From New York City to Tiruvannamalai, Erica Bassani travels far and wide to meet female Dharma teachers. Italian-born Bassani is a writer, translator and creator of the Women’s Awakening Projectis a multimedia platform for sharing the wisdom of female spiritual teachers. Since 2023, she has interviewed dozens of women from various traditions, including a Theravada nun. Venerable Gotami and Plum Village Monastery A true virtue sisterfor Tricycle. his new book, Women in love with the divineincludes twelve of these interviews, as well as Bassani’s insights as she explores what it means to be a woman who dedicates her life to the sacred.
In the introduction to your book, you talk about a spiritual breakthrough where you write: “Without warning or explanation, God the Father became the Divine Mother.” Can you tell me more about this experience? It was an experience that came naturally, I didn’t seek it out. It came in a moment of inner struggle and also in a moment of prayer, as it often happens. When we are at our most vulnerable, we are more open to receiving and more open to true prayer.
I asked god to show me how he sustains us all internally, just by being, just by being? We feel that we are alone and separate, but this is not true. I asked the divine to show us how they support us and what happened was that in my divine perception it shifted towards this form of the Divine Mother, which has (a) deeply sustaining nature.
So God the Father turned his face, and on the other side there was a beautiful goddess, the Divine Mother, who shone and taught me a new chapter of life.
In general, what do you think makes women’s spiritual paths different from men’s? This is not an easy question to answer, because sometimes men’s paths can be very feminine, and sometimes women’s paths can be very masculine. But I would say that, at least in the research I’ve done among the women I’ve met so far, there is an urge to feel the gap between matter and spirit. So we could say that maybe women are more attuned to feeling everything, to feel all of life. Perhaps this is the aspect that distinguishes women’s spirituality from men’s.
Although she practices Buddhism, the book includes interviews with women of other faiths. What did you learn from these conversations? My whole practice changed and I still change a lot after these meetings. I didn’t notice it at first. It took a year for this research to kick in and then I started working on my whole inner approach to the spiritual path. (One of the things) I discovered (had) the power of softness in me. I had insight, I felt it through some women I met who also spoke about it specifically. In other cases, it was just almost conveying a presence, just their way of being, which was soft. It changed me a lot. It showed me that I am still hard on myself in so many ways, even in my spiritual life. This inner critic has a very broad spectrum; it lasts from our grossest aspects to our subtlest. Embracing softness is a process. But I can say that it started for me thanks to this book. Thanks to these conversations, I really recognize the parts of myself that are still very hard. (I am grateful) for the faith these women offered me, because they offered faith in the way and the power of gentleness.
In the book, you also describe a collective womanhood or sisterhood that binds us together. How does accepting this contribute to our spiritual practice? I think this is an important part that is often, perhaps not fully understood. So when we talk about brotherhood, at least on the spiritual path, I see that it takes courage. It takes a kind of courage be with other women as they go through their own challenges and decide and feel that it is possible to be open, to be together in the space of healing and joint research.
Beyond the threshold of fear and uncertainty, and perhaps even mistrust, there is always a greater will in the heart of every woman to actually remain in the sisterhood, because a lot of strength comes into women when they are deeply connected to each other.
We are often strong mirrors of each other. This job can be challenging. But from what I have seen from participating in women’s retreats and leading women’s gatherings, it is that beyond the threshold of fear and uncertainty, and perhaps even mistrust, there is always a greater will in the hearts of all women to actually remain in the sisterhood, because women get so much strength when we are deeply connected to each other, when we let go of all the ties that come from our hearts.
After interviewing so many women with so many dimensions of wisdom, how has this project changed your own relationship with the divine? When I started the project, I basically just stopped my previous spiritual life, or better yet, my previous spiritual life. So I was in this rebirth and this void, and I have to say, I still haven’t figured out my spiritual practice. I am still searching deeply for ways to make everyday life an act of devotion. How to not only cultivate presence when cutting vegetables and to be present when you are with people, which of course is a beautiful endeavor. But what I feel is a desire to really be with this devotional longing, to be with the divine longing, even if it’s not clear. When it is not so clear how to serve the divine, how to make it work. And this is a constant inspiration for me.
What would you say to women who are just starting their spiritual journey? In fact, I would say it’s a beautiful time, because although yes, we live in this patriarchal system, it’s possible to do things that were very difficult to do a few decades ago. I think it is now possible for women to truly embrace the spiritual path. Different approaches are available like never before. On offer is this abundance, and (if you’re lucky enough) the opportunity to travel, for example, to meet a master, or to retreat (never before was this available). This is unbelievable to me because it was not available to me when I was little.
It was quite different when I was a kid. Meditation used to be very rare (in Italy), while nowadays it is much more common. I think this is beautiful and we really need to take advantage of the availability of the teachings. From this we learn that each of us has our own unique way of finding the divine within ourselves and cultivating its practice. It is possible to move forward, and we can definitely support each other in this. This was the idea behind the Women Awakening Project. Not only was there a need to create a space to gather the wisdom of women across traditions, but also to create a sense of possibility, a sense that there is a way for all women, regardless of their condition, to connect with the divine. It is up to each of us if we are willing to go deeper.
