"Maiden, Mother, Crone: The Myth & Reality of the Triple Goddess"
by D.J. Conway

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"Maiden, Mother, Crone introduces the concept of the Labyrinth, a journey where you learn to face past emotional upheavals, become responsible for your actions and reactions, and accept all aspects of the cycle of life. The Labyrinth can be traversed with the knowledge and balance provided by the Goddess. This book shares the rituals, meditations, and techniques that will make the journey possible.

Maiden, Mother, Crone also helps you use the Goddess for guidance in day-to-day experiences. You'll discover the meanings of hundreds of symbols that occur in myths, legends, and your own dreams, allowing you to identify symbolic messages that the Goddess wants you to know.

The Triple Goddess is with every one of us each day of our lives. In our inner journeys toward spiritual evolution, each woman and man goes through the stages of Maiden (infant to puberty), Mother (adult and parent), and Crone (aging elder)."

"Grandmother Moon: Lunar Magic in Our Lives"
by Zsuzsanna Budapest

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"Inviting us to "look" at the moon as the old ally she is," renowned feminist witch Zsuzsanna Budapest shows how to tap into the moon's power for peace, health, and energy. With delightful wit and wisdom, she shares practical and entertaining lunar lore, from ancient moon-based rituals to lunar cycle diet tips. Budapest reveals how, by acting in harmony with the moon, women can balance everything from their mood and weight to fertility. Here is a spirited illumination of the natural cycles that influence our lives.

This spirited guide to "the grandmother of time" includes lunar lore, aspects of the goddess related to the moon, and diet and behaviour suggestions correlated with the moon's cycles. This book introduces the moon as an influence on both evolution and on individual sex lives. The author offers practical advice on how to make it through the moon's phases: waxing, waning and retrograde. The book is organized by the 13 lunations, exploring the moods, goddesses, rituals, and legends that are associated with each cycle."

"The Once and Future Goddess: A Sweeping Visual Chronicle of the Sacred Female" by Elinor Gadon

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"Having demanded that spirituality be reexamined in terms of women's own spiritual needs, the women's movement has brought a resurgence of prepatriarchal spirituality centering on the goddess--whatever her name. Along with this resurgence comes the need to reexamine artistic and anthropological assumptions. Using art and artifacts, Gadon traces the history of goddess worship from Paleolithic times to the present day. The most moving and effective chapters are on women's art of the late 20th century. A compelling and challenging book suitable for both public and academic libraries.

Does the Goddess have a place not only in our past but in our future? In this venturesome and persuasively argued book, Elinor Gadon answers this question with a ringing affirmative...This is a volatile and controversial book that will evoke widespread criticism and acclaim. I commend it to readers, not only specialist, but anyone who is interested in the health and well-being of our psyches and of our planet."

"Goddess Alive: Inviting Celtic and Norse Goddesses into Your Life"
by Michelle Skye

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"The changing of the seasons, phases of the moon, even our personal experiences-all are reflections of the Divine Feminine.

As you make your way through a transformative year, know that each goddess has a different energy and a unique lesson to teach you. Starting with the Winter Solstice, the eight seasonal Sabbats and five faces of the moon provide the guideposts along your path.

Cerridwyn ~ Welsh Goddess of Rebirth and Renewal; Brigid ~ Irish Goddess of Healing, the Forge, and Creative Inspiration; Eostre ~ Anglo-Saxon Goddess of Spring; Freyja ~ Norse Goddess of Love and War; Aine ~ Irish Goddess of Faeries and Fertility; Danu ~ Irish Mother Goddess of Wisdom; Modron ~ Welsh Mother Goddess of Mystery; Hella ~ Norse Goddess of the Underworld; Branwen ~ Welsh Goddess of Sovereignty; Maeve ~ Irish Goddess of Personal Power; The Valkyries ~ Norse Goddesses of Battle Magic and Soul Journey; Morrighan ~ Irish Goddess of Magic and Death; Rhiannon ~ Welsh Great Queen and Horse Goddess;

"Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths"
by Charlene Spretnak

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"Charlene Spretnak has succeeded extremely well in presenting pure characterizations of the Old European goddesses as they were revered for millennia, long before the Indo-European elements were imposed to create Olympian mythology.

This book broke new ground not only by celebrating the goddesses (and by implication women and femininity) but by pointing out that "the" Greek myths known far and wide were preceded by matriarchal traditions transmuted by incoming Dorian patriarchs.

Lost Goddesses of Early Greece feature long lost stories of the early goddesses of Old Europe. It starts out with an interesting introduction that sheds light on how Ms. Spretnak researched these myths. This follows with chapters on Gaia, Pandora, Themis, Aphrodite, Triad of the Moon: Artemis, Selene & Hecate, Hera, Athena, Demeter and Persephone. The stories reveal the goddesses in their true forms before the coming of the Olympian gods."

"The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future" by Riane Eisler

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"Some books are like revelations, they open the spirit to unimaginable possibilities. The Chalice and the Blade is one of those magnificent key books that can transform us and...initiate fundamental changes in the world. With the most passionate eloquence, Riane Eisler proves that the dream of peace is not an impossible utopia.

Women played leading roles in the first Christian communities; Jesus' teachings had a feminist bent; ancient Hebrews worshipped the prehistoric goddess-mother well into monarchic times; and Nazis, with their system of male dominance, were a direct throwback to the Indo-European or Aryan invaders whom they crudely imitated.

These controversial ideas and findings suggest the thrust of Eisler's highly readable synthesis. She convincingly documents the global shift from egalitarian to patriarchal societies, interweaving new archeological evidence and feminist scholarship. In her scenario, as womenonce veneratedwere degraded to pawns controlled by men, social cooperation gave way to reliance on violence, hierarchy and authoritarianism."

"Cathedral of the Black Madonna: The Druids and the Mysteries of Chartres" by Jean Markale

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"The great cathedral of Chartres is renowned the world over as a masterpiece of High Gothic architecture and for its remarkable stained glass, considered alchemical glass, and its mystical labyrinth. But the sacred foundations of this sanctuary go back to a long time before Christianity when this site was a clearing where the Druids worshipped a Virgo Paritura: a virgin about to give birth. This ancient meeting place, where all the Druids in Gaul gathered once a year, now houses the magnificent Chartres cathedral dedicated both to the Virgin Mary, Mother of God and to one of the most venerated Black Madonnas in Europe: Our Lady of the Pillar.

Coincidence? Hardly, says Jean Markale, whose exhaustive examination of the site traces Chartres' roots back to prehistoric times and the appeal of the Black Madonna back to the ancient widespread worship of Mother Goddesses such as Cybele and Isis. Markale contends that the mother and child depicted by the Black Madonna are descended from the image worshipped by the druids of the Virgin forever giving birth."

"Divine Mother: Devotional Offerings for the Sacred Feminine within All Beings" by Ivonne Delaflor

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"Without the Divine Mother principle incorporated into one’s concept of ‘God,’ half the story regarding divine nature is not told.

Ivonne Delaflor’s stunning collection of devotional poems sets in motion the Divine Feminine within your consciousness so that her compassion and wisdom will become a part of you.

The poetry, the stories, the prayers, and the higher invocations included in this collection are not only about God as the feminine force in heaven, but are also for the God in everyone and everything—the feminine in each flower, each living creature, and each cell. The Divine Feminine lives in all creation. Whether you are male or female, let Divine Mother reawaken the Divine Feminine energies within you.

As I read this book, it spoke to my own heart's longing. The activities gave me a way to focus that longing, to embrace trust and surrender and awaken the energy of the Divine Mother within me."

"The Woman in the Shaman's Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine" by Barbara Tedlock

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"Scholarly and lay interest in shamanism continues to grow. Many pertinent books are still shadowed by the antifeminine bias of the renowned Mircea Eliade, whose mid-twentieth-century works applied shaman to a self-initiated, solitary male practicing "techniques of ecstasy." Eliade's towering influence has led to startling failures of scholarship, with facts twisted to fit his interpretative framework and biased language cloaking the truth.

Tedlock reclaims the female shamanic tradition with vigor and clarity, arguing against depiction of shamans as male participants in "a sort of Flintstones private club in which manhood was celebrated and the transcendental achieved by worshiping, then negating, the feminine." The earliest known shamanic burial, she points out, was that of a woman of the Upper Paleolithic (30,000 years ago), whose dwelling included a potter's kiln in which she crafted thousands of tiny heads, feet, hands, and other talismans for healing."

"The Lady of Linshui: A Chinese Female Cult"
by Brigitte Baptandier & Kristin Ingrid Fryklund (Translator)

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This anthropological study examines the cult of the Chinese goddess Chen Jinggu, divine protector of women and children.

The cult of the "Lady of Linshui" began in the province of Fujian on the southeastern coast of China during the eleventh century and remains vital in present-day Taiwan.

Skilled in Daoist practices, Chen Jinggu's rituals of exorcism and shamanism mobilize physiological alchemy in the service of human and natural fertility.

Through her fieldwork at the Linshuima temple in Tainan (Taiwan) and her analysis of the narrative and symbolic aspects of legends surrounding the Lady of Linshui, Baptandier provides new insights into Chinese representations of the feminine and the role of women in popular religion."

"The Creation of Patriarchy" by Gerda Lerner

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"When precisely did the ideas, symbols and metaphors of patriarchy take hold of Western civilization? When were women, so central to the creation of society, moved on to the sidelines? Dr Lerner draws her evidence from a host of archaeological, literary, and artistic sources, using them to pinpoint the critical turning points in the allocation of women's roles in society.

She draws especially on archaeological evidence of the cultures of ancient Hebrew and Mesopotamian societies, cultures from which modern Western civilization has largely derived. She seeks to show that the subordination of women is a historical (i.e., changeable) phenomenon, not a natural one. Lerner posits that division of labor by sex occurred early but that the oppression of women began with the emergence of agriculture; the domination of women, she argues, preceded and served as the foundation for the origin of private property and the state and the institutionalization of slavery."

"When the Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm"
by Layne Redmond

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"If it were possible to select a single factor responsible for the parlous state of the world today, patriarchy might be the leading candidate -- with its brutal suppression, denigration and denial of the feminine.

In this passionate and erudite book, Layne Redmond links the goddess principle (expressed in the sacred, ecstatic sexuality of the distant past and the role of sexuality in evoking divine consciousness) to the playing of the frame drum -- once, apparently, exclusively a feminine instrument. As a scholar she traces the history of the drum from its former exalted position, thought its centuries of suppression, down to its current intense revival; as a virtuoso performer she speaks with authority on the drum1s real and readily accessible powers.

Women reading this book will want to jump up and start playing Layne Redmond1s drum; men will get a valuable lesson in what they have been missing these past 5000 years or so."

"Dark Mother: African Origins and Godmothers" by Lucia C. Birnbaum

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"Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum's most recent book, Dark Mother: African Origins and Godmothers, carves new passageways into the collective unconscious of human spirituality. Her premise-that the oldest veneration known to humankind was of a divinity both African and female-shatters the dominant paradigm.

Drawing on the scholarship of archeologists, geneticists, and cultural historians Birnbaum crafts an intricate thesis and supports it with impeccable research. Her words lead us back to our most ancient origins. Dark Mother is deeply moving and provocative.

Ultimately it is a book that will transform the way we think about gender, race, class, spirituality and cultural legacy. The Dark Mother's values of justice with compassion, equality, and transformation are as vitally necessary today as they were in 50,000 BCE when migrants out of central and south Africa carried them to the wider world."

"Longing for Darkness: Tara and the Black Madonna; A Ten-Year Journey" by China Galland

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"China Galland began her pilgrimage at a time of inner turmoil. Alcoholic, a single mother, and addicted to perscription drugs, her story would seem something for us to pity. Actually, we never get the chance to pity her, because of her great strength of character. At one time a devout Catholic, she found that the old ways could not serve to nurture her spirit. She found the bureaucracy of the Church an obstacle, rather than a source of assistance. Its conception of an exclusively male divinity did not nurture her spiritually.

A chance meeting changed her life, revealing to her two avenues to investigate: the Tibetan goddess Tara, and the cult of the Black Madonna. Her quest became her new lease on life. Pursuing information about "The Goddess," with the vigor that Arthur's knights sought the Holy Grail, becomes an epic task.

China Galland presents a feminine way of seeing, without pushing a Feminist agenda. Her words have great potency, and will have great meaning for most people, women and men."

"The Church of Mary Magdalene: The Sacred Feminine and the Treasures of Rennes-Le-Chateau" by Jean Markale

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"The small church of Rennes-le-Chateau, in a remote village in southern France, may well hold the key to the proof of Mary Magdalene's marriage to Jesus and the bloodline they founded.

In 1885 the village of Rennes-le-Chateau welcomed a new priest, Abbe Sauniere, for its church dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene. Abbe Sauniere died in 1917, leaving an indelible imprint on this village both because of his unusual behaviour and the very strange restoration work he ordered for the church. It is thought that he discovered something during the renovation that brought him to the attention of the power brokers of the time and made him a very rich man.

Possible identifications of his discovery range from the gold pillaged from Delphi in Roman times, the treasure bought out of Jerusalem by the Templars, who had a strong presence in the area and the missing Cathar treasure, spirited out of Montsegur mere days before the fall of the fortress. Yet even more remarkable and compelling is this church's ambiguous portrayal of Mary Magdalene."