Motherlines: Love, Longing, and Liberation - Softcover

"Motherlines is a deep treasure written in the inimitable voice of a woman whose work was a lighthouse for me when I first wrote Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom. There is pure gold healing in these pages. Let it touch and heal you."
--Christiane Northrup, MD, OB/GYN physician and author of the New York Times bestsellers Goddesses Never Age; Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom; and The Wisdom of Menopause

"Dreams, body wisdom, sexual awakening, inspiring relationships--Patricia Reis possesses a deep capacity to hear the soul's call and the courage to follow it. A spiritual journey and a creative tour de force, this is a potent and tender love song to the motherlines that connect us all."
--Tina Stromsted, PhD, Jungian analyst, dance/movement therapist, and cofounder of the Authentic Movement Institute in Berkeley, California

"Looking for a book that will feed your mind and your heart? Insight waits on every page of Patricia Reis's Motherlines --as do real-life characters who will inhabit your memory and remain friends and advisors long after you close the cover."
--Mary Johnson, author of An Unquenchable Thirst, named one of the Best Books of the Year by Kirkus Reviews

"A maternal aunt--a nun--who, on three continents and in a series of socio-political challenges, becomes an unexpected hand for Reis to hold. Despite leading very different lives, the two women are surprisingly similar in their yearning and search for what matters most to heart, soul, and spirit."
--Suzanne Strempek Shea, author of This is Paradise and the New England Book Award-winning Sundays in America

"Motherlines is a riveting memoir. Patricia Reis's masterful telling of her soulful experience of being lost and found in the dark and light mysteries of midlife is a remarkable story. Motherlines is soul food for all."
--Sister Karol Jackowski, author of Forever and Ever, Amen: Becoming a Nun in the Sixties

"This memoir of a searching American woman and her aunt, a liberationist Franciscan nun living in Central America, tells an intertwined story. In tandem they move through layers of spiritual exploration and women's truth to arrive in a knowing sense of fulfillment."
--cofounder of the US Green Party movement

"Patricia Reis is a fierce and fearless writer. Motherlines is an intimate, movingly honest story about women who seek and yearn for the fullest expression and connection. Grounded and transcendent."
--Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner award-winning author of The Great Man and Blue Plate Special

When she was twenty, Patricia Reis’s mother asked, “What about your spiritual life?” Years later, this question drives her midlife quest to reconcile the desires of her body with the mandates of her spirit.Motherlines is a candid and compelling story of sex with men and with women, of celibacy, illegal abortions, making vows and breaking them, dreams, body wisdom, creative ambition, and inspiring relationships with memorable characters. This unflinching memoir illuminates the unvarnished truth of growing up female in the 1980’s a rich and fertile period in American history when gender roles were undergoing a revolution, a time that includes feminism, the women’s spirituality movement and liberation theology. In her soul-searching quest for meaning, and longing for maternal connection, Reis discovers an unlikely confidante in her aunt, a free-spirited Franciscan nun. Their letters and relationship are a thread that weaves throughout this memoir – an increasingly intimate and honest exchange between two women who are living very different lives yet are both kin and kindred spirits.A spiritual journey and a creative tour de force, this memoir is a potent and tender love song to the Motherlines that connect us all.