After my first visit to a community of traditional Aboriginal women in the middle of the Australian desert, I couldn’t stop thinking about how different the women were to modern women.
I’m a psychologist, specializing in anorexia and it occurred to me that these Aboriginal women had never heard of eating disorders, or psychology for that matter.
At the
time I was also facilitating workshops in New York State and people were asking
me about the Aboriginal culture and as I began talking about how different it
was, I thought I should write about my time there, as well as my professional
experiences with eating disorders.
Because
they were such extreme opposites I wanted to put them together somehow, and
that’s how “Finding Artemisia: A Journey
into Ancient Women’s Business” began.
It’s an
inspirational book, in that takes the reader into an image free world where
women value each other for who they are and not what they look like. Not like
the modern world of women: booby-trapped by the dieting, plastic surgery and
body shaping industries.
It’s not
an academic book, (there are already many on the subject of eating disorders),
but it is an experience, a transformational and nourishing journey for women
and their families, because its about its about matters that deeply
affect them: food, sexuality, body image, and relationships. It’s a journey book
that takes readers into a world they would otherwise not experience, that of
ancient women’s culture. It also takes them into the hidden world of
anorexia.
AND it honors the special relationship
between mother and daughter. No matter how difficult that relationship might
be, all women have mothers, and if they
can’t be at peace with that relationship, they will rarely find peace within
themselves.