Mother Pearl is a mysterious and sensuous collection of poetry written in the tradition of mystics like Mirabai and Kabir. As a student and practitioner of holistic healing, psychoanalysis, and expressive arts therapy, poet Sarah Flame draws on a wealth of knowledge in this powerful contribution to spiritual poetry. Within these pages, one finds no shortage of resonant symbols, from Indigenous mythology to nature's beloved creatures to universal questions of being. And woven throughout the collection is a devotion to all things mystically feminine-or as Flame puts it, The moon glows outside my window / big enough to embrace it all.

With its sparse, careful verse, Mother Pearl is at once a celebration and a study of the beauty one can find in the natural world-both the physical and the metaphysical. It's no wonder that Flame believes A woman's body / Is a map to wisdom. Here, she shares the map with us, generously guiding us closer to the divine.