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The Rebirth of Feminine Wisdom
Stephanie Demetrakapoulos
1983 (OOP)(Reviewed by J Zamost)
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This is a book that I discovered over 20 years ago when it was first published within the newly emerging epistemology of women’s philosophy and theology. Its publication coincided with explorations into my own experiences of deep female body wisdom. It helped me to understand and how such knowledge was not only not recognized, but how nowhere in the culture into which I was born was it honored or reflected. It had a profound effect on my life, giving credibility and power to what I had instinctively always known.
Demetrakapoulos’s book attempts to show how matriarchal wisdom differs from patriarchal and how much the world needs matriarchal wisdom. Her work is based in part on her doctoral studies in Renaissance literature and art – which she felt reflected a joy in fecundity and plenitude, a merging of spirituality and sexuality, and a sense of the complexity of nature/nurture, all of which were crucial forces in her life as a woman; and partly on her studies in depth psychology, which affords a metaphysics of depth imagery. It was enriched by studying images of the feminine as generated by women authors and artists.
Though the entire book is enthrallingly enlightening, the section that had the most impact on me when I first read it was section I – The Physical Body. Chapter titles in Section I include: Becoming an Adult, Giving Birth as a Transpersonal Experience, The Nursing Mother and Feminine Metaphysics, The Older Woman as Matriarch, and Old Age and Death - More Aspects of Feminine Transformation.
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Meaning & Purpose 
