REVIEW
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Title: The Mother Tree: Discovering the Love and Wisdom of Our Divine Mother
Author: Kathryn Knight Sonntag
Publisher: Faith Matters
Genre: Religious Non-Fiction
Year Published: 2022
Number of Pages: 102
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1953677112
Price: $11.95
Reviewed by Conor Hilton for the Association for Mormon Letters
Kathryn Knight Sonntag’s The Mother Tree: Discovering the Love and Wisdom of Our Divine Mother continues much of the thematic exploration that defined her poetry collection, The Tree at the Center. This new book is a slim volume meant to function as a jumping-off point for further personal study. Sonntag weaves together scripture, biblical scholarship, research on trees, and personal experiences in her exploration of our Divine Mother. This weaving together of scholarship and knowledge gained from personal mystical experiences is one of the most compelling and valuable contributions of Sonntag’s work.
Sonntag notes towards the end of the book that theological debates “often discount the necessary place of the ineffable in knowledge creation, the power of the unknown and unknowable” (97). The book works to address this gap in traditional theological conversations, not by rejecting entirely the modes of research, scholarship, and knowledge that have dictated most of these conversations but by expanding them to include knowledge and insights gained from personal spiritual experiences.
The way that Sonntag integrates her own experiential spiritual knowledge into her work implicitly invites readers to do the same. The book’s structure and logic bring readers into conversation with Sonntag, asking them to consider what their experiences and inner knowledge teach them about our Divine Mother. Often, as Sonntag would recount her experiences, I found myself noticing the difference between Sonntag’s spiritual, mystical, experiential knowledge and my own. There’s much to learn from Sonntag’s own extensive research and spiritual quest to learn more about and be in communion with the Mother Tree.
Sonntag connects this sort of inner work to the root system of trees. She writes that, “The work of the roots speaks to the hidden mysteries that unfold in the dark. They remind us that the dark is alive. The underground plane symbolizes a place of spiritual growth and regeneration, of knowledge creation” (6). This opening chapter quietly claims darkness and descent as not only valuable but spiritually necessary for growth and wholeness. I’d love to see more folks take up the images, metaphors, and ideas that Sonntag explores in this section and throughout the book as they do their own work, thinking not only about the Divine Feminine but also spirituality more broadly.
One of Sonntag’s most innovative sections is a retelling of The Fall, drawing on a variety of scriptural sources and mystical intuitions to create a new mythic foundation for humanity. Sonntag’s work with the serpent in the narrative is particularly fascinating, drawing attention to the more complex, multi-faceted role of the serpent in the bible and some ancient near-east traditions. I’d love to read more of these sorts of scriptural re-workings from Sonntag and others—in a similar vein to Adam Miller’s various scriptural paraphrases with a dash of Mette Harrison’s Book of Mormon fiction. Sonntag demonstrates here that scripture and tradition are malleable, open to new interpretations, and giving us new life with those new interpretations.
The Mother Tree is both a well-researched exploration of trees and their spiritual significance and a model of how to weave your own personal experience with that knowledge to create greater understanding. While not all of Sonntag’s arguments and ideas are fully persuasive to me, they are evocative of poetic truths. The Mother Tree is a lovely contribution to the flowering of work on the Divine Feminine in Mormonism, grounded in an ecological and mystical worldview, ideal for lovers of trees, mystics, and those wanting feminine ways of knowing more deeply appreciated.