Global Goddess Oracle: Beltane '08

The first article listed in this issue of Global Goddess Oracle is "The Magic in Beltane" by H. Byron Ballard. Byron thinks the word "magic" is overused these days, and that this results in us missing "the real thing when it presents itself." She weaves in various May Day customs and the U. S. Religious Right's response: Pray Day.

I'll discuss the rest of the articles not in the order that they're listed on the left column of Oracle's page, but in my own possibly eccentric order:

When Mut Danu goes out in her garden and tells family and friends what she's focusing on, they hear her say " the hole" but in her mind she's saying "the whole." In "Goddess in My Garden," Mut writes:

For me, gardening often as not turns into a meditation of "the whole" and ends as a form of worship.

Mut takes us along as she gets down on her knees and blissfully plants her garden. This is lovely to read, even if you don't garden!

As Walt Disney prepares to release another of its films based on the Narnia books series, Courtney McLaughlin gives us "The Lion, The Witch, and the Witch Hunt: How C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia Demonizes the Goddess." She compares the treatment of witches and goddess symbolism in the books and films and gives a fascinating discussion of the "White Witch." Even if you're not into Narnia, I think you'll want to read this.

In "The Computer Goddesses (Part 2)" Barbara Ardinger PhD continues her humourous discoveries and introduces us to three "Wyrd Sisters of Office Automation," Formuleria, Typoreina, and Folder-holder-older-molder, as well as other other new deities ;-).

In "Feminine Intuition--Your Power to Know What's Really Going On," a book excerpt, Gayle Goodwin gives her opinion about "spirit guides," and I think what she says may be controversial for some of us. Gayle writes that there was a time "in the fog of prehistory when Woman didn't need oracles to predict her future" and that women still have "a direct link to Divinity." And she doesn't stop there...

In "Spring Fever," Mama Donna Henes, an "urban shaman" in "exotic Brooklyn," views spring.

Welcome especially because Beltaine/Beltane for many of us seems the most social of holy days though we might spend it alone, Karen Thoms gives us a "Solitary Ritual for Beltaine."

"A Letter to Ayla of the Earth's Children" by Elizabeth Phillips is poetic prose about a dream, a coma, a scream...

This issue's poems are "Dew Kissed and Beltane Blessed," by Bendis (a poem around a Maypole), "Life's Dance" by Mary Lyons, and "Remember" by Anita Chapman.

Dawn "Belladonna" Thomas contributes "Herb of the Season: Hawthorn," "Moon Planting and Harvesting Schedule" from Beltane to Litha, and a review of the book Good Fortune and How to Attract It by Titania Hardie.