Clark Strand and Perdita Finn

Harvard Book Store welcomes authors and The Way of the Rose cofounders CLARK STRAND and PERDITA FINN for a discussion of their latest co-written book, The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary.

About The Way of the Rose

Before a vision of a mysterious “Lady” invited Clark Strand and Perdita Finn to pray the rosary, they were not only uninterested in becoming Catholic but were finished with institutional religion altogether. Their main spiritual concerns were the fate of the planet and the future of their children and grandchildren in an age of ecological collapse. But this Lady barely even referred to the Church and its proscriptions. Instead, she spoke of the miraculous power of the rosary to transform lives and heal the planet, and revealed the secrets she had hidden within the rosary’s prayers and mysteries—secrets of a past age when forests were the only cathedrals and people wove rose garlands for a Mother whose loving presence was as close as the ground beneath their feet. She told Strand and Finn:

The rosary is My body,

and My body is the body of the world.

Your body is one with that body.

What cause could there be for fear?

Weaving together their own remarkable story of how they came to the rosary, their discoveries about the eco-feminist wisdom at the heart of this ancient devotion, and the life-changing revelations of the Lady herself, the authors reveal an ancestral path—available to everyone, religious or not—that returns us to the powerful healing rhythms of the natural world.

Praise for The Way of the Rose

“In times of turmoil we need a tangible practice to help us release worry. The Way of the Rose gives us an ancient, sustainable answer for how to root into peace and wisdom beyond dogma and traditions. I can’t recommend this book enough.” —HeatherAsh Amara, author of The Warrior Heart Practice

“Ultimately, The Way of the Rose is a love song to the world, and to the mysteries of the world. Moving and profound, powerful and elegant, it is a call for us to remember our place in the larger community of humans past, present, and future, and our place in the larger community of life on this planet.” —Derrick Jensen, author of The Myth of Human Supremacy

“The Way of the Rose is both a firsthand account of mystic initiation and a revelation of the Divine Feminine in an age of patriarchal madness—erudite, irreverent, and wise . . . Manna from heaven.” —Mark Matousek, author of Mother of the Unseen World