Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee is a Sufi writer and leader who is also one of the Living Spiritual Teachers at Spirituality & Practice. Over the past two decades, he has focused his attention on the emerging oneness movement that is drawing spiritual people together across traditions and ideologies to make the most of the interconnectedness of life and to work together to mend a tattered, conflicted, and wayward world. This enlightening paperback includes his writings and lectures on the return of the Sacred Feminine and the Anima Mundi, the World Soul. In her foreword, Sandra Ingerman states: "To be of ultimate service to the planet we must reconnect to that innate feminine knowing that teaches us the power of change that comes from being rather than doing."

We live in a culture dominated by pragmatism, linear thinking, dualism, and violence. The times cry out for the Sacred Feminine who brings healing, transformation, nurturing, and inner meaning and beauty. Or as Vaughan-Lee reminds us: "She can help us to give birth to the divine that is within us, to the oneness that is all around us." Women, according to the author, have heard the crying of the soul of the world and they are equipped to respond since they have suffered themselves, worked in the darkness, and know the secrets of love and of longing.

In an era when the Earth is desecrated in the name of progress and profit, we would do well to revive the deep and rich sources of feminine wisdom. This treasure-trove has been repressed for centuries by a patriarchy dedicated to a masculine God and the extermination as evil-doers of wise women, priestesses, and healers. We can gain access to the Sacred Feminine through creativity, inner work, personal transformation, and spiritual practice. Vaughn-Lee believes that women must forgive men for what they have done and that men, in turn, must protect women so that they can set in motion the alignment of the world with its divine consciousness. This can be achieved through prayer and devotion — our remembrance of God's light, love, and presence.

Our separation from the material world has resulted in enslavement to consumerism, according to the author. The way out is to acknowledge and honor the divine in the material world and to seek the light and the energy emanating from the world's soul. What does that mean in concrete terms:

"We have a problem now. The world is dying. It is not supposed to be like this. I am convinced that human beings are not meant to sit looking at a flickering screen ten hours a day pressing buttons. Human beings are extraordinary! They are full of light; they have this divine intelligence. They are meant to live in a sacred way, not spend their life looking at a flickering television or computer screen. This is not what we were created for."

We are used to thinking about light and darkness as polarities at war with one another. This duality is passé in this transition age of oneness. Vaughan-Lee writes: "Opposites can come together in a new way. We can work with the light of the soul of the world and the darkness of the world in a creative relationship."

We cannot move into the future with dignity and responsibility until we honestly confront our own darkness and the shadow of America, which includes the violence perpetrated on witches, Native Americans, blacks, the innocent civilians of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and the large number of men, women and children just seen as collateral damage in a series of wars. The mystical feminine is the key to the future, and we can rely on this beacon of light to forge new paths to tomorrow based on love, peace, heart, and relational thinking.