Starhawk's Bookshelf: Recommended Goddess and Pagan books
October 27, 2004:
As we move into the Halloween season, I also want to let you know about great books by friends of mine:
Pagan Pride: Honoring the Craft and Culture of Earth and Goddess (Citadel Press) by M. Macha NightMare, my co-author on The Pagan Book of Living and Dying: A compilation Pagan accomplishments out of the diverse and rich traditions of our ancestors.
http://www.machanightmare.com/
Evolutionary Witchcraft (Tarcher/Penguin) by T. Thorn Coyle, another longtime friend and Reclaiming Teacher, which is an excellent resource for anyone wanting to deepen their personal spiritual practice.
http://www.thorncoyle.com/
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And of course there’s my partner David’s wide ranging memoir of draft resistance (he spent two years in federal prison for burning his draft card) and how that connects to Witchcraft, Mayan ballgames, and sports as masculine relgion: I Didn’t Know God Made Honky Tonk Communists (Regent Press) by David Miller can be ordered directly from the independent store 100Fires.com. David's website is at http://thecosmicballgame.com |
New Collections!
I also have pieces in some great new books:
Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World, (City Lights) edited by David Solnit . I wrote a chapter on feminism and the global justice movement.
http://www.citylights.com/pub/itin.solnit.html
Live From Palestine: International and Palestinian Direct Action against the Israeli Occupation, (South End Press) edited by Nancy Stohlman and Laurieann Aladin. Includes my piece, “Next Year in Mas’Ha” along with pieces by Edward Said, Rachel Corrie, and founders of the International Solidarity Movement Ghassan Andoni, Huwaidaa Araf, and Adam Shapiro.
http://www.southendpress.org/books/palestine.shtml
The Mas’Ha piece can also be found in Paul Loeb’s The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear (Basic Books) www.theimpossible.org
Below are books I recommended previously, and still do:
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Carol Christ has a book of feminist thealogy out, called Rebirth of the Goddess and published by Addison Wesley. [Note: now in paperback from Routledge.] It's wonderful! She combines her personal story with a grounded, solid, academically sound discussion of the principles of the Goddess movement that is nevertheless readable and comprehensible. She also looks at Marija Gimbutas' work as well as at the criticisms directed at her, and she has a wonderful way of explaining clearly terns that most academics simply toss around. Her book is an important milestone in feminist spirituality. This book can be ordered directly from the independent store 100Fires.com. |
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Margot Adler also has a book out. Heretic's Heart, published by Beacon Press, is both her autobiography and the story of the sixties. It's amazingly honest, funny, endearing and wryly cynical -- like Margot herself. I loved it -- and have just given a copy to my stepdaughter. If you need a refresher course on the sixties -- or if you want another generation to understand what we grew up with, her book and my own Walking to Mercury make good companions. |
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My friend and downstream neighbor Alexandra Genetti released a book and Tarot Deck called The Wheel of Change Tarot, published by Destiny Books/Inner Traditions. Her cards are exquisite; she's a gifted watercolor painter and she worked on them for ten years. I also like the way she incorporates people of many different ancestries and images from modern life, and her insight into the meaning of the cards is deep. See Alexandra's web site at www.wheelofchange.com. |
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Our 1997 Witchcamps worked with two stories: "Tam Lin," a traditional Scottish ballad, at three of the camps, and "Idun and the Golden Apples," a Scandinavian myth, at the other two. I found two books especially helpful in understanding the stories we worked with. R.J. Stewart's Earthlight: The Ancient Path to Transformation, published by Element, looks at the Tam Lin ballad as an initiation into faery, "the land behind the land," the realm of earth spirits and all the vitalizing powers of nature. I appreciate his information on the background of the story, as well as his meditations and advice on making our own connections with that realm. See R.J. Stewart's web site at www.dreampower.com. |
The second is Ralph Metzner's book The Well of Remembrance. Metzner draws on the work of Marija Gimbutas to look at Germanic and Norse mythology. Older, matrifocal myths and deities changed when invaders brought their own warrior gods. The hybrid system that resulted is still rich material for self-development and growth. One of the aspects of the book I found most valuable was his clear look at the issue of the misuse of Germanic mythology by the Nazis. In the United States, we are not too conscious of this problem, but in Europe, especially in Germany, the supposed Nazi taint is a large factor in people's disconnection from their heritage and fear of Paganism in general. Metzner identifies the core myths of the Nazis -- racial purity, blood and soil, etc. and shows how they are entirely different from the core concerns of Norse mythology. I've been sending his book to our friends in Germany.
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Brigid's Charge by my friend Cynthia Lamb (Bay Island Books) is a historical novel set in colonial New Jersey. It's the story of a woman who is a healer and a Witch [Cynthia's ancestor, as it happens], and based on a real legend of the New Jersey Devil. She's done a tremendous job of research on the period, and I learned a lot from it as well as enjoying it thoroughly. This book can be ordered directly from the independent store 100Fires.com. |
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I
also recommend my friend Marcia Falk's Book
of Blessings (HarperSanFrancisco).
With great sensitivity and impeccable scholarship,
Marcia has rewritten the Jewish liturgy so
that it works for women and for men who are
tired of a masculinist vision of God. Her
achievement is far more than just gender-neutral
language -- she really delves into the heart
of each prayer, and succeeds in bringing out
new layers of meaning. Also, she's a fine
poet in both English and Hebrew. For Jewish
Pagans, this book is a new classic, the work
we've all been waiting for. For non-Jewish
Pagans, it's a rich source of liturgies that
can work in many settings -- especially when
ecumenical ritual is called for. For non-Pagan
Jews, it's a book that will illumine the Jewish
tradition from a fresh perspective and infuse
it with new life. Just one example: the traditional Shema, the most basic Jewish declaration of faith, is: "Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord Our God, The Lord is One." Marcia's version: "Hear, Oh Israel, the divine abounds everywhere and dwells in everything: the many are One." |
-- Starhawk