Reviews and Comments

Chapter about goddess beliefs in megalithic folklore? Sign me up

For the hefty page count, this is truly an overview of all the aspects, changes, and histories of Mother...and what a brilliant overview it is.

Some books shouldn't be retitled. For how much this dude loves Freud, I'd like Freud to read this book. He'd either die or he'd have a whole new branch of misogynistic psychology cooked up

Buddy reading !!

Generally a fantastic book to read in order to understand the relationship between the dead and the living in various ancient greek locales. It dips into myths around the dead & divine intervention (either in killing them or saving them), goes over various deities associated with the dead (such as Hecate and Hermes) and the final chapter on the function of the Erinyes was a really good one and has sparked a whole lot of interest in me to go and have a look further into Them & Their worship.

Everything is a womb if you try hard enough! Quite disappointed, was hoping for a lot more from a book focusing on the rosary and Mary outside of organised christianity. I found Perdita's chapters to be insightful and caring (bumping from a one star to a two), but the other chapters were short and began to become repetitive. I think this would've benefitted from longer chapters with citations for some of the historical & ecological claims. On top of all of the previous, a good chunk of the book read as though Clark Strand had just found out women are also people with feelings and thoughts. The appendix and practical information on the rosary was fine though.

I love the concept of this book - a series of chapters with two sections within each, one by each author and focusing on an animal, plant, or other parts of nature with similar messages (all while focusing on the feminine in nature). In practice, the book is a mess of appropriated indigenous spirituality with a few good points in each chapter that can be detangled. There are meditation & wildnerness practices which can be salvaged and are worth the book for me, and there are chapters on entities not often found within "nature" books (banana slug & glacial silt come to mind). Overall though, I feel this could have been vastly improved.

A collection of essays that spans all of the important issues and points within current witchcraft practice - something I reccomend without question as a primer for people just starting out on reading various witchcraft & related books. My only issue is the last two essays fell flat - one felt like a sales pitch & one felt too short.

An obvious 5*, Kimmerer is an incredible author with a strong base of knowledge that spans across many fields. Her authorial voice is more like a guide, bringing you through her life and relationship with the world around her all while imparting important knowledge, advice, Native lore and experience, and political lessons. I do feel in parts it could have benefitted from longer chapters, but overall I found this to be a really brilliant read.

Not often is there a book on Celtic-ness that not only includes ALL of the Celtic nations (especially the often left out Kernow & Mannin), but goes into depth for each chapter on a place from each. It is also quite thoroughly grounded in Celtic reality - no appropriated indigenous spiritualities to be found, just extrapolation from historical record, folklore, and the megalithic sites themselves. I really enjoyed this book, the gazeteer in the back is a brilliant addition with a wonderful range of sites to visit. My only qualm is it could be longer to take even more time on each site and chapter.