its source, the order of events from these accounts asks us to consider Adam separate from the authority of Eve and from the creative ordinances of women. The ordinances of women include ordinances of embodiment. As Valerie Hudson puts it so beautifully, "The word ordinance means a physical act with deep spiritual meaning. So certainly pregnancy, childbirth, [and] lactation are all ordinances of the gospel. They cannot be otherwise. They are clearly the priestesshood ordinances presided over by women."32 Surely Eve, as Mother of All Living, presided over the ordinances of embodiment and had knowledge from the Mother to make her decision.
Was it possible, then, for the Gods to ask Eve to go against herself and the very purpose of her creation?
Mother God teaches that “wisdom is not knowing more, but knowing with more of you, knowing deeper.”
Let’s look at some of the signs pointing us to Asherah, Lady Wisdom, in the Book of Mormon. Daniel C. Peterson, among other scholars, makes the connection between the tree of life in Lehi's vision and Asherah. Lehi and his family were contemporaries of the prophet Jeremiah who lived during the purges of the Jerusalem temple. Peterson argues that Lehi and Nephi would have known of Asherah and Her symbol as the tree of life and that this association would make sense of the instant recognition by Nephi of the tree as "the love of God." In Peter-son's words, "Nephi's vision reflects a meaning of the 'sacred tree' that is unique to the ancient Near East. Asherah is ... associated with biblical wisdom literature. Wisdom, a female, appears as the wife of God and represents life."
Some of the Israelite descendants turned away from the Mother into wickedness, while others learned from Her wis-dom. In Mosiah 8, King Limhi has just learned about seership and connected its absence to the children of men hardening their hearts against wisdom. Perhaps wisdom and seership were still connected in his mind. Perhaps he inherited some knowledge of Her: "O how marvelous are the works of the Lord, and how long doth he suffer with his people; yea, and how blind and impenetrable are the understandings of the children of men for they will not seek wisdom, neither do they desire that she rule over them.”
Learning to see the Mother in the world begins with learning to love our physical bodies-their transient materiality, limitations, and pains, as well as their capacity for awe, joy and transcendence. By listening to what they communicate, we cultivate their unique wisdom, increasing our capacity to con- nect with ourselves and each other in loving ways.
Reapproaching our relationship to the female body opens us to wisdom unique to the female experience and rooted in the cycles of the female body. The overly masculinized world doesn't adequately value the balancing of these cycles, which are intrinsic to our Mother and mirrored in the earth. Rever- encing Her has everything to do with trusting in the mysteri- ousness and sacredness of these cycles. How menstruation, for example, is seen as something dirty, secret, and outside of the world demonstrates this disconnect. Disdain for and ignorance of the reproductive cycle of a woman's body, and the embar- rassment women are taught to feel about their sexuality, negate the sacredness of their place as the source of life from which we all come.
Many women are taught from a young age, directly and indirectly, that the primal workings of their bodies are some- thing to hide and never speak of, unless they are mentioned somewhat disparagingly. Yet these processes are the very fabric of creation, allowing the sacred work of soul union-spirit and body-to happen, allowing all our heavenly parents' children to come into mortality. If Mother God is the archetype of the woman, it makes sense that seeing the sacredness in Her daugh- ters is a precursor to seeing and honoring Her. The generative power in a woman's body-a tree of life in its own right-is the representation of the creative mystery that is the Mother.
Many women face the life-death-life cycle of creation in pregnancy. For many, carrying a child can feel like balancing on the precipice of life and death, waiting for the mysteries of creation working in one's womb to unfold. Within that hidden chamber of the womb, cells speak to cells, and life is either granted, refused, or taken. In that holy of holies, cells become heart cells or lung cells-the Gods brooding over the face of the waters-singing into being, speaking the language of fiber and tissue, of marrow and sinew.
Pregnancy is nine months of unparalleled transforma- tion. More chemical changes occur in a woman's brain during pregnancy than at any other time of her life." The DNA of her male child or children becomes incorporated into hers. Many women leave pregnancy scarred with a range of ongoing com- plications: hip and spinal misalignments; diastasis recti; tinni- tus; receding gum lines; incontinence; joint pain; postpartum depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), to name a few. After my first child was born, I experienced post- partum depression that lasted for over a year. In this absence of vitality, I found myself often feeling ambivalent about life and my new child. While I tried to work through the root cause and seek help, I struggled to verbalize my experience to anyone; it felt like an illness of loneliness. Even in my husband's care, there was no way to communicate with him in a way he could understand, as a man who would never birth a child. It felt impossible that many of those I loved continued on without grasping the severity of my condition and were unable to truly ever reach me; mental illness is not something you can see. I did not really know of its severity until I found my way out of its grasp. I am different now. I live with a new capacity for both disconnection and vulnerability, which can be scary and has brought me greater intimacy with those who have suffered in similar ways.
Jesus’s very life is testament of-the embodied way, the completed one, the union of our Mother and Father, ultimately He points us to Them.
I see Him pointing us to Her. He knows we each need one on one time with our Mother.
As we have seen, an unknown Mother means our vision of ourselves is not healthy.
While pregnancy and childbirth are quintessential in their expressions of the divine ordination of women to creative powers, mothers aren't necessarily privy to a greater understanding of our Mother. As children of Mother God, we are all formed from Her sacred being, and every woman carries the symbolism of the tree of life in her body, whether or not she is a mother on earth. Like any other spiritual knowledge, the specificity of how we, all of heavenly parents' children, come to understand the symbolism of the female body and its unique meaning in the world is dependent on our own personal inquiry and development.
In coming to understand the female body, we all live our unique doctrine that affirms our physicality as divine, capable of sacred union with spirit and mind, from which the wisdom of our heavenly parents emerges and expands our eternal capacities. Our bodies are inherently wise, not inherently sinful. Learning what it is to truly inhabit our bodies and to respect the bodies of others is a major part of our earth-bound quest.
So much possibility for connection comes from making room for the feminine experience in conversation and storytelling, in learning and speaking with reverence about lived experiences. Female wisdom about the cycles of life can inform the way we all live-moving in harmony between periods of productivity and rest, for example-and weave into how we demonstrate reverence for sacred life all around us as we make small and large decisions.
Beautifully, the female body stands for the opposite of hierarchy; it represents networks of healthy systems that are dependent on each other and that cannot exist in isolation or prize one life above another. The female body expresses the beauty, value, and love found in relationality. Understanding its real power and sacred symbolism allows us to love wholly and integrally, to create space for the feminine in our collective healing, which is the same as creating space for the Mother. Changing our discussion about, and portrayals of, the female body to reflect eternal truths communicates to our Mother that we want Her to be a part of our lives and that we want to hear what She has to say.
These accounts of imaginal trees of life from scripture add incredible depth to the idea that we carry the kingdom inside us. Our celestial home is not only a future, glorified Earth; "heaven is... a state into which we are invited now."
Eternity is now.
We see the divine and sacred woven throughout all of creation. We move closer to seeing as the Gods, with "all present before our eyes." We fulfill prophecy: "And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams."39 We trust our imaginations. In this sense we are beginning to rise above all things. We become free from the desires of a telestial realm.
She is the recognition of sorrow as the true wild. Our Mother Tree teaches us that sorrow, fear, loss, death, dissolution, and decay make joy, love, connection, and rebirth possible. She teaches us how to go to the grief and to not turn our back on it. She teaches us that our imagination catalyzes compassion. Our ability to bridge our intellectual and sensorial expe- riences of life into an empathetic imagining of another's sorrow binds us together in tender acknowledgment and reverence. We surrender to heartbreak, knowing that it is in sorrow with someone else that we truly learn what is worth living for. In love for all that is tender inside ourselves and the world, we find that life and death are two hands folded together. She is with us as we learn how sorrow sustains and roots us to ourselves. She asks for us to feel past all our intellectual work of making the world into a series of symbols, to just be in presence with the sentient beings all around. She knows that in this sacred space of consciousness with all creation, we will find integrity. And through integrity, communion. She sets us on the path toward the profound and saving compassion that Jesus perfectly embodies.
Through the whisperings of Lady Wisdom, I have come to see enlightenment as intimacy with all things. My covenantal commitment to mourn with those who mourn and to comfort those who stand in need of comfort is the only path to illumina- tion and, thus, joy. For it is only in going to the place of sorrow with those who are sorrowing that I can truly mourn with. It is a joining of sorrows, a weaving of roots, a tender turning to each other that bears the fruit of love. Seeing ourselves in each other, my sorrow as your sorrow, yours as mine, is love. And in that love is the only joy. This kind of joining is the only path to knowing Mother and Father God. And that knowing is life eternal. That knowing is joy.
With all that the tree symbolizes-immortality, the divine center and source of life, sustenance of life, life everlasting, wisdom, the abode of the gods, the ascension of the soul-we learn what it means to uncover our true identities, to be healed and whole, sovereign children of the Divine Father and the Divine Mother. Access to this path of healing is offered to us through the grace of Christ's atonement, which is the result of the fully integrated love and power of the feminine and masculine powers of creation and being.
As children of God, it is in our nature to seek soul work and communion. The essence of goodness inside each of us yearns for the wisdom of our Mother, for unity and love, because we know intuitively, instinctually, that we are nothing alone. Without love we are nothing. Without connection we are unable to feel. It is only through others that we learn patience, sorrow, anger, frustration, and regret. As hooks states, "When we choose to love we choose to move against fear-against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect to find ourselves in the other."
The Mother teaches me that love is the fabric of creation, the only true power and authority. I feel this truth reverberate inside me, and I consider creation made of the same love that literally runs through each of us.
Like the structure of a tree's canopy, in Mother God's pattern of spiritual growth is repetition with variety: we are repeatedly asked to break our hearts open so that they may grow and accept more and more love, though each specific way we come to that breaking point changes over the course of our lives. Feminine wisdom interweaves the necessity for cyclical ascents and descents into the realm of the roots with the more masculine movement of linear progression. United, they create an upward spiral of transformation.
In contrast, we see many attempting a purely upward trajectory, demarcated by performative markers. This futile path, described in scripture as "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth," is exemplified by the Pharisees of the New Testament and in the story of the Tower of Babel. Those invested in the tower tried, as many have, to get to heaven without doing the radical (and radial) soul work required. They attempted to build an outward manifestation of what they should have been cultivating inside: communion with God. Thinking they could climb to heaven, they rejected their own transformation path, their hearts, and God Themselves in the process.
As expressed in the conceptualization of yin and yang, the feminine and masculine reside inside each of us. As children of divine parents, we each hold within ourselves the potential of a full realization of feminine and masculine qualities. And because we are all unique individuals, unique expressions are expected. There isn't a prescribed way to manifest these parts of us or the expectation that we must relate with all iterations on an infinite spectrum. Part of coming to know deity (and ourselves) is being able to sift out what true femininity and true masculinity are for us as opposed to traditions or cultural con- structs. It takes a balance of perspectives and gifts to fully actu- alize our potential. It requires that the masculine awakes from the slumber of the Garden and remembers wholeness is not without the feminine, and that the feminine in turn learns to recognize and trust healthy expressions of the masculine. It is a never-ending journey toward a more integral form of self that develops sovereignty and true power, anchored in generosity.
Just as the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was insufficient to save Eve and Adam, the knowledge alone of good and evil in our lives is not enough to save us. All the sets of dualities of the tree of knowledge transform by purpose and love through the tree of life, the tree of wisdom. Described by Nephi as the fruit of the tree of life, the offspring of the Mother, Jesus is reborn through His reconciliation of the disparities of this world. We, in turning to the tree of life, awaken to the reality that we must also become the reconciliation. It is our destiny also to become whole through the tree of life.
As we see so perfectly manifest in Jesus, in His balancing of the feminine and masculine principles of spiritual growth, it is impossible to have unity with ourselves and God without submitting to the mysteries of God's hidden world. It feels more than possible that Mother God taught Her son, Jesus, how to contain multitudes." Multitudes of souls, identities, ideas, and perspectives-all the shades of darkness and light necessary to embody every living soul and so then be empowered to know the world wholly. In this knowing is the power to harmonize the world, to grow Her children, to push them to the edge of their knowledge and then teach them how to weave new patterns: how to co-create the world anew alongside the Gods.
Real faith ruptures boundaries.
Finding our individual balance of the feminine and mas- culine wisdom that our Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father have allows for our souls' rest. Now. In this life.
Greater sovereignty in our spiritual journeys teaches that there is not just one Sacred Grove but that there are groves everywhere, and you and I can and must enter as part of the rolling out of light and truth, the expansion of the ongoing Restoration. The Mother is also our guide into the heart of our groves. She is here to teach us obscured portions of the ascension path, to round out our theology of argumentation and creed with the theology of the body, a theology of the ineffable, the mysterious, the symbolic, the cellular song, the intuitive knowing so beautifully expressed in Her Son, Jesus the Christ. She confirms His teachings that there is no domination in God.
She is the veil parted, the signs given, our spiritual eyes open, our tongues loosed with the gift of prophecy. "She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her; those who hold her fast will be blessed." I await the return of Lady Wisdom and see many engaged in preparing a way for Her to usher in an order and peace that weaves together all knowledge and truth in one great Restoration.
I imagine Mother God, the Mother Tree returned from exile-our inner landscapes unburdened by the blindness of mortality, our attachment to power surrendered, and Earth finally at rest. I envision a world anointed by Her dew-Her love-and hope quickens my heart.
January 20, 2023
🏆 2022 BIBA® Non-Fiction: Religion Winner!
May 22, 2022
This book was fabulous. The writing was amazing and I cannot wait to read it again to cut through more layers and find more meaning. It was spiritually uplifting and I highly recommend to anyone wanting to learn more about and connect with the divine feminine. This is not a 5 for two reasons. First I found some of the research oversimplified. For example, when discussing the history of the patriarchy she just cited one possible explanation and the citation was to a newspaper article. The author could have benefited from exploring Gerda Lerner’s work. Second I thought the fact that she conflated motherhood with womanhood highly problematic. Not all women are nurturers or want to be mothers, but still desire a connection with a Mother in Heaven. Also not all Mothers identify as women. There was also some Gender Essentialism, but I can disagree on something with an author and still respect the book.
June 1, 2022
Thoughtfully and beautifully written. Poetic and filling. There were many parts of this book that I was able to relate my lived experience to. A fantastic guide through imagery of the mother tree and growth as we come into relationship with a feminine divine.
December 26, 2024
I’ve read this amazing book through twice and reference it often. I’ve underlined passages and filled its margins with so many notes. What I found most remarkable is its springboard effect on me. The book will present a new way of looking at something or an idea I’ve never thought of in that way and a channel of inspiration would open. A conduit! That’s what this book is. And one of the best singular sources to better know Heavenly Mother and the divine feminine, made even more deeply felt by the connection with nature. A transformative book.
August 27, 2025
Kathryn has such a beautiful way with words and the depth of her knowledge in ecology makes this such a fully explored paradigm for seeking Heavenly Mother.
I underlined so much of this small book. So grateful for her scholarship, her wisdom, and her gift for weaving words into such powerful and fruitful ideas.
I underlined so much of this small book. So grateful for her scholarship, her wisdom, and her gift for weaving words into such powerful and fruitful ideas.
August 9, 2022
3.5 stars. I was excited to read this book after listening to Kathryn on the Faith Matters podcast. Unfortunately, while I loved her insights and experiences in seeking, pondering, and receiving, her thoughts and connections on the mother tree and our Divine Mother were hard for me to follow. This may be more of a commentary on me than on her writing, but thankfully I was able to find a lot of other nuggets of wisdom scattered throughout.
Favorite quotes:
-“I believe asking questions and exploring possibilities are indispensable ways to show love and reverence for revealed truth.” p.viii
-“Further exploration of the Mother is part of the unfolding Restoration in our hearts.” p.ix
-“Our scriptures become alive and bright, responsive and renewed, by our engagement with them.” p.xii
-“Wisdom about Her becomes wisdom from Her; in knowing Her, we are changed into truer versions of ourselves with eyes more able to see that She has been with us all along.” p.2
-“Thy mind…if thou would lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost Heavens, and search into and contemplate the lowest considerations of the darkest abyss, and expand upon the broad considerations of eternal expanse. Thou must commune with God.” Joseph Smith p.7
-“My life has taught me that deep feeling blooms deep knowing. And deep feeling requires deep listening. P.8
-“I have found that it is in the recognition of the distance and the desire to close the gap that we are tenderly cared for. The goal is to remove as much of the distortions and noise around our true essence and beauty, and thus Theirs, as we can.” (those that do not comprehend the character of God do not comprehend themselves) p. 13
-“Learning to listen to the silences, to the great pauses and stillness from moment to moment, may be our greatest quest…Mother God can be in plain sight and we miss Her because of the state of our hearts or the our distracted minds” p.62-63
-The ordinances of embodiment (pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation) presided over by women (ordinance-physical act with deep spiritual meaning) p.22; “What did it mean to be a vessel between the eternal and mortal realms?” P.67
-“We all have the spiritual faculties to receive personal revelation that marks our souls as profoundly as any other source of revelation…What we receive in answer to this eternal pronouncement and law is illuminated in our hearts and minds: sacred unveilings that re-create our soul.” (that if we ask, we will receive) p.68
-“Faith is the ecstatic space between the realized and the yet to be.” p.85
-“Our celestial home is not only a future, glorified Earth; heaven is…a state into which we are invited now. Eternity is now.” p.89
-“I have come to see enlightenment as intimacy with all things.” p.90
-“The choice to love is a choice to connect—to find ourselves in each other.” p.81
-“Greater sovereignty in our spiritual journeys teaches that there is not just one Sacred Grove but that there are groves everywhere, and you and I can and must enter as part of the rolling out of light and truth, the expansion of the ongoing Restoration.” P.98
Favorite quotes:
-“I believe asking questions and exploring possibilities are indispensable ways to show love and reverence for revealed truth.” p.viii
-“Further exploration of the Mother is part of the unfolding Restoration in our hearts.” p.ix
-“Our scriptures become alive and bright, responsive and renewed, by our engagement with them.” p.xii
-“Wisdom about Her becomes wisdom from Her; in knowing Her, we are changed into truer versions of ourselves with eyes more able to see that She has been with us all along.” p.2
-“Thy mind…if thou would lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost Heavens, and search into and contemplate the lowest considerations of the darkest abyss, and expand upon the broad considerations of eternal expanse. Thou must commune with God.” Joseph Smith p.7
-“My life has taught me that deep feeling blooms deep knowing. And deep feeling requires deep listening. P.8
-“I have found that it is in the recognition of the distance and the desire to close the gap that we are tenderly cared for. The goal is to remove as much of the distortions and noise around our true essence and beauty, and thus Theirs, as we can.” (those that do not comprehend the character of God do not comprehend themselves) p. 13
-“Learning to listen to the silences, to the great pauses and stillness from moment to moment, may be our greatest quest…Mother God can be in plain sight and we miss Her because of the state of our hearts or the our distracted minds” p.62-63
-The ordinances of embodiment (pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation) presided over by women (ordinance-physical act with deep spiritual meaning) p.22; “What did it mean to be a vessel between the eternal and mortal realms?” P.67
-“We all have the spiritual faculties to receive personal revelation that marks our souls as profoundly as any other source of revelation…What we receive in answer to this eternal pronouncement and law is illuminated in our hearts and minds: sacred unveilings that re-create our soul.” (that if we ask, we will receive) p.68
-“Faith is the ecstatic space between the realized and the yet to be.” p.85
-“Our celestial home is not only a future, glorified Earth; heaven is…a state into which we are invited now. Eternity is now.” p.89
-“I have come to see enlightenment as intimacy with all things.” p.90
-“The choice to love is a choice to connect—to find ourselves in each other.” p.81
-“Greater sovereignty in our spiritual journeys teaches that there is not just one Sacred Grove but that there are groves everywhere, and you and I can and must enter as part of the rolling out of light and truth, the expansion of the ongoing Restoration.” P.98
July 15, 2022
Here are some of my take-aways:
Kathryn expounded on my beliefs of the world and my spirituality and put them in a more profound language and explanation. She also introduced me to new perspectives that I am excited to ponder more on and have a better understanding of them. I’ve always thought of Heavenly Mother as the nurturing Goddess but She’s much more than that. In this book, she is depicted as a leading role in our transformation during our earthly life. She takes us down to the roots to teach our souls all things in greater depth and She brings us back up to embrace a new us. Our Heavenly Mother is a warrior and we can become like her.
I understand better the role of my Heavenly Mother and how to look for her in my trials and everyday life.
The importance of balancing both the feminine and masculine parts of ourselves. “Wholeness is not without the feminine” and a healthy expression of masculinity is grounded and helpful with linear progression.
I am called to practice mindfulness to be more in the present because ‘eternity is now’ and I can eat the holy fruit (peace, joy) now in this earth life.
-I am called to always seek wisdom
-Be in nature to spend more time with heavenly mother
-Mindfulness= to be grounded
It is repeated over and over how we’re cyclical beings and I want to leave more about that. I also want to embrace this cyclical pattern in life because it teaches us so much. “We are repeatedly asked to break our hearts hope so that they may grow and accept more and more love, though each specific way we come to that breaking point changes over the course of our lives(93)”.
-Trials and joys- life's ups and downs
-Women’s Menstruation is also cyclical.
A blessing to the author: I’m so grateful for her courage to write such a wonderful book and to point out injustices and hurtful paradigms. She has taught me so much and has enlightened me about a figure that is eternally important to me. Thanks for instilling in me a hope that Heavenly Mother will be revered and returned from exile one day. May you continue to rest in our Heavenly Mother and I wish this upon everyone who desires Her love and nurture.
Kathryn expounded on my beliefs of the world and my spirituality and put them in a more profound language and explanation. She also introduced me to new perspectives that I am excited to ponder more on and have a better understanding of them. I’ve always thought of Heavenly Mother as the nurturing Goddess but She’s much more than that. In this book, she is depicted as a leading role in our transformation during our earthly life. She takes us down to the roots to teach our souls all things in greater depth and She brings us back up to embrace a new us. Our Heavenly Mother is a warrior and we can become like her.
I understand better the role of my Heavenly Mother and how to look for her in my trials and everyday life.
The importance of balancing both the feminine and masculine parts of ourselves. “Wholeness is not without the feminine” and a healthy expression of masculinity is grounded and helpful with linear progression.
I am called to practice mindfulness to be more in the present because ‘eternity is now’ and I can eat the holy fruit (peace, joy) now in this earth life.
-I am called to always seek wisdom
-Be in nature to spend more time with heavenly mother
-Mindfulness= to be grounded
It is repeated over and over how we’re cyclical beings and I want to leave more about that. I also want to embrace this cyclical pattern in life because it teaches us so much. “We are repeatedly asked to break our hearts hope so that they may grow and accept more and more love, though each specific way we come to that breaking point changes over the course of our lives(93)”.
-Trials and joys- life's ups and downs
-Women’s Menstruation is also cyclical.
A blessing to the author: I’m so grateful for her courage to write such a wonderful book and to point out injustices and hurtful paradigms. She has taught me so much and has enlightened me about a figure that is eternally important to me. Thanks for instilling in me a hope that Heavenly Mother will be revered and returned from exile one day. May you continue to rest in our Heavenly Mother and I wish this upon everyone who desires Her love and nurture.
July 7, 2023
Kathryn Knight Sonntag is one of my favorite poets and thinkers, and The Mother Tree is an amazing immersion in the deep thought-architecture behind her poetry collection, The Tree at the Center (a truly gorgeous meditation on Mother and motherhood).
Kathryn has tenderly studied and lived her way to the truths found here, and as such, this is a vulnerable book filled with wisdom that invited me to feel into my own vulnerability and innate connection with the Mother through the archetype of the Tree Herself. As I have reflected on Kathryn’s words, I have been able to draw closer to the Mother and have found support from Her in healing deep pain. What an incredible gift.
I have often felt disappointed that in LDS doctrine and practice there is much less emphasis on human development than I feel there needs to be, and The Mother Tree brings me into this very conversation and offers an expansive path for spiritual exploration and self inquiry.
The Mother Tree feels like another glorious ring in the Tree Kathryn is tending within the LDS spiritual community. This is a living tree, and Kathryn invites all her readers into participation with her in excavating the feminine divine within their psyches. This is radical work—work at the roots. With a world in an increasingly precipitous spiral of manmade climate change and violence, I can only think over and over again how much the world needs this book, a symbolically rich call to reconfigure the underpinnings of how the world is run.
This is a sacred text I will return to again and again for its abundant spiritual riches, Kathryn’s shimmering writing, and her depth of thought.
Kathryn has tenderly studied and lived her way to the truths found here, and as such, this is a vulnerable book filled with wisdom that invited me to feel into my own vulnerability and innate connection with the Mother through the archetype of the Tree Herself. As I have reflected on Kathryn’s words, I have been able to draw closer to the Mother and have found support from Her in healing deep pain. What an incredible gift.
I have often felt disappointed that in LDS doctrine and practice there is much less emphasis on human development than I feel there needs to be, and The Mother Tree brings me into this very conversation and offers an expansive path for spiritual exploration and self inquiry.
The Mother Tree feels like another glorious ring in the Tree Kathryn is tending within the LDS spiritual community. This is a living tree, and Kathryn invites all her readers into participation with her in excavating the feminine divine within their psyches. This is radical work—work at the roots. With a world in an increasingly precipitous spiral of manmade climate change and violence, I can only think over and over again how much the world needs this book, a symbolically rich call to reconfigure the underpinnings of how the world is run.
This is a sacred text I will return to again and again for its abundant spiritual riches, Kathryn’s shimmering writing, and her depth of thought.
February 21, 2023
Sonntag’s book on the mother tree felt part academic, part mystic, and part poetic. That combination was both the source of my fascination with this work as well as my struggle. I appreciated the structure of the book around the roots, the trunk, and the crown and the weaving of symbolism throughout. I kept a list of ideas I found interesting in the very 2 last pages which were helpfully blank.
Yet it was not an easy read, despite the short sub 100 page length. The language was dense and deep, and the ideas that were both familiar and unfamiliar felt hard to fully absorb on first reading. Read as a meditation, or an exploration, or a long poem and it becomes easier. On a more personal note, I struggled with how the book intersected with my own ongoing deconstruction of several tenets of the LDS faith. Quotes from previous general authorities, references to temple terms, and Book of Mormon passages, etc mean less to me as authoritative or instructive sources now than in earlier times. That being said, I appreciate she is writing to an LDS audience and also appreciated the fresh spin on symbols found in the Garden story and Lehi’s dream.
The Divine Feminine is such a great mystery to me. I enjoyed the opportunity to explore the edges of that mystery with the author.
Yet it was not an easy read, despite the short sub 100 page length. The language was dense and deep, and the ideas that were both familiar and unfamiliar felt hard to fully absorb on first reading. Read as a meditation, or an exploration, or a long poem and it becomes easier. On a more personal note, I struggled with how the book intersected with my own ongoing deconstruction of several tenets of the LDS faith. Quotes from previous general authorities, references to temple terms, and Book of Mormon passages, etc mean less to me as authoritative or instructive sources now than in earlier times. That being said, I appreciate she is writing to an LDS audience and also appreciated the fresh spin on symbols found in the Garden story and Lehi’s dream.
The Divine Feminine is such a great mystery to me. I enjoyed the opportunity to explore the edges of that mystery with the author.
October 10, 2024
I understand that writing a book about Heavenly Mother, when there is so little concrete information about Her, is a very difficult task. Therefore, there must be some level of allowable reaching and speculation. However, there was very little evidence or support introduced for the foundational claim that the Tree of Life is a symbol of Heavenly Mother. Without support for this foundational claim, further claims and connections do not stand.
I did still resonate with some parts of this book, such as the retelling of the creation and garden story. I enjoyed reading about the gospel through a matriarchal - not patriarchal - lens.
These are some of my favorite quotes.
"Men never were and never could be intermediaries between women and God in the temple or anywhere, ever."
“wisdom is not knowing more, but knowing with more of you, knowing deeper."
"In Genesis, Moses, and the Book of Abraham, the man Adam, spirit and element, receives instruction from the Gods not to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil before Eve is created and housed in flesh."
I did still resonate with some parts of this book, such as the retelling of the creation and garden story. I enjoyed reading about the gospel through a matriarchal - not patriarchal - lens.
These are some of my favorite quotes.
"Men never were and never could be intermediaries between women and God in the temple or anywhere, ever."
“wisdom is not knowing more, but knowing with more of you, knowing deeper."
"In Genesis, Moses, and the Book of Abraham, the man Adam, spirit and element, receives instruction from the Gods not to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil before Eve is created and housed in flesh."
January 24, 2024
This was a very fascinating take on Mother Earth/Heavenly Mother/Mother as Tree that I've ever read. I got swept up by it in the beginning and loved how it was organized: the Mother Tree, Roots, Trunk, Crown.
I give the first two chapters 5+ stars. I loved the descent into the darkness, into the earth, the roots and how Knight Sonntag wrote about very real issues that we continue to discuss today in and outside religious spaces. It also felt like one of the most practically applied chapters as well.
The Crown was the most esoteric and far-reaching of the chapters. I still think it's a book worth reading as it is rich in symbolism and well-researched. For those who seek a connection to the Divine Feminine and look for ways in which to connect with Her, this book is definitely for you. Beautifully done.
I give the first two chapters 5+ stars. I loved the descent into the darkness, into the earth, the roots and how Knight Sonntag wrote about very real issues that we continue to discuss today in and outside religious spaces. It also felt like one of the most practically applied chapters as well.
The Crown was the most esoteric and far-reaching of the chapters. I still think it's a book worth reading as it is rich in symbolism and well-researched. For those who seek a connection to the Divine Feminine and look for ways in which to connect with Her, this book is definitely for you. Beautifully done.
July 17, 2022
My only complaint is that I wanted more. In almost each tight, poetic paragraph, I thought, “Tell me more about that. Say more.”
A beautiful articulation of a way of spirituality and being that is both entirely foreign to our current way of operating in the church and entirely consistent with Christ’s doctrine. Entirely doctrinal—in fact, a path to deepening our spiritual progression along the covenant path—but somehow feels radical, even dangerous to articulate.
I love the call at the very end of the book for each of us to be the prophet who restores the divine feminine that has been lost.
A beautiful articulation of a way of spirituality and being that is both entirely foreign to our current way of operating in the church and entirely consistent with Christ’s doctrine. Entirely doctrinal—in fact, a path to deepening our spiritual progression along the covenant path—but somehow feels radical, even dangerous to articulate.
I love the call at the very end of the book for each of us to be the prophet who restores the divine feminine that has been lost.
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November 12, 2023I was so excited to read this, and I'm glad that I finally did!
There is a lot of good stuff in this book. I love the entire premise, the wonderful use of research, and the focus on Nature (capitalization intended).
After reading some ideas twice and trying to see them from different angles, there are still some things in this book I don't agree with. I don't think that makes it a bad book, but it did make for an interesting reading experience. I will now have to think about those ideas more and maybe visit them later.
Now that I have finished this, I want to read Kathryn Knight Sonntag's book of poetry!
There is a lot of good stuff in this book. I love the entire premise, the wonderful use of research, and the focus on Nature (capitalization intended).
After reading some ideas twice and trying to see them from different angles, there are still some things in this book I don't agree with. I don't think that makes it a bad book, but it did make for an interesting reading experience. I will now have to think about those ideas more and maybe visit them later.
Now that I have finished this, I want to read Kathryn Knight Sonntag's book of poetry!
January 18, 2023
This book taught me SO MUCH. I really appreciate the author condensing so much information (seriously, SO many references) to make it all more accessible and coherent. There were a few concepts that I had never even heard of, that really resonated with me. My only complaint is that I felt some of the sections could have been a little more concise, and sometimes I was unsure about how a particular topic related to the section it was in. But overall, very happy to have read it, and I’ll definitely be checking out some of the things she references.
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May 15, 2023This book sang to my soul. It was very fitting and lovely to finish it on Mother’s Day. I loved how personal this was, and resonated with a lot of it. Using the language of symbols she connected me with the feminine divine within me and all around me, and with Mother God. I feel like I have better access to language now to describe Her and better tools to think of Her and seek Her. Her absence in church has been painful to me over these last few years, and this book was helpful in my healing.
November 30, 2022
Beautiful ideas and got me thinking. I had a hard time following some of the more abstract interpretations and thoughts, so the book didn’t hit home as much as I hoped it would (maybe a second reading would help it sink in more). My favorite part by far was the section on her interpretation of the creation story.
December 28, 2023
This was a beautiful collection of ideas about Heavenly Mother/our divine Mother. I appreciate the way the author furthers a conversation that desperately demands our engagement as children of God. There were a few parts where the author lost me a bit in poetic musings/layered metaphors, but overall you can tell that years of study and thought went into this engaging book.
May 19, 2025
Beautiful, fantastic, deeply inspiring.
My one complaint was the lack of scriptural or historical connection of Mother God to trees in the introduction. It made the book feel like it was only Sonntags wishful thinking to see the tree metaphor. Until I got to the last chapter the tree metaphor really started to click
My one complaint was the lack of scriptural or historical connection of Mother God to trees in the introduction. It made the book feel like it was only Sonntags wishful thinking to see the tree metaphor. Until I got to the last chapter the tree metaphor really started to click
May 23, 2025
I really wanted to love this book— it’s only a hundred pages but didn’t hold my attention- felt like trying to follow an essay, a homework assignment— reaching all over— it felt like a chore, hence why I put it down and picked it up so many times.
Perhaps if I read it straight through it wouldn’t have felt so disconnected.
Perhaps if I read it straight through it wouldn’t have felt so disconnected.
December 26, 2022
This feels like scripture to me. I’ve never understood so much about my own divine worth and my connection to the divine feminine. Uplifting and validating and pleading for a restoration of our Mother. Absolutely beautiful.
March 26, 2023
I really want to read her book of poetry. What she included in this book was so beautiful and important. But the book fell flat for me. There are some great ideas, but Faith Matters needs to invest a lot more in editing. It was hard to follow.
March 29, 2023
She successful connects the divine female to a mother tree image. I paired this book with Suzanne Simard’s non fiction book about mother trees in the forest and overlap was inspiring and enlightening!
August 8, 2023
This book strengthened my testimony and filled my soul more than any book I’ve read this year. It was deep and meaningful and so well thought out. The evidence brought forth proving the heritage of our mother tree was brilliant and so comforting.
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