1. In today’s world, many rituals and rites have lost their meaning, their authenticity, and power to touch us. We want to connect to our roots and traditions, but many of the women in Women’s Rites of Passage needed to revise or reinvent what their parents had bequeathed to them. Discuss how these women negated, negotiated, or re-created meaningful rites and rituals.

2. The past has such a hold on our futures: It grounds us, stabilizes us, haunts us, and can even immobilize us. Discuss how many of the women needed to revisit or reinhabit their personal pasts in order to reach closure and move on.

3. What rites of passage discussed through the women’s stories did you most resonate with? Why? Did these mirror events familiar to you from your own life? Was it more about a specific woman’s voice or perspective that made that particular rite resonate with you?

4. Were your beliefs or attitudes changed by any or many of those represented by the different women?

5. Our society is experiencing great flux. Religion has often become an occasional practice or a cult way of life. There is definitely a void that needs to be filled with meaningful spirituality. Discuss women’s need for such spirituality at crisis times in their lives, and how they resolve this need or quest.

6. Did the book make you question the way you celebrate and perform rites of passage? Have you marked several of these in your life, a few, or have you neglected to perform any of them?

7. What transitions in your life stand out for you as milestones of special personal significance that were marked with rites of passage you created? Discuss the accompanying shifts in consciousness and sense of self that took place as a result of marking, honoring, and celebrating these passages.

8. What passages, or major milestone events in your life, would you honor and celebrate retroactively if you could?

9. Did the book influence how you intend to mark, create, and perform rites of passage as you move forward through your life?

10. Were you aware of life themes before reading the last chapter of the book? Were you able to identify your own? If so, what are they? Discuss how the knowledge you’ve acquired about these will help you as you move forward in your life.

11. Overall, what main message did you come away with after having read the book?