Customer Reviews

The Body of the Goddess: Sacred Wisdom in Myth, Landscape and Culture

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Rachel Pollack's unique insights are an important addition to the literature on Goddess religion.

She brings alive the visual impact of the body of the Goddess in landscape--including the surroundings of sacred sites in Europe--in a way I've not experienced in other books. She sheds new light on parts of Greek mythology I previously felt were hopelessly fragmented by patriarchy. In particular, her moving discussion of the Persephone myth transforms many of the most disturbing aspects of the patriarchal version of this myth into a metaphor of the continuing power of the Goddess and of women.

Add to this, Pollack's fearless look at sexuality, gender fluidity and gender-changing in ancient Goddess religions and you have a wonder-filled tour de Source.

Wow. What a book. It's totally changed my view of human history (and, more to the point, herstory) and brought fresh insights about the Goddess. The dawn of civilization and religion, the matrifocal civilization of Catal Huyuk and Crete, the Gallae, and the Eleusinian Mysteries are all covered, with a spin on such things as landscape, the labrys, and the Venus of Willendorf that I've never seen elsewhere.

Oddly enough, she manages to miss the central mystery of the Attis myth -- that He was reborn as a woman -- but all in all, this is an absolute tour de force.

Rachel Pollack is the world's foremost expert of the tarot. Her book THE BODY OF THE GODDESS is my personal favorite of all of her many works. This book documents her travels in Malta and other places to visit sacred Goddess sites. It is a personal book that makes you feel that Rachel is actually telling you these adventures in person. Rachel Pollack believes that Goddess spirituality is what all beings on this planet need. I completely agree with her ideas. Patriarchal medicine, religon and politics are destroying our earth. The Bush administration seems to be determined to wage war against vulnerable people who get in his way. Goddess spirituality and tarot can make us change our thinking to a way of thinking in tune with the earth and it's inhabitants including nonhuman animal life and nonhuman plant life. Thank you Ms. Pollack for your incredable, healing writing. I hope Ms. Pollack and Anne Ogborn do a book together sometime. That would be so COOL!

Rachel Pollack ahs written a book about the Goddess and our earth. This book is not just for females alone. It can appeal to both genders, sexual orientations and races. My anthropology professor recommended this book to me. It is a pionerring book that all should read. If we value our earth and women we must change our thinking and actions.

Rachel P. has written a beautiful book on the Goddess. I recommend it. And I look forward to her new book on tarot for kids.

Rachel Pollack's The Body Of The Goddess reads like a gift from the Goddess Herself. I recommend it to all seekers of truth.

I am very enthusiastic about The Body Of The Goddess". Ms. Pollack travelled to sites all over the world devoted to the worship of the Great Goddess and all of her many manifestations. This book combines feminist spirituality with feminist politics and feminist archeology and anthropology to show us what the world was like when egalitarian beliefs were dominant. All feminists and people interested in the fate of our planet should read this classic book.

Pollack's main idea is that the body of the Goddesss is present to us when we honor the physical body and see relationships of our physicality to nature. By respecting how we construct knowledge through our interactions with nature, the goddess reveals her body implicitly in the myths and symbols and explicitly in humanity's sexed bodies, hills and caves of archeological sites, animals such as bees, snakes, birds, and cows.
Pollack provides a wide source of sites to visit both in America and abroad citing Crete as the island where the Goddess religion lived 4.500 years ago. Theading together archeological research, other writers about goddess civilizations especially Gimbutas and her own personal interactions with various archeological sites she discusses the Megalithic and Neolithic eras as goddess cultures of non-violence and enormous invention. Pollack is adamant that the Goddess only comes into play through our physical engagement of her. She demonstrates how patriarchal societies weaved into the myths a distortion of the goddess tainting her so as to gain power over woman. She uses feminist writings to provide alternative interpretations that put a twist on myths and symbols as they are more traditionally interpreted. Pollack argues knowledge grows out of the situation and cites the importance of visiting these cites yourself to develop your own understanding. Both art and dance are important to the Goddess culture. Pollack writes, "When the conscious mind struggles to make sense of powerful images, to make symbols out of them, then art takes on culturally specific meaning." Dance, for Pollack, is movement that unites us to ourselves. She states, "Through dance we experience our bodies as alive, and we experience the life that flows rhythmically through all creation." The Persephone myth Pollack unites to the Gaia theory augmenting a biological meaning to her historical and psychological explanation of the story. A wonderful read with important insights on the Goddess and physicality.

This book is clearly by a woman who loves her Goddess work. She is a great novelist and tarot writer. The best trans writer since CAROLINE COSSEY. BUY THIS BOOK NOW!!!

Transgende author Rachel Pollack has written a magical book. 5 stars!