A thorough, academic look at the past, present, and future of Norse polytheism. Welch highlights many Norse goddesses as well as other divine females of the Norse pantheon - Valkyries, Norns, Giantesses, Disir - and in a straightforward manner, makes a definitive case for the primordial goddess.

In 1948 Robert Graves published The White Goddess. His study of poetic mysticism and goddess worship has since become a founding text of Western paganism. As Wicca emerged from what Graves called, a few hopeful young people in California, to over two million strong, The White Goddess has achieved near liturgical status. This rising appreciation brings all the problems of liturgical texts. Many pagans consider Graves’ work like the goddess herself; awe inspiring but impenetrable. Stalking The Goddess is the first extensive examination of this enigmatic text to come from the pagan community and guides readers through bewildering forests of historical sources, poems, and Graves’ biography to reveal his unorthodox claims and entrancing creative process. Relentlessly perusing each path, it explores the uncharted woods and reveals the hidden signposts Graves has posted. The hunt for the goddess spans battlefields, ancient manuscripts, the British museum, and Stonehenge. En route we encounter not only the goddess herself but her three sacred animals; dog, roebuck, and lapwing. Perhaps the muse cannot be captured on her own grounds, but now at least there is a map. ,

"Peg Streep's Sanctuaries of the Goddess is a journey into the past, a spiritual adventure into a long-buried time, that captures in glorious images and words the peaceable, generative deity of prehistory and her sacred sites." "Long before Judaism and Christianity, long before the Greco-Roman pantheon of gods and goddesses, the peoples of Western and Central Europe and the Near East worshipped a Goddess, seen in many guises, who encompassed both the awesome power of nature and the forces of life and death. The far reaches of her power found their expression in artifacts, sculptures and carvings, and at the sites where she was venerated - caves, sanctuaries, and temples - that have slept for thousands of years." "Sanctuaries of the Goddess brings once-holy places dramatically back to life and recaptures their numinous power. The spiritual and archaeological significance of these ancient sites and their artifacts is conveyed in glowing photographs, from the caves of Lascaux in France to the awe-inspiring underground chambers of the Hypogeum on Malta, the mysteries of Ireland's Dowth and Knowth, and the mountain sanctuaries of Crete. The accompanying text takes readers deep into the past, offering glimpses of rites and rituals half-hidden in the shadows of history and illuminating the mysteries of the ancient Goddess for the present day."--BOOK JACKET.

A woman delves into science and superstition, fear and persecution, and the hope and courage of belief in an award-winning and internationally bestselling novel by Kateřina Tučková. Last in a centuries-old lineage of healing women, Dora Idesová was raised by her aunt Surmena in the White Carpathians. Resistant to superstition, Dora grew up hearing stories of the "goddesses" who were said to conjure love and curses and, through divine connection, cure the spirit and the body. Now an academic, Dora is researching the tales that for generations spellbound the hillside where she grew up. As the mysteries become truths, they reveal a stunning discovery that reaches back from the witch trials of the seventeenth century through Nazi-occupied Germany. Embarking on an emotional journey, Dora is about to find out how deeply and fatefully she is entwined with secret tradition. Masterfully weaving together fact, folklore, and fiction, Kateřina Tučková draws on the stories of her ancestors to explore the extraordinary history of goddesses who walked the earth.

More women than ever are incorporating some kind of spiritual practice into their daily lives, and not always in traditional religious form, but as alternative or hybrid practices. In Practicing the Presence of the Goddess, Barbara Ardinger offers a wide variety of meditations and personal rituals to help women honor the feminine spirit and commune with the Goddess. These include creating a sacred space at home, building a meaningful altar, using ritual and meditation to enrich awareness, and inventing new rituals to celebrate personal events. The author's wry, gentle humor and loving attitude shine through the text, which offers possibilities ranging from bringing love into one's life to having a heart-to-heart with the Goddess.