1.My writing has received comments like this:
I find your blog totally disgusting and tasteless. You call yourself a woman of God? You should be ashamed of yourself! I can’t believe your filthy mouth! NOT funny at all and no class whatsoever.
— Concerned
I have a dirty mouth and a dirty sense of humor. Kinder commentators have described my writing as “tongue in cheek.” Most of the time, it’s Her Red tongue in my rouged cheek. I recognize and honor the fact that not all of us are used to such candor when it comes to spirituality, but my irreverence arises from a deep reservoir of reverence, respect, and profound love for the Divine.
2.Therefore, this book comes with a three-drink minimum. Red wine is my suggestion. Or rose tea. Or angel sweat.
3.On a sober note: I’m a white, middle-class, Western woman who has been gifted with the life circumstances, time, and resources to dive deep into her soul and write about it. It is a privilege and a responsibility that I take very seriously. When any woman reveals her soul publicly and dares to act from this inner source of Divine authority, it is a private-turned-public revolution — for me, it happens to be a Redvolution. Writing my Love Story is an act of service to all women and this planet.
My hope is that this book ignites your own revolution and reminds you to live your Love Story, within and without the fire.
4.On a lusher note: This book shares what happened when I fell in love with a Red hot and holy Goddess and later received a series of Rouge Awakenings — highly uncomfortable, hugely humbling soul spankings from said Red Goddess, which turned my life upside down and set it on fire. (Being Redvolutionary does not make me very cool, but it does make me hot.)
5.I call this Red hot and holy Goddess “the Red Lady” or “my Lady.” She might appear in this book a bit like my imaginary Friend, but you should know right away that She’s more Real than I am. Who the hell is She? That’s the ultimate question and answer that inspires this entire book. Read on to find out.
6.This book is not a treatise on the Divine Feminine or on the color red. Nor is this my autobiography — otherwise I would have included falling in love with that Turkish mobster while writing for Let’s Go Travel Guide Turkey, or getting worms in my feet at a yoga retreat in Mexico, or running from a pack of rabid dogs in Kathmandu, or getting blessed by a young Catholic mystic priest in Croatia who had the stigmata and then gaining twenty pounds in two weeks. Not exactly the blessing I was hoping for. Point is, the focus of this book is less on my external voyages and more on my internal journeys with Red.
7.In fact, I wrote this book from the inside out. My methodology: I have an intuition/personal experience/vision/dream that resonates as truth. Afterward, an external quote or piece of wisdom shows up that supports or comes close to describing my own experience (and says it much better than I ever could). So I use it. I do not allow the quotes or external sources of wisdom to use me. Therefore, many of the quotes and research I use in this book are completely taken out of their original context and are made to fit my Red context. My apologies to those who wrote the excellent quotes and offered the wonderful wisdom — I mean no disrespect.
8.Therefore, it’s best to read this book while wearing Red rose–colored glasses. If you only use a lens of scholarship, psychology, history, mythology, religion, philosophy, feminism, anthropology, sociology, Jungian analysis, integral theory, New Age, or pop spirituality to understand this book, I shall fail you, repeatedly. Sometimes even on purpose. My gentle request is that you not analyze the information in this book too much. Pay more attention to how this book makes you feel rather than just how it makes you think.
9.Although Red rose–colored glasses are encouraged and my personal Love Story forms the backbone of this book, enough impersonal information is included to inspire and support your own unique vision and soul journey. However, if you prefer a less personal Red book, please check out my first book, The Red Book: A Deliciously Unorthodox Approach to Igniting Your Divine Spark.
10.Artistically, this book is a mashup. If you’re not familiar with this term, a mashup happens when a DJ mixes two or more songs together, overlaying beats, underlying melodies, and mixing vocals. At first a mashup sounds a little dissonant, but if you relax into it, a wider movement of sound happens, communicating a much bigger Message than any of the songs could have done alone.
This book is part spiritual memoir, part self-help, and part Shout-Out from my soul to yours.
Sometimes I sound like a girlfriend. Sometimes I sound like a professor. Sometimes I stop speaking in English and start speaking in my native Red tongue.
11.Structurally, the book is split into B.M. (Before Marion) and A.M. (After Marion), which refers to the time in my life before and after I interviewed the eighty-something-year-old Jungian analyst extraordinaire Marion Woodman.
The first five chapters in B.M. are foundational and read relatively normally (well, for a love-drunk, slightly risqué religion scholar). My story heats up after I leave Harvard (Chapters 6–9).
In A.M. (Chapters 10–22), everything changes. Abruptly. My story gets more raw, more personal, and definitely more freaky. In fact, the last five chapters could give you heartburn … or a heart attack. I might even lose you.
(This is not one of those books where it’s okay to skip ahead. Divine winks — synchronicities, symbols, dreams, poems, guidance, heavy-breathing holy hints — flirt off every page, and only the direct encounter with all of them allows the full Redvelation to happen.)
12.Energetically, this book resembles a Red rose — outer lighter petals first, then the inner darker petals, and finally, the center.
13.Spiritually, this book is an Offering to and from Red.
During an American tour in 1922, forty-five-year-old modern dancer Isadora Duncan received a lot of saucy press about her passionate performances in Boston. In fact, one paper said, “She looked pink, talked red, and acted scarlet.”1
At her second concert, Isadora told the audience: “Thank God the Boston critics don’t like me. If they did, I should feel I was hopeless … I give you something from the heart. I bring you something real.”2 The audience supposedly consisted of quite a few students from Harvard. At the end of her performance to Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique, she held up a red scarf and shouted,
This is red! So am I! … You were once wild here! Don’t let them tame you!3
And the Boston audience caught sight of Isadora’s naked breasts, (about which she later remarked, “For am I not striving to fuse soul and body in one unified image of beauty?”4). The mayor of Boston proceeded to ban her from all future performances in the city, and her tour manager warned her if she made one more speech like that or “mismanaged” her garments again, the tour was dead. Isadora ended the tour rather than cap her self-expression.
This book is a Red scarf that reveals part of my Body.
This is red! So am I! … You were once wild here! Don’t let them tame you!