Eating in the Light of the Moon: How Women Can Transform Their Relationship with Food Through Myths, Metaphors, and Storytelling

I'm a dietitian and life coach, and this is a book I have given as a gift to clients. It's target audience is women with eating disorders, but if you expand your definition, that could include anyone who is challenged by food choices. This book has 20 chapters that are each an easy, digestible length. Author Anita Johnston separates out the ideas of physical hunger and emotional hunger. She points out that as much as we try, no amount of food will satisfy our emotional hungers. And she looks at many of the issues that arise when you stop avoiding the real 'hunger'. She also addresses the inner journey that we each must make to learn who we are and what our truth is. The book is oriented towards women. It gives a wonderful sense of the feminine, and how women can lose themselves in a masculine, action-oriented world.

You don't have to have an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia to gain insight from this book. I started out reading "Eating in the Light of the Moon" to see how I could help someone else through her E.D., only to find that I myself am a "disordered" eater, that is, I eat for reasons other than hunger. I eat to comfort myself, to stuff down feelings I don't want to deal with. I recommend this book to every woman. You will grow spiritually, your soul will be nourished, and you will be affirmed in your woman-ness. You will also be more grace-giving to yourself and to other women and girls in your life. It's the kind of book you just can't put down and it's good to the last page!

While Anita Johnson's book focusses on women's use of food as a way to cope with disconnection from our souls, I'm recommending it to everywoman I know! Her chapter "Moontime: Reclaiming the Body's Wisdom" contains a story she wrote for her daughters "to provide them with a new way of understanding the menstrual process". I believe this story has the potential to transform the next generation of emerging women. I want every mother, aunt, health education teacher, and adult woman I know to have have a copy for herself and to pass it on to every women she knows -- but especially our young women and daughters. Johnson's beautiful tale of a young woman's journey toward learning about "women's earth magic" is evocative, full of grace and wisdom, and transformative. My own experience of my female cycles will never be the same. The life changing power of story graces all the chapters of this book. Women on the road to self-recovery of any sort will do well to spend some time soaking in the goodness Johnson offers on these pages. In her preface Johnson notes that women in recovery from disordered eating "follow a twisting, turning, winding path to their centers. It required them to leave behind old perceptions of themselves that they had adopted from others and to reclaim their own inner authorities. They had to listen to the voice from within to give them guidance and support as they searched from their true thoughts, feelings, and desires." While especially written for those of us working with recovery from eating disorders, this book is an understanding and soulful resource for any woman on the journey to the center of herself. Thank you Anita!

This is a deeply insightful book that speaks to women with disordered eating of all types and severities. I've found that one of the most terrifying aspects of living with an eating disorder is the sense of stark isolation from others that we feel, fueled by the powerful secrets that we keep. As a woman recovered from bulimia, I was appreciative of Dr. Johnston's ability to help me see the many commonalities among women who suffer with eating disorders. Johnston uses stories, myth and symbol to help explain the emotional and spiritual struggles that women encounter as they seek to regain a balance between heart and mind. Her description of the labyrinth as a metaphor of women's healing path serves as a gentle reminder that healing from disordered relationships with food is not a simple, straight-forward, linear process; and that being judgmental of our "progress" toward healing can only hinder our journeys. I have read this book several times and have shared it with my mother, friends and colleagues. It has been a catalyst for many emotionally and intellectually fruitful discussions. I recommend it whole-heartedly.

Johnston's book spirals deeply into the core issues that any woman coping with disordered eating would want to address, and she does it with a gentle, patient, and encouraging spirit. Her work uses myth, allegory and storytelling as a way of looking at the deep-seated issues of what it means to be a woman in today's culture and how that affects our relationships with food. This is definitely not a diet or how-to book. It is lyrical, poetic and spiritual, but remains eminently practical. Johnston transcends the standard medical view of disordered eating as a purely physical problem and incorporates woman's mind, body and spirit in her work. Johnston integrates feminine spirituality and feminism with basic healthy living practices and presents options that those of us who have struggled with food may not have considered before. As a recovered bulimic, I can vouch for the efficacy of her approach, and I fervently wish that everyone who has struggled with food and eating issues would read this book.