At the crossroads of nature and human imagination, ancient goddesses, outcasts, heroes, and poets reveal living myths in sacred landscapes.
At the crossroads of nature and human imagination, ancient goddesses, outcasts, heroes, and poets reveal living myths in sacred landscapes.
Fairy tales, folk tales, legends & mythology, Gaia & earth energies, Goddess worship
At the crossroads of nature and the human imagination, Earth is sentient, fertile, and eloquent. When ancient goddesses, outcasts, heroes, and poets speak, they speak on her behalf to reveal living myths that first enchanted sacred landscapes. Their primal stories emerge from wilderness and rise from buried libraries to jolt us awake. We meet a lone goddess battling fifty giants, a beguiling wife who is secretly a serpent, a radiant lyre about to sing her own poetry, and an ogre whose heart is his forest. When oaks and rivers call for justice, when furies and monsters counter king and plow, let us turn our ear to hear. As we listen, mythic fragments lead us from marble palaces to nymph-haunted gardens, on a quest that teems with strange immortals. Along the way, a goddess of desolation, a mistress of animals, ash tree spirits, and a trickster water god appear as guides. Primeval green wisdom emerges from abyss, forest, and borderland, hidden in myths we almost lost forever, in ancient images that say things we no longer can.
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"An absolutely beautiful, poignant, heart breaking, and liberating piece of work. I do not have adequate words to describe this, other than read it for yourself." ~ Steven Davis, Goodreads
"...an inspirational collection of interwoven contemplations on landscape and myth; on enchantment, disenchantment and re-enchantment. I strongly recommend it to anyone with an interest in these themes. Rhyan draws strength from wild and marginal spaces.... I see her as making a great contribution to making ‘intensely alive myth’ visible once more. ~ James Nichol, contemplativeinquiry blog, https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2023/06/14/book-review-staff-of-laurel-staff-of-ash/
"The writing is stunningly beautiful. There were many lines that caused me to make audible gasping noises. The text is rich with ideas and inspiration – so rich that you need to read it slowly, dipping in for a taste before surfacing to draw breath and contemplate it all. ...This is very much a book for bards, with sacred inspiration infusing every page. It’s both inspiring, and suggestive of ways in which we might want to explore our own craft and inspiration. For the Druid, there is a great deal to think about philosophically around relationships with the land – human and godly relationships alike. For anyone interested in the myths that come from the lands around the Mediterranean, it’s a fascinating read. This is the sort of book that reads like a spell. It may slip inside you, acting on you in ways that you cannot quite name. It is a spell of falling in love with the land, and seeing the sacred in the world around us. This is a beautiful book and like nothing else I have ever read. If you are someone who can relish prose that is also poetry, and who welcomes writing that is more evocative and more mystical, this is definitely for you." ~ Nimue Brown, Druid Life blog, https://druidlife.wordpress.com/2023/05/19/staff-of-laurel-staff-of-ash/
A fascinating, compelling, informative, thought-provoking, truly memorable study that will be of immense interest to studies of Gaia representing a sentient planet Earth, "Staff of Laurel, Staff of Ash: Sacred Landscapes in Ancient Nature Myth" by mythologist Dianna Rhyan is a a welcome and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and academic library Metaphysical & New Age Studies collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. ~ Midwest Book Review
