Mothers of Magic

“In Mothers of Magic, Perdita Finn offers not just a remembrance but an urgent summons for our time. In a world where so many of us feel unmothered, unanchored, and cut off from the deep sources of nourishment that once sustained our souls, Finn reminds us that we were never meant to be held by one mother alone. We were meant to be circled by many—human, ancestral, elemental, animal, and unseen.

With exquisite clarity and fierce compassion, she exposes the cultural and historical forces that severed us from these lifelines and left us dangling, disconnected from the vast network of mothers who have always supported us. And she invites us back—back into the lineage of grandmothers who taught through their hands and their dreams, back into the wisdom of the earth-mothers who have steadied countless generations, back into the circle of old women whose presence can soothe addictions, untangle soul wounds, and remind us how to dance again.

This book is not optional reading for our moment. It is essential. At a time when anxiety, isolation, and spiritual hunger are reaching crisis levels, Mothers of Magic offers a pathway of reconnection that is both ancient and radically relevant. Finn’s message is clear: we cannot become the mothers, the daughters, or the humans this world needs until we recover our belonging to the many mothers who have always held us.

I am profoundly honored to endorse this work—deeply wise, fiercely truthful, and urgently needed.” 

—Dr. Gertrude Lyons, podcast host, TEDx speaker, and author of Rewrite the Mother Code: From Sacrifice to Stardust - A Cosmic Approach to Motherhood

"Do not be fooled! This book is more than a book. It is a passport to a wild country and Perdita Finn is a poet, a magician, a myth maker and unmaker, a storyteller of great power, humor, and depth. As you read her alluring tales of being mothered and mothering, you will meet your own mother, your grandmother, your ancestors, and yourself. And as you practice and pray along to her reverent and irreverent incantations, you will find healing and hope." —Elizabeth Lesser, author of the NY Times bestsellers, Broken Open, Cassandra Speaks, and other books, and the cofounder of Omega Institute

“Perdita Finn’s magical new book brings both essential challenge and profound comfort to this earthen moment, inviting us to see beyond the overcultural confines of linear time and to ground ourselves in the natural, entangled, eternal rhythms that sustain all life. These pages call us to walk the world fully alive and enlivened—nourishing the earth and all beings even as we are nourished in ever-unfolding reciprocity. We emerge from this book radiant, with a deepened sense of ourselves as both mothered and mothering, always and everywhere, and with the beautiful understanding that we are not somehow falling behind in life. For, as Finn reminds us with rare grace, the story of the soul is very long. This book is a lodestar for anyone seeking to live with reverence, rootedness, and wonder.” —Lyanda Lynn Haupt, author of Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit

"Filled with heartrending stories and hard-won wisdom, Perdita Finn’s compendium to mothers and mothering is a cri de coeur in androcentric times, a passionate argument for the bring sacred maternity back to the heart of contemporary life." —Mark Matousek, author of Mother of the Unseen World: The Mystery of Mother Meera

"In this luminous summons, Perdita Finn reveals the quirky wonders of her enchanting matrilineal matrix and prompts us to excavate the magic hidden within our own family trees. Her stories are rapturous and real, her writing exquisite, and her connection to the unseen as ordinary and alluring as baking bread. Perdita opens the way for people of all genders to harvest the wisdom of our female ancestors, connecting us not only with our deepest selves but with our place in the entire web of creation to which we belong." —Mirabai Starr, Author of Wild Mercy and Ordinary Mysticism

“a powerful and intimate act of generosity and care... If we stand any chance of throwing off modernity’s shackles, might we need to re-imagine—through remembering and through dreaming-forward—what mothering means in ways that are both simple and complex, as well as what it means to mother one another and the worlds we’re living in, and what it means to be mothered ourselves, by forces both minuscule and grand? I pray that this beautiful book plays its rightful part in that re-imagining, and that Perdita’s wise incantation and evocation for Mothers of all kinds is heard across all the worlds.”  —Tom Hirons, author of Sometimes a Wild God

“We know the feminine has been diminished—but what happens when we face that truth through the raw, complicated stories of our own mothers and grandmothers? Mothers of Magic takes us there. The author turns to the tangled story of her mother, to the startling depth she discovers in her grandmother’s diaries, and to the nurturance she finds in the natural world. Together, these threads reveal what has been lost and what must be reclaimed. Clear, compassionate, and disarmingly honest, Finn's prose reminds us that the gifts we long to offer often rise from histories far older than our own lives. This is a book that leads us back to connection, belonging, and the wild soul at the heart of the via feminina.” —Mary Reynolds Thompson, author of The Way of the Wild Soul Woman and The Wild Scribe

“How many of us even know our mother and grandmother’s stories? Who amongst us has the courage to really ask—and deeply listen? ...Finn invites us to put away the books of men and thoroughly look at the lives of our mothers and grandmothers before, during, and after patriarchy.” 

—Trista Hendron, Founder of Girl God