I’ve had the item “meditate” on my “to do” list for years, on and off, and so it should be as my own mind has damn near driven me crazy on occasion, if that isn’t a contradiction in terms. I have a constant committee meeting going on in there and creative work is often the only way I can get any peace! Mostly I just decide I’m too busy to meditate.
Read MoreA wind that could tear off shingles
whips over the ridge all night,
leaving a sky clean and blue as an Alpine lake.
The last few leaves cling low to the maple trees,
In Joan’s time, tranquility, prosperity and contentment were as newly abundant as the ocean while kindness and compassion were as commonplace as air. Still, Joan dreamt over and over of a tormented woman staring through hazy torchlight into the sanctuary of a cave held deep inside a mountain. Painted horses raced around the walls, unchained from the stone, while Paleolithic dancers circled round and round an altar in the center, their heels pounding grooves into the stone floor.
Read MoreWhether or not you are Australian this small book is packed with information. It is also a source of useful questions about the history and nature of emerging Goddess spirituality and has certainly set me thinking. One of the things I like about the book is that it is well organised, leading you systematically through an account of global as well as local experience of Goddess spirituality.
Read MoreStepping slowly around the Medicine Wheel, I gaze across,
breathing with each Sister there, my other Selves.
In this lesson you will explore the differences between nourishing, tonifying, stimulating/ sedating and potentially-poisonous plants. You will learn how to prepare and use them for greatest effect and most safety.
Read MoreTo make Brigit Prayer beads: put three units of three beads each, with divider beads between. You may put any number of divider beads between individual beads; place a larger number between the units of three beads. Place one large bead at the point you wish to indicate as the “beginning.”
Read MoreMary Sharratt has given us another alternative view of a woman from history – I loved her “Daughters of the Witching Hill” (reviewed in Goddess Pages Spring 2010) and enjoyed this just as much.
Read More The Bard fell silent today.
After battling dragons of patriarchy,
tending the wild places,
creating and teaching songs and poetry,
The first time my sister Leslie went to Mexico, she asked a local man: “Do you know where the moon is?” He hesitated, then pointed and said: “Sometimes it’s over there.” But it wasn’t – not that week.
Read MoreBirthing is a messy process and re-birthing oneself into a new way of being in the world can potentially be even messier. Physical birth includes emotions, physical exertion, and multiple body fluids, while psychological rebirthing includes reviewing emotional baggage, mopping up outworn juicy assumptions, behaviors, and preconceived notions, as well as engagement with one’s shadow self.
Read MoreReviewed by Sue Oxley Having participated in one of Jane's workshops, I was so glad to get this book for review. The workshop had been one of the most powerful experiences of my life, and one which I remember frequently,...
Read MoreI first met the Goddess Gefjon (of whom I had never before heard) shortly after my move to Denmark.
I moved to Copenhagen in January 2009, to live together with my Danish boyfriend. One evening I walked with him to Kastellet, to see the Little Mermaid, one of the most famous Danish tourist attractions. On the way, I saw the Gefjon fountain made by Anders Bungaard in 1897-99). It was breathtakingly beautiful and so alive!
I have no problem with the idea of science meeting spirituality and eagerly read anything that will help me to understand the concepts. I love it when someone explains modern physics to me – suddenly I get it! Then, within seconds, the clarity is gone again … is this just me? I suspect the cat understands on some level I don’t have access to.
Read Morewell, we were not exactly in the cremation grounds, as we were all westerners living in a large west coast city, and the closest we could get to cremation grounds was outside a columbarium* … however, at my impetus, there we were.
Read MoreOK – so what are stone circles for?
I don’t necessarily feel reverential every time I approach one, but often have felt some spiritual connection, which certainly doesn’t happen on approaching Spaghetti Junction or the M25. The authors of this book, however, would have us believe that many megaliths were the direction-finding devices of their day. Not only this, but other ancient sites – the kind often used to mark out ley lines, could also be used as part of a larger package.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.
Do these words sound familiar? American readers probably guess that it’s part of The Declaration of Independence. European readers might think of Mary Wollstonecraft or another early feminist.
I was in my thirties, training as a psychotherapist and in therapy when I was first introduced to the idea of Goddess. I was struggling to resolve my sense of identity as a woman, which had long been uncertain. My therapist, of Catholic background, suggested Mary as a start, but at that point it felt too scary for a Jewish girl! I found myself initially drawn to Kwan Yin even though I knew nothing about her.
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