ABSTRACT
Drawing on biblical imagery that compares the kingdom of heaven to a handful of leaven, feminist commentator Andrea Nye (1994) likens the contemporary philosopher's vocation to bread-making and, by implication, the philosopher to the biblical woman who, taking a handful of leaven, 'hid [it] in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened' (Matthew, 13:33). Nye's metaphor seems particularly apt for the work undertaken here. Although we began with the image of a woman on a bridge committing infanticide, an image intended to capture the marginalisation, social injustice and environmental degradation that constitute the present global crisis, the path taken in seeking to address these issues arose from the handful of leaven that the yogi threw into my world. Exploring questions concerning the nature of knowledge and the adequacy and validity of our modern Western, rational way of knowing involves a retreat from the socio-political domain of the woman on the bridge. Yet, as I suggested in chapter two, when a problem is tackled on a fundamental level, the approach may not seem immediately relevant 'to the causal eye', but the impact may in the long run turn out to be 'more widespread and efficacious' (Crowe, 1987:8).
