Sifting through layers of memory, both personal and social, Patricia Wild discovers how grief shaped her family history and how it is woven into the fabric of our society, lurking beneath long-simmering anger. Although the journey is difficult, it reaps unexpected blessings, spiritual insights, and leadings of the Spirit. Uncovering grief also uncovers joy and reveals more clearly the gifts received over a lifetime.
Marcelle Martin, author of Our Life Is Love: The Quaker Spiritual Journey
Patricia Wild’s denial-facing examination of flawed family bonds, the universal human capacity for cruelty, compassion, and forgiveness, offers a path of healing. Strands is a brave and tender call for both personal and national accountability and recovery, starting with the acknowledgment and recognition of our sorrow, shame, and fundamental interconnectedness.
Nancy Sowell, author of Essential Skills of Internal Family Systems Therapy
Patricia Wild’s book, Strands, reminds me how important the cycles of the sun rising and setting in our lives are—that which makes them rich and worth living. Each page invites us into her stories of grief and liberation that feel devotional.
Zenaida Peterson, author of Sky Responds to Our Holler
Part spiritual memoir, part guidebook for navigating grief and loss, part call to the work of healing our world, Strands is like nothing else you’ve ever read. Beginning with a spiritual leading to understand her own history, Wild weaves the many threads of loss that have shaped her life as a storyteller, Quaker leader, spiritual teacher, and activist. In sharing these remarkable family stories with great love, humor, and startling honesty, Wild sheds light on the universal human experience of loss and speaks truth to a world beset with pandemic, racism, and climate destruction. Wild’s book is at once timely and timeless—engaging the traumas of our day while finding life in the ancient wells of Quaker spirituality, wisdom traditions, and the witness of her ancestors. This book will both break your heart and invite you into the glorious inbreakings of Spirit, awe, and wonder.
Alexander Levering Kern, editor of Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality and the Arts, executive director of the Center for Spirituality, Dialogue, and Service at Northeastern University
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Patricia Wild
Writer, storyteller, Quaker, grandmother, Patricia Wild lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.