Lawrence Edwards’ Invite them in, She said is a gorgeous offering of healing joy and authentic vision to our agonized burning world. He is one of our most inspired and unfetteredly ecstatic mystic poets, gifted with a soaring simplicity of realized truth that cuts through all barriers of dogma or doubt. Read him, share him, celebrate his witness, and dare to embody the visions he shares with such lucid and empowering abandon.
Andrew Harvey – founder of The Institute for Sacred Activism™, retreat leader, bestselling author of The Magdalene Revolution, and numerous additional works.

The title Invite them in, She said couldn’t be more perfect. In these exquisite poetic renderings, the Divine Feminine invites you – almost begs you – to come into Her heart and know the peace, the bliss, and the freedom that comes from entering there. Using Lawrence’s words as her tool, She reaches out to every tradition. She reminds the Buddhist how to set all beings free. She calls to the yogi in the guise of Shakti and to the Hindu through the power of Kali. For Christians, She alludes to St. Paul’s conviction that only the Unseen is Eternal. And all the while, she whispers her divine love into the ear of each and every one of us. The reader is left astounded that so many different images can be conjured up to express the way the divine works in our lives: slow learners; naked, quivering hearts; luminous love that pierces the clotted darkness, and ocean waves that rise, subside, and dissolve in their ecstatic emergence. This is surely a work of divinely inspired creativity.
Teri Degler – author of The Divine Feminine Fire: Creativity and Your Yearning to Express Your Self; and Gopi Krishna – A Biography: Kundalini, Consciousness, and Our Evolution to Enlightenment.  www.teridegler.com

The voice of Kalidas, the beloved 5^th century Hindu poet, speaks/flows/streams through Lawrence, calling the reader to remember their own spiritual longing and profound relationship with the Divine. Some poems admonish us for forgetting our true nature, others are powerful doorways directly into the Infinite. Rich great food for spiritual practice.
Lee Lyon – founder and director of The Foundation for Integrative Meditation; author of The 112 Meditations From The Book Of Divine Wisdom (Vijnana Bhairava Tantra).

I have known Lawrence Edwards for nearly twenty years — first as a teacher, and over time as a dear friend — and across that span I have watched him do one thing with remarkable constancy: sit before the Divine, chant her mantras, meditate and most of all listen deeply. Invite them in, She said is the fruit of that listening. This fourth Kalidas volume does not read as poetry reaching for effect. It reads as transcription — what is given when a practitioner gets quiet enough to receive it.
The structure is mostly dialogue. A seeker asks; She answers. The opening poem begins with a plea — so many are suffering, what can I do? — and the reply is not a program but an invitation: come into the embrace, the stillness, the all-embracing love of Her Being. What struck me most, as someone whose own path runs through Tibetan Buddhism and Jewish mysticism, is how naturally the book holds many traditions at once. The Divine Mother here is Kali and Tara, but also the Mother of all Buddhas, Prajnaparamita; Milarepa stands beside Mirabai and St. Teresa, the Black Madonna beside Shiva. Lawrence writes of refuge, of the four immeasurables, of impermanence and the work of discernment, without ever turning doctrine into a fence. For him every form is Her form and every way Her way, and the poems live that conviction rather than argue it.
These are not poems to consume but to linger with. My own practice is quieter and deeper for sitting with them. Invite this book in.
Evan Wildstein – Founder of Khandro Ling, Senior Advisor at Kohlberg, Board Member – University of Michigan Social Venture Fund

These transmissions from Lawrence Edwards are jewels. They cut to our true nature and provide powerful realizations and reminders of what is most important. It is such a gift to be able to take in these gems, these jewels, as they move into the depth of our being and awaken us. Invite them in, She said is a profound poetry collection.
David Greenspan – Founder, Slate Path Capital; Board Member & Adjunct Professor, Columbia University School of Business.

This is a book of divinely crafted, poetic adventures into the blessed Unknown who is a Who and a You to each of us. This infinite Mother of creation invites us to know Her as the ultimate Source of freedom, unconditional care, and welcome. Even before we are born, She blesses us as Her beloved, and to know that when we realize our personal belovedness, we realize that everyone is beloved. Kalidas speaks for all who feel imprisoned in our fears, habits, opinions, and self-conscious anxieties. Kalidas’s poems invite us to be reborn into the timeless freedom that lives and prospers beneath and within all the self-referential language we habitually use about ourselves and others every day.
Robert A. Jonas, Ed.D. – founder and director of The Empty Bell sanctuary (www.emptybell.org, and www.mydearfar-nearness.org ), a retreat leader, musician (shakuhachi) and author (a biographer of Henri Nouwen, and author of My Dear Far-Nearness: The Holy Trinity as Spiritual Practice).

This collection of writings is perfectly named, for each one invites us into the glory, mystery and awe of the spiritual journey with and in the Divine. I found myself moved, blessed and deeply informed by these ecstatic and wise poems. Each one bears a pearl that touches the willing heart. Invite them in, indeed, into the delight of the God/dess and teaching the seeker about walking the path of love. Kalidas has delivered faithfully again!
Sister Elizabeth Broyles – CMA, cofounder, Companions of Mary the Apostle, companionsofmarytheapostle.org

With Invite them in She said, Lawrence Edwards — writing as Kalidas — continues his long, intimate dialogue with the Divine Mother, and once again leaves the door open for the rest of us to step through. These are not poems that strive or perform; they read as conversations overheard between the soul and its Source, set down with the unadorned honesty of someone who has truly knelt at that threshold. Kali, Tara, the Black Madonna — by whatever name She is called here, the same thing comes through: a tender, ardent, hard-won spaciousness, and an invitation, again and again, to set down the burdened mind and rest in the stillness, the silence, the emptiness where Love alone remains. Read them slowly. Let them do their quiet work. They are companions for the cave of the heart.
Ivan Granger – author of This Dance Of Bliss and The Longing In Between: Sacred Poetry From Around The World; and creator of the online sacred poetry site, Poetry Chaikhana – www.poetry-chaikhana.com.

Dr. Lawrence Edwards (Kalidas) – modern mystic, meditation master, and dedicated servant of the Divine Mother in the form of Kali – writes as a pen in Her hand, channeling Her wisdom notes for us all in this book of Love, by Love, for Love. In Invite them in, She said, Kalidas ushers the reader into the cave of the Heart through an exquisite collection of inspired poetry and Divine transmissions. Within each poem is a presence: a dear friend, sage teacher, companion on the road of life, there to help you at any moment, at every moment, return home to rest and delight in the quiet of our inner being that’s always held and illuminated by Dark Mystery. The reader might find, as I did, that many of the poems speak to you and even play with you, giving your mind exactly what it needs to shift in the way it needs to – an antidote to itself! Others draw the reader into the profound intimacies of a devoted servant’s love for his Beloved, such as the poems “You” and “Taken in”, or his earnest questions to Her in “Invite them in,” “Refuge,” and “O Tara Ma” with Her responses to him, to us. Within each poem is a portal, words of wisdom that take us to the Wisdom beyond the words. You’ll want to take your time with them, savor each line, receive their Grace-filled power, and delight in just being.
Christina Gonzalez, PhD – Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the Univ. of South Carolina, lead curator of the Smithsonian exhibition, Caribbean Indigenous Resistance ¡Taíno Vive!”

Invite them in, She Said feels like unwrapping a rare mystical gift. Divine energy radiates through each poem, diving straight into the heart. Dissolving the veil of the ordinary mind, this poetry draws us toward the transcendent with a sense of playfulness, urgency, and — above all — love. Accepting the invitation to engage the text, we find ourselves nestled deep within the divine Mother’s intimate embrace as She guides, reassures, and nourishes. In the tradition of devotional poetry from poet saints such as Rumi, Hildegard of Bingen, and Hafiz, this collection takes the mind beyond itself until there is nothing left but the ecstatic pulse of the infinite!
Erika Murphy, Ph.D., M.Div., LSW – retreat leader and founder of Clear Spring Meditation

In Invite them in, She Said, the interior dialogues between Kalidas (Lawrence Edwards) and the Devi—the Divine Mother of the Universe—blossom into exquisite and powerful wake-up calls. They urge us to remember the truth of who we are and to become beacons of Loving Light in these troubled times. Here there is an ever-present invitation to awaken to awe and beauty, to be purified by the fire of Love, to drink from the source of joy, peace, and wisdom, following in the footsteps of the blessed sages of all spiritual traditions. May these gems, gifted by the Divine Feminine through a seasoned mystic, fan the living flame of love in countless hearts.
José Luis G. Soler – poet and co-producer of the Future Primitive podcasts

I am grateful for Lawrence Edwards, PhD (Kalidas) for his devotion to his spiritual path, deep inner work, direct experience, and intimate knowledge of the Eastern traditions. His spiritual insight and wisdom flow forth through the Great Mother Goddess’s revelatory poetry. In this book, Invite Them in, She said, the Great Mother Goddess’s poems are Divine transformations, easing the tight grip of the ordinary mind with its illusion of separation, fear, anger, reactivity, lack, and endless searching for something more. She guides you beyond this suffering mind. Her eternal luminous awareness is a beacon guiding you to your original nature, your true Self. In her eternal loving embrace you are joyously free as you become one with all-embracing love, boundless joy, wisdom, compassion, peace, and Oneness.The Devi’s poetry is a portal to the Divine. She transports me away from my everyday concerns and my limited, conditioned mind. The veil that obscures my true Self lifts briefly as I begin to see through her eyes. At times, while reading her poetry, I am brought to tears as rapturous joy wells up inside me. I experience deep peace when I am home in her loving embrace. Love and compassion arise when I am in union with all that is. I am changed by her poetry. I am freer from my reactive mind and live in peace, love, compassion, and joy more often.
Invite Them in, She said, is an open invitation to all—a profound gift from the Divine Mother.
Pamela Simon, MA – Zen Buddhist, retired professor of psychology and sociology, and shamanic practitioner.