Skye’s follow-up to her enthusiastically-received debut Goddess Alive!
provides advanced practitioners with additional rituals, spells and guided meditations. In each of 12 chapters, she tells the story of a goddess from mythology, drawing on medieval collections of myths such as the Celtic Mabinogion and the Norse Skaldskaparmal. These are complicated texts, and Skye’s introductions to each goddess can read like a doctoral dissertation. What follows, however, is worth the extra effort. As in her earlier volume, Skye demonstrates a truly inspired talent for writing guided meditations. In one, readers will confront their fear of drowning as they pursue Welsh goddess Cymidei Cymeinfoll to her lair at the bottom of a lake. In another, they will experience the sights and sounds of a medieval Viking hall in the presence of Sif, Norse goddess of family and harvest. These scenes are so vividly imagined that there may well be crossover appeal to fans of fantasy fiction. At the same time, readers may want to have a fellow practitioner at hand to read the meditations out loud, since it is nearly impossible to do them by oneself. Skye’s approach remains refreshingly original. (May
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