Acknowledgments
This book was an immense journey, and the people who have helped see this book into form are numerous. Firstly, I am in great awe of all the women of my life, the women and goddesses of India and Hawai’i, and my feminine ancestors who directly spoke to me as I worked on this book. I am forever grateful to the land and Pele of Hawai’i for their beauty, spirit, and source of immense inspiration.
I am full of gratitude for my daughter, Yoko Mojave Lotus, who reminds me to be compassionate and to inspire her to become the best woman she can. I thank my parents for their endless support: my mother for her incredible wisdom which she has given me, and my father who taught me so much. I am also grateful for the connection that I hold with my grandmothers, both when they were alive and even now, in their spirit forms. I am thankful to my sister, Carmen Beth Koda, for her wisdom and clarity that remind me not to always take myself so seriously.
I am deeply grateful to Jill Walton, whose imminent guidance, foresight, and intuition helped form this entire book into being. Without her as both a reflection and co-teacher in our sacred feminine workshops, this work simply would not have been as rich as it is. I also thank our entire class for they provided a goldmine of women’s experiences which helped me to shape this book.
I am also immensely thankful for the tireless work of my editor, Carrie Obry, who was a persistent and optimistic guide throughout this process. Her indefatigable feedback was crucial to bringing this book to a broad audience of women, and I cannot thank her enough for her patience.
Many times throughout this process I felt completely swamped by utter chaos, and I am thankful to my husband, Leon French, for being a constant support and endless supply of mirthfulness. I am also filled with gratitude for my dear friend Desiree Mwalimu, who is a constant inspiration as well as a clear and powerful woman holding the immensity of the sacred feminine in her life.
I wish to specifically thank Naomi Doumbia, Amina Meineker, Jamaica Johnston-Hancock, Amy Nemec, Samantha Shasenaye Elliot, White Eagle, and all the wondrous women in my life who both directly and indirectly inspired my work and are consistently working to create a sacred feminine reality. Their voices, their vision, their power, love, and wisdom are the community that is threaded throughout this book.
And lastly, I am so deeply thankful to be an American woman who has the freedom to write for the women of America and the world. I can only hope that this offering will inspire women to inspire women so that we may truly regain our power, love, and wisdom and find balance and harmony with the earth once again.