The Book of Longings

by Sue Monk Kidd

“Do you know what an incantation bowl is?” she asked. I shook my head. I only knew it must be something of great magnitude, something too perilous or wondrous to unveil anywhere except on the roof in the dark. “In Alexandria we women pray with them. We write our most secret prayer inside them. Like this.” She placed a finger inside the bowl and moved it in a spiraling line around the sides. “Every day we sing the prayer. As we do, we turn the bowl in slow circles and the words wriggle to life and spin off toward heaven.”

“A man’s holy of holies contains God’s laws, but inside a woman’s there are only longings.” Then she tapped the flat bone over my heart and spoke the charge that caused something to flame up in my chest: “Write what’s inside here, inside your holy of holies.”