THE GODDESS was originally titled THE GODDESS PAPERS because it grew out of a series of explorations into the nature of the Greek Goddesses that author Christine Downing did over a series of months during a crucial transition point in her life. Part of the reason for these explorations was a need to explore the shadow aspects both of her own psyche and of the larger mythological figures with whom she was dealing in scholarly and imaginal ways. Perhaps this is the reason that this book, far from being a dry exercise in strictly academic concerns, still has the power to shock--as is evidenced by the review from the 28-year old woman, above, who was so upset by the personal revelations that she had a hard time even completing the reading of the book!

To my mind, the book does us a great service by these confessions and by the larger theme they serve: to make it clear how powerfully the images of myth speak to the wholeness of our humanity, and how much they continue to illuminate those aspects of ourselves with which we are always struggling to come to terms. In doing so, she makes us understand aspects of Artemis or of Aphrodite or of Hera or even of Athena which it is very easy to overlook when dealing with these divine figures through the rose-colored lenses of most treatments of them for the general public, which often bear a kind of Disneyfied glow entirely untrue to the reality of their natures, or to the rituals and stories through which they were born. For example, it is no accident, as Downing shows, that Athena has the head of the Gorgon Medusa on her breastplate, or that Aphrodite has mythic links with the chthonic Underworld Goddesses

I not only recommend this book (or any book by Christine Downing) most highly, I consider it essential to our modern understanding of the Ancient Greeks and to our understanding of contemporary feminist re-visionings of them. The fact that is being re-issued some thirty years after its original generation is indicative of the fact that I am not alone in this assessment.

This book takes the archetypes presented in the myths of the Great Greek Goddesses and relates them to the lives of women today. The author lookes at the characters in these myths and what they mean to her. This may seem totally self-centered but the themes examined, like the loss of innocence and sexual awakening of Persephone, are central to the lives of all women.

Each chapter takes on one Goddess and looks at several quotes from ancient Greek texts, the central myths, and overall impression of the Goddess to fully explore what she means to us as women. My one complaint is that she expects us to know the outline of each myth first, and examines only the parts she thinks are important so I did have to look elsewhere on one occasion for the full myth in sequential order. Not hard to find though.

The Goddesses covered are;

Persephone, Aridne, Hera, Athene, Gaia, Artemis, Aphrodite.

I only wish I had a book like this for every pantheon I use.