The award winning novel, Ink and Honey by Sibyl Dana Reynolds is the story of a sacred journey through the medieval French countryside with the sisters of Belle Coeur, a community of radically independent healers, visionaries, mystics and artisans who live by their wits and their prayers. Goscelin, the dedicated scribe, records her sisterhood’s stories, visions and prophecies in her community’s journal while surrounded by holy madness, suspicion and the imminent threat of death at the stake. The sisters guard a life-threatening secret as they navigate spiritual terrain where faith and creative passion forge the way to labyrinths and cathedrals, hidden rooms and honey drenched hives. This book is alive with women’s ancient wisdom and spiritual practices to inform our lives today.
Buy at amazon.com
Buy at amazon.co.uk
What authors are saying about Ink and Honey…
This is a magnificent and original, mystical, historical novel. It depicts the intense spiritual lives of a group of holy women that struggle in the thirteenth century against great odds to keep alive the ancient matriarchal wisdom. The time has come for the message of the women in this book to pour down upon the world and green its heart again.
—Andrew Harvey
author of Radical Passion:
Sacred Love and Wisdom in Action
Sibyl Dana Reynolds offers us a lush and generous gift of storytelling and immersion in the medieval culture of women monks and mystics. Her novel is filled with sensual details that make her writing and the time period come alive, while her story is compelling, drawing the reader always forward. You grow to care deeply about these characters and come to recognize something of yourself in their journeys and longings.
—Christine Valters Paintner, PhD
author of The Artist’s Rule:
Nurturing Your Creative Spirit with Monastic Wisdom
With the soul of a mystic and the voice of a poet, Sibyl Dana Reynolds has scribed a novel of profound grace and beauty. Ink and Honey is a story of deep faith, community and healing, set in a long-ago time but as relevant and urgent as today’s headlines. Not since Mists of Avalon have I been so swept away by a tale of women’s Mysteries. A stunning work, pure and true.
—Kathleen Adams
author of Journal to the Self
This sensitive book merges history with the contemporary through the lens of Wisdom. Embodiment, intuition and visionary experience characterize the writing, which is rich in descriptive metaphor. Women’s creative spirituality infuses all the narrative. I recommend this gentle insightful book to all who are interested in the wisdom western societies have marginalized.
—Rev. Prof. June Boyce Tillman
University of Winchester, UK,
author of The Creative Spirit
Sacred Inspiration for the readers of Ink and Honey…
The Belle Coeur way of life is rich with ritual, prayer, craft-making, and spiritual practices. Drawing from the wisdom of the sisters of Belle Coeur in the story of Ink and Honey, you’re invited to contemplate your life through the following questions and suggested creative exercises. If you’re exploring these exercises as a group, you’re invited to co-create a collective group journal. You may decide to take turns as the scribe to record your group’s stories, notes from your meetings, photographs, etc.
Share your thoughts and experiences with your reading group or women’s circle or use the questions as steppingstones for exploration in your journal. You may also post your comments on my Sibyl Dana Reynolds Facebook Page.
To download these resources, click on the links below
Discussion Questions and Journal Prompts for Ink and Honey
Sacred Practices for Ink and Honey Readers
More Resources…
listen in a new window | download the audio
listen in a new window | download the audio
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