Spirit and Dust: Meditations for Women with Depression

Depression affects women in different ways and from different causes and with different effects than it does men. Author Maura Hanrahan directs this beautiful book of meditations directly at women living with long-term or chronic depression, using her own experience and that of other women to explore the practical and spiritual aspects of depression.

Each short meditation deals with one aspect or another of depression in women, from how some women are programmed toward depression as little girls to how a husband or parent or support group can help (or hinder) a woman in dealing with her depression. This book is not for the woman who is occasionally melancholy or discouraged. Nor is it for the faint of heart, for the author tells about serious depression the way it is.

Spirit & Dust offers no easy cures, yet it is hopeful and helpful. Each meditation is accompanied by a quote or verse from a female spiritual writer, many of them mystics and some of them depression sufferers themselves.

Spirit & Dust is for women who suffer from serious depression, their loved ones who seek to understand what they are going through, and counselors and ministers who work with depressed women.