Encountering the Goddess

Encountering the Goddess PDF Author: Thomas B. Coburn
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791404454
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Coburn provides a fresh and careful translation from the Sanskrit of this fifteen-hundred-year-old text. Drawing on field work and literary evidence, he illuminates the process by which the Devī-Māhātmya has attracted a vast number of commentaries and has become the best known Goddess-text in modern India, deeply embedded in the ritual of Goddess worship (especially in Tantra). Coburn answers the following questions among others: Is this document "scripture?" How is it that this text mediates the presence of the Goddess? What can we make of contemporary emphasis on oral recitation of the text rather than study of its written form? One comes away from Coburn's work with a sense of the historical integrity or wholeness of an extremely important religious development centered on a "text." The interaction between the text and later philosophical and religious developments such as those found in Advaita Vedanta and Tantra is quite illuminating. Relevant here are the issues of the writtenness and orality/aurality of 'scripture,' and the various ways by which a deposit of holy words such as the Devī-Māhātmya becomes effective, powerful, and inspirational in the lives of those who hold it sacred.

Encountering the Goddess

Encountering the Goddess PDF Author: Thomas B. Coburn
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791404454
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Coburn provides a fresh and careful translation from the Sanskrit of this fifteen-hundred-year-old text. Drawing on field work and literary evidence, he illuminates the process by which the Devī-Māhātmya has attracted a vast number of commentaries and has become the best known Goddess-text in modern India, deeply embedded in the ritual of Goddess worship (especially in Tantra). Coburn answers the following questions among others: Is this document "scripture?" How is it that this text mediates the presence of the Goddess? What can we make of contemporary emphasis on oral recitation of the text rather than study of its written form? One comes away from Coburn's work with a sense of the historical integrity or wholeness of an extremely important religious development centered on a "text." The interaction between the text and later philosophical and religious developments such as those found in Advaita Vedanta and Tantra is quite illuminating. Relevant here are the issues of the writtenness and orality/aurality of 'scripture,' and the various ways by which a deposit of holy words such as the Devī-Māhātmya becomes effective, powerful, and inspirational in the lives of those who hold it sacred.

Encountering the Dark Goddess

Encountering the Dark Goddess PDF Author: Frances Billinghurst
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1789046009
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
The Dark Goddess is often associated with the Underworld where she leads the uninitiated through a transformative journey of self-discovery, change and soul renewal. She is connected with the unwanted, the forgotten, the ignored or even ashamed parts of our psyche. However there is more to her than that. Encountering the Dark Goddess: A Journey into the Shadow Realms guides you through what this challenging facet of the Divine Feminine, the Dark Goddess, is truly about, and encourages you to step through the veils into her hidden realm to explore 13 aspects of herself. Whether you seek healing from past trauma, release from fears or acceptance of the “unacceptable” aspects of your self, Encountering the Dark Goddess: A Journey into the Shadow Realms offers ways for you to transform and heal your life through the power of meditation, ritual and inner journeying with the Dark Goddess into her shadowy realms. Use the 13 goddess myths as a guide to discover how to remove the stagnant and unwanted and embrace the ever changing aspects of life that can drag us into the pits of despair. When we connect to the Dark Goddess, we are able to find the light within the darkness and our lives are enriched through the integration of all aspects of our soul as a perfect whole.

Conversations with the Goddess

Conversations with the Goddess PDF Author: Dorothy Atalla
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780984447305
Category : Earth (Planet)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
On a January day in the depths of mid-western winter Dorothy Atalla expected more of the same: snow, ice and gray skies. But when she lay down on her living room carpet to relax with music, she had an experience which changed her life. Inexplicably, a vision of a radiant and beneficent female presence appeared to her. This astonishing event was only the beginning of a journey she could never have imagined in her wildest dreams. That vision foreshadowed the dialogue with a deity which is the essence of this book.

Stalking the Goddess

Stalking the Goddess PDF Author: Mark Carter
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1780991746
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
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. ,

The Song of the Goddess

The Song of the Goddess PDF Author:
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791488519
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
The Devi Gita, literally the "Song of the Goddess," is an Eastern spiritual classic that appeared around the fifteenth century C.E. C. Mackenzie Brown provides a reader-friendly English translation of this sacred text taken from his well-regarded previous book The Devi Gita: The Song of the Goddess, A Translation, Annotation, and Commentary. Here the translation is presented uninterrupted, without the scholarly annotations of the original version, and in its entirety for the pleasure of all readers who wish to encounter this treasure from the world's sacred literature. Often neglected, the Devi Gita deserves to be better known for its presentations of one of the great Hindu visions of the divine conceived in feminine terms. The work depicts the universe as created, pervaded, and protected by a supremely powerful, all-knowing, and wholly compassionate divine female. It also describes the various spiritual paths leading to realization of unity with the Goddess. The author of the Devi Gita intended for the work to supplant the famous teachings of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita (the "Song of the Lord") from a goddess-inspired perspective.

Encountering Kali

Encountering Kali PDF Author: Rachel Fell McDermott
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publishe
ISBN: 9788120820418
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
Encountering Kali explores one of the most ramarkable divinities the world has seen. The Hindu goddess Kali is simultaneously understood as a blood thirsty warrior a deity of ritual possession a tantric sexual partner and an all loving compassionate mothe. Popular and scholarly interest in her has been on the rise in the west in recent years. Responding to this phenomenon McDermott and Kripal`s volume focuses on the complexities involved in interpreting Kali in both her indigenous south Asian settings and her more recent Western incarnation. Through the shifting lenses of scriptural history temple architecture political reflection and the goddess`s recent guises on the Internet the contributors pose questions that illuminate our understanding of Kali while addressing the problems and promises inherent in every act of cross cultural interpretation.

In the Hand of the Goddess

In the Hand of the Goddess PDF Author: Tamora Pierce
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1442427647
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Pursuing her desire to be a knight, Alanna learns many things in her role as squire to Prince Jonathan, but fears Duke Roger, an ambitious sorcerer with whom she knows she will one day have to deal.

In Praise of the Goddess

In Praise of the Goddess PDF Author:
Publisher: Nicolas-Hays, Inc.
ISBN: 0892546166
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
About 16 centuries ago, an unknown Indian author or authors gathered together the diverse threads of already ancient traditions and wove them into a verbal tapestry that today is still the central text for worshippers of the Hindu Devi, the Divine Mother. This spiritual classic, the Devimahatmya, addresses the perennial questions of the nature of the universe, humankind, and divinity. How are they related, how do we live in a world torn between good and evil, and how do we find lasting satisfaction and inner peace? These questions and their answers form the substance of the Devimahatmya. Its narrative of a dispossessed king, a merchant betrayed by the family he loves, and a seer whose teaching leads beyond existential suffering sets the stage for a trilogy of myths concerning the all-powerful Divine Mother, Durga, and the fierce battles she wages against throngs of demonic foes. In these allegories, her adversaries represent our all-too-human impulses toward power, possessions, and pleasure. The battlefields symbolize the field of human consciousness on which our lives' dramas play out in joy and sorrow, in wisdom and folly. The Devimahatmya speaks to us across the ages of the experiences and beliefs of our ancient ancestors. We sense their enchantment at nature's bounty and their terror before its destructive fury, their recognition of the good and evil in the human heart, and their understanding that everything in our experience is the expression of a greater reality, personified as the Divine Mother.

When the World Becomes Female

When the World Becomes Female PDF Author: Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 025300960X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
“A carefully crafted ethnography on the South Indian festival of the village goddess Gangamma in the pilgrimage town of Tirupati” (Choice). During the goddess Gangamma’s festival in the town of Tirupati, lower-caste men take guises of the goddess, and the streets are filled with men wearing saris, braids, and female jewelry. By contrast, women participate by intensifying the rituals they perform for Gangamma throughout the year, such as cooking and offering food. Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger argues that within the festival ultimate reality is imagined as female and women identify with the goddess, whose power they share. Vivid accounts by male and female participants offer new insights into Gangamma’s traditions and the nature of Hindu village goddesses. “Flueckiger’s rich and colorful descriptions of the stories, festivals, and worshipers connected with the goddess Gangamma evoke a world that previously had been accessible to very few living outside southern India. This work makes available to readers a close-up view of an extremely fascinating aspect of living Hinduism.” —David L. Haberman, Indiana University “Carefully crafted. . . . Through these rituals, stories and lives, the author reveals new ways of comprehending gender both at the cosmological and human level.” —Ann Grodzins Gold, Syracuse University

Pagan Portals - Aphrodite

Pagan Portals - Aphrodite PDF Author: Irisanya Moon
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1789043484
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 106

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Book Description
Aphrodite is an often misunderstood goddess, one who is easy to relegate to the love goddess role, but she is a goddess who also shows up as an initiator and, some might say, troublemaker. In this book, we seek to explore the complexity of a goddess who was born on sea foam and who inspires beauty and love, all the while offering a hand toward each one of us to celebrate our full hearts.