REVIEW: Annie Finch's The Poetry Witch: Little Book of Spells

The Poetry Witch: Little Book of Spells by Annie Finch, Wesleyan University Press (2019) $6.95, trade paperback, (64 pages) 4.2” x 0.5” x 6.2”

You may be familiar with the maxim, Good things come in small packages. That saying could well have been created to describe this book, which is small in size but large in scope and beautifully organized.

In an online note to me, Annie Finch mentioned that Little Book of Spells is connected to her much larger and previously published book, Spells: New and Selected Poems, published in 2013 by the same press.

Little Book of Spells will hold interest for many readers, not only for its poetry, but also for its use of fonts and color. The titles of the main sections of the poetry are all set in bold face caps (often abbreviated as “bfc” especially by professional editorial personnel) In this book, these section titles are: East: Casting; North: Wheel of the Year; West: Covening; South: Creating; Center: She Who. Readers who are active or at least familiar with Pagan and Wiccan ritual will recognize that these are the major parts in the ritual circle casting. In the table of contents, the poem titles in these sections are set in very light typeface and, in fact the use of such light type is my major criticism of this book. Not only the names of the poems in the table of contents, but also some sections in the fore matter and the back matter are printed in type several shades lighter than the other sections of the book. The light type is hard-to-read for many people and includes the Acknowledgments section in the back matter, the “Poet’s Note” in the fore matter, and the subtitles in the table of contents (since they are short, however, they–at least for me–do not pose as much of a reading problem as the Acknowledgments and other longer light-printed sections).

Most of the poems themselves are printed in regular dark (but not bold) typefaces, although some, apparently to contrast with the color of the background on which they are printed, are printed in white. In another unusual aspect, the poems in the book are generally only 1-4 lines long. Here are some examples of these short yet usually deep poems:

The first poetry section, whose 2 title pages and 2 of its 5 poems are set in white type on a deep yellow background and titled East, North, West, South, and Center, opens with this poem for “East:”

“Web-weaver spin the air;

Sing dark; sing light; aware”

The 2^nd section, is “Wheel of the Year.” Its title pages and 2 of its 9 poems (8 of which are related to individual Pagan holidays) are set in white on a green background. One of these, “Litha” is an illustrated one-liner:

“Point your fire like a flower.”

Also illustrated and in the same color scheme, the poem for “Yule” reads:

“Vines, leaves, roots of darkness, glowing.

Come with your seasons, your fullness, your end.”

In the the 3^rd section, “Covening,” title pages and 2 of its 5 poems are set in white on a blue background. Its closing poem, “Communion,” reads:

“Now the worshipping savage cathedral our

mouths make will lace

death and its food, in the moment that refracts

this place.”

In the 4^th section, “Creating” title pages and 2 of its 6 poems have white type on orange background. In it, a poem titled “Nightmare” reads:

“Nightmare, oh woman lost in the depths of me,

Lost to the rage that has risen up with me,

Lost till I ride you home – nightmare of me.”

“She Who,” the 5^th and final section, has title pages and 3 of its 9 poems set in white type on deep blue background. All but one of the poems in this section are named for Goddesses. For example, its poem, “Yemaya” reads:

“Star of the ocean, flow wide in us;

Blessings, grow round and abide in us.”

Regarding the length and size of this book─that depends on how you count and measure. Amazon.com considers the book 64 pages long and the measurements in inches at the top of this review are Amazon’s. I count the pages this way: poetry sections, 49 pages; front matter, 7 pages; back matter, 4 pages. (These do not include the blank pages.) My measurements in inches differ only in the depth, which my tape measurer tells me is less than half an inch. However, this may reflect compacting that occurred in shipping.

Ways of counting pages may vary, but of one thing I'm sure: In size, use of color, and text of poems, Annie Finch’s The Poetry Witch: Little Book of Spells will be considered by many readers as one of the most inventive poetry books one can obtain.

REVIEW: Susan Hawthorne's The Sacking of the Muses

The Sacking of the Muses by Susan Hawthorne, Spinifex Press 2019, trade  paperback, 227 pages. Also available as an e-book.

If you should chose to read The Sacking of the Muses, in addition to being treated to innovative poetry, you will also receive an education in various mythologies and languages, including Greek, Roman (Latin) and Sanskrit, 

Susan Hawthorne’s Prologue to this book includes: her meeting with another influential poet who became a friend while Hawthorne was beginning work on this book; the influence of Sanskrit on her work, including a form unique to Sanskrit poetry; and the influence of ancient Greece on her work, including the Greek goddess Mnemosyne. Five sections follow the Prologue: Temper of the Dance, Embrace, Sappho’s Butterfly, The Sacking of the Muses, Mnemosyne. Each of these has several poems, with the exception of the first and last sections, each of which has only one. The book ends with an Acknowledgments section giving the dates of the initial publication of some of the poems, beginning in 2007. In her Prologue, Hawthorne comments:
“The final sequence of poems in this book was written before, during and after the election of Donald Trump.”

I am pleased to give you a taste of the excellence and often unusual quality of  the poetry in this book by discussing just a few of its poems. Much of the poetry is followed by notes, usually of explanation. For example, the first poem of the book (and the only poem in the section, Temper of the Dance), consists of 9 lines, and is titled, anupada.” It is dedicated to Mangai, the friend whose entry into Hawthorne’s life at the time she began working on the book she calls “serendipitous.” This 9-line form , each with differing words, closes each of the 3 sets of poems in Temper of the Dance, love, exile, and war. The poems in each of the sets bear the names of the characters they describe. For example, the first poem titled “Pūtanā,” contains these lines:

“Pūtanā’s tale is not a pretty one

Asked to kill every boy in the land….”

The second poem in love is “Kunti 1,” which begins:

 “This girl has a secret which she holds

 so close that no one knows….”

The form Hawthorne uses for this poem includes (among other things) doubling the verses and word use,(which tends to increase the meanings). Pūtanā and “Kunti 1” are followed by Ambā I, Draupadi 1, Kunti 2, and anapada. The poems in exile and war have similar numbered names and each ends with an anapada.

In the section titled exile, Hawthorne explores the relationship among these and other characters and various deities, including Krishna. The section, war, discusses the effect of war on the characters.

The next section of poems, titled Embrace, begins with a poem titled “Ślesaş.” Hawthorne , a lesbian, explains in the last line of the poem’s “note,” that śleşa means “embrace” and in the poem's 2nd verse writes:

“śleşa comes naturally to lesbians

our codes read this way and that

are you on the upper bunk going east

or the lower bunk going west?”

The rest of the section contains 17 poems, many of them related to various deities.

The 3^rd section, titled Sappho’s Butterfly, opens with the following lines in a poem  of that name:

“I’m twenty-two when I’m kissed by Sappho’s butterfly

at nine I vow not to marry before twenty-three”

Many of the 18 poems in this section relate to being a lesbian.

The 4^th section, The Sacking of the Muses,” has 20 mythologically-related (with a focus on muses) poems, Their subjects include Kalliope, Polyhymnia, Ourania, Erato, Kleio,Thalia, and Terpsichore.

The last secion, Mnemosyne, contains one poem, “The Festival Of Memoria.”

 

Susan Hawthorne is an accomplished poet. We have reviewed three other of her books on Medusa Coils: Cow (a poetry collection), Lupa and Lamb (poetry with some prose) and the novel, Dark Matters.  Much of her focus is on women and mythology. She is author of 8 other poetry collections, as well as several books of fiction and non-fiction and of 11 anthologies. She has received numerous awards and her books in English have been translated into 5 other languages at last count. She is also translator of other writers’ work. She lives in Australia, where she is editor of Spinifex Press.

REVIEW: Correspondence by Joseph Campbell

 Correspondence, 1927-1987 by Joseph Campbell, edited by Evans Lansing Smith and Dennis Patrick Slattery,  New World Library, 2019, 419 pages.  
 
 This is the latest book in a series of collected works being published by New World Library in cooperation with the Joseph Campbell Foundation. At this writing, there are about 22 books listed in this collection. “Medusa Coils” has reviewed tw0 of these books previously: Goddesses and The Mythic Dimension. Correspondence, as the name implies, focuses not exclusively on Campbell’s other books, but rather on his correspondence with other people—some well known, others lesser known— about his and their work and sometimes about their personal lives, so it, in a way, becomes both  autobiography and biography. It provides an unusually personal view into the community of intelligentsia, both in and out of the university, particularly those who have a great interest in mythology. So I feel it will be of greatest interest to people today with similar interests rather than specifically those interested in Goddess—although like The Mythic Dimension, it includes this subject also.
 
The b&w pictures throughout the book are mostly of Campbell or Campbell and his correspondents. Most of the book’s chapters form a chronology of the development of Campbell’s approaches to mythology. The chapters, along with some of the people with whom Campbell corresponds in each chapter, are:

Chapter 1: “Wanderings— Paris to Pacific Grove, 1927-1939,” Angela Gregory (sculptor), John Steinbeck (novelist), Ed Ricketts (biologist).
Chapter 2: “Decade Mirabilis, The 1940s,” Roger Sherman Loomis (Celtic mythology scholar), Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (museum curator), Henry Morton Robinson (novelist and, with Campbell, author of A Skeleton Key To Finnegan’s Wake), Maud Oakes (artist, ethnologist, and writer specializing in Native American tribes).
Chapter 3: “The Banquet Years, The 1950s,” Margaret Mead (cultural anthropologist and author); Henry Corbin (philosopher, theologian, professor of Islamic Studies); Carl Jung, (founder of analytical psychology and explorer of archetypes); Stanley Edgar Hyman (literary critic and husband of author, Shirley Jackson).
Chapter 4: “The Masks of God, 1959-1968,” Alan Watts (author, philosopher, theologian and for 5 years, an Episcopal priest, who developed an interest in Buddhism, especially Zen, as well as other religions— in addition to their correspondence, Campbell’s 1974 introduction to Watts’ (d. 1973) TV series appears in this chapter.); Mircia Eliade (author and lecturer, especially on spiritual topics); John D. Rockefeller 3^rd (exhibitor at The Asia Society in New York City); Ted R. Spivey (English professor and author with interest in archetypes, dreams and psychic development); Signe Gartrell , aka Lynn Gartrell Levins, (author with interest in dreams and psychic development); Barbara Morgan (photographer and artist best known for her pictures and portrayals of famous dancers); Henry A. Murray, M.D. (psychologist and professor at Harvard University, where he was also director of the university’s, Psychological Clinic) Swami Nikhilananda, speaker originally from India, and founder of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center in New York); Lewis Gannett (author); Larry Glen (reporter with interest in mythology); Joseph Chaiken (theater director, founder of The Open Theater in. New York; Herman Goetz (art historian who writes to Campbell of Hartmut Schmoke’s interpretation of the Song of Songs, “as an Ashtharot ritual dissected and disarranged because it had been too popular to be suppressed by the priests of Jehovah…”[Note: Ashtharot is transliterated elsewhere as Ashtoreth, Ashteret, Asherah and other spellings].
Chapter 5: “Political Matters – Thomas Mann to the Vietnam War, 1939-1970,” differs from other chapters in that it is devoted to a specific topic in multiple years, while the other chapters are devoted to enumerating individuals with whom Campbell corresponded in shorter time periods with specific years and contain multiple topics. The chapter starts with a full-page picture of Campbell from his 1954 passport photo. Among the people corresponding with Campbell discussed in Chapter 5 are (as you might guess from the title) Thomas Mann (novelist) who disagreed with Campbell’s political views although he previously had expressed admiration for Campbell’s work. Among other correspondents in this chapter are Arthur Miller (playwright), and Gary Snyder (environmental activist who combined Buddhist spirituality and nature in his poetry, essays, and lectures).
Chapter 6: “The Mythic Image, The 1970s,” opens with a description of the difference between Campbell’s approach to mythology, and those of other people famous for their approaches to mythology. It also notes in the material from several of Campbell’s correspondents – including that of the Herbert S. Bailey of Princeton University Press, which was, at that time the publisher of the book – Campbell’s receipt in 1977 of an honorary doctorate from Pratt Institute, and includes Campbell’s address to the Pratt Institute graduating class the day he received the award. It also includes 20 of the endorsements from writers and scholars, etc., encouraging Pratt to give Campbell the award. A number of the other notes and letters to and from Campbell and his correspondence relate to the editing and publishing of this book.
Chapter 7: “The Last Decade, The 1980s” includes a discussion that may be of particular interest to readers of this blog: the material published after Campbell’s death in the book, In All Her Names: Explorations of the Feminine in Divinity (HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), which Campbell edited along with Charles Musès, and in which Campbell discusses “the Mystery Number of the Goddess," and refers to Marija Gimbutas’ work. It includes correspondence from Einar Pálsson, a mythologist known mostly for his work related to Iceland. In letters to Campbell, Einar connects the mythology of “Fryr/Freyja” to that of “Osiris/Isis” as well as the relationship of elements (such as fire and water) to shapes and numbers. Also included in this chapter is correspondence between Campbell and Jamake Highwater (journalist and author of more than 30 books of fiction including some for children, art, poetry, and history), and Phil Cousineau (author, lecturer, filmmaker, whose work includes mythology).

The chapters of the book end with a “Coda,” of “Testimonials and Condolences” mostly to Campbell’s wife, Jean, after Joseph’s death from cancer in 1987.

Other information and comments by Campbell and other people about Jean appear throughout the book.

 
The front matter includes: The poem, “Correspondences” by Charles Baudelaire; “About the Collective Works of Joseph Campbell” by the editors; Foreword by Dennis Patrick Slattery, PhD; Introduction by Evans Lansing Smith PhD; Notes on the Text; Overture by Robert Walter.

The back matter includes: An appendix: “The Works of Joseph Campbell, (a list with pictures of 31 books and their relationship to the chapters in this book); “Notes,” (about the front matter and chapters); “Works Cited (alphabetically by author);” “Permission Acknowlegments,” with related page numbers; Index, including indication of subjects that are illustrated; and “About the Joseph Campbell Foundation.”

Yes, this is quite a thorough book and is likely to be especially valuable to students, scholars, and others with interest in Campbell and related subjects

REVIEW: The Holy Wild by Danielle Dulsky

The Holy Wild: A Heathen Bible for the Untamed Woman by Danielle Dulsky, New World Library 2018, Trade Paperback, 292 pages, ISBN 978-1-60868-527-1 (also available as e-book)

In her newest book, Danielle Dulsky writes with a poet’s use of words and a scholar’s structure of material. To give you an idea of the beauty of the writing, with permission of the publisher I will quote here several passages from the author’s Introduction, titled “Her Genesis,” and hope that you will remember that these are only brief glimpses of this beautiful Introduction, which begins:
“In the beginning, there was She.
She was nature’s primordial pulse, the pan-elemental alchemy of birth; the fertile void of death; and the mysterious, enduring, and numinous cosmic infinite. All was She, and She was all. Her power pervaded the totality of existence and veiled all potential worlds in the name of holy manifestation. Her steady, purposeful rhythm pounded on, in, and through the stellar fusions, the planet building, and the great galactic swell. The universal dawn was a quantum prayer to Her, and She was dancing for us long before humanity’s blessed inception, long before the glow of the primal feminine was eclipsed by modernity.
 
“While the rhythm of Her hallowed drum has slowed and quieted to a barely audible, near-whisper beat, while humanity’s spiritual landscape has been overbuilt and hums with man-made hymns, She can never be silenced....

“This book is a five-part ode to Her, to you, and to the yet-to-be-rebuilt bridge between our spirituality and our lived, embodied experience. What you will find here is hearty home-cooked nourishment for the nature-hungry spirit, seasoned with a good deal of feminine ire and served hot. What you will find here is an invitation to descend into the dark with me, to gather up pieces of ourselves we have forgotten, and to rise. The wilds of nature will always be our ancestral home....

“Rise Up, Heathen Priestess: She Lives in the Wilds
....As women of the wild, we deserve our own holy books, our own teaching tales, and our own venerable verses of validation….The her-stories I offer here have merit only in their meeting with your own life; they do not stand alone as immutable truths or a step-by-step path toward any lofty and permanent healing goal, nor do they assert any secret mysteries that I alone am privileged to know....

“The women who have been locked inside the books they called good deserve liberation from their externally imposed immorality. We must unlock the cages in which they have been contained for so long, trapped behind the iron bars of judgment and dismissal…. We share the scars of every woman who has been condemned to ever be spiritually imprisoned, and, in these pages, I offer all the primal feminine technology this Witch has in her toolbox to dismantle the indoctrinated beliefs that continue to limit our spiritual autonomy; divorce our bodies from our spirits; and fence in what is, by nature, untamed, heathen, and wild.

“The roots of the word heathen run far deeper than its derogatory, godless connotation; it is believed to come from the Germanic word meaning “dweller on the heath, one inhabiting uncultivated land.” To be heathen means to belong to the wild, to take our lessons from the natural world, and to be nourished by what we fundamentally are rather than what we are told we must be. Let me distinguish here between Heathenry, a polytheistic neo-Pagan religion for which I have much reverence but to which I do not belong, and the eclectic pre-Christian landscape of our ancestors....

 “Find Her in the Dark:
 The Fertile Shadows of the Feminine Path
Heathen Priestess, your bejeweled crown is the same size as mine. I am neither above nor below you, and the round table of the Holy Wild has no structured hierarchy....

“My story is no more significant than yours, and my hope is that you drink in the poetry, feel nourished by the ceremonies, and complete the myths I begin here while constantly affirming your own authority and your own spiritual agency....

“....Sister, we do not always find Her in the light. Sometimes, we find Her in the dark.
“We find Her in the places that terrify us, and we find Her in the places they told us not to look.

“Walking a Wilder Path: Seeking Out the Fringes
You have many names, my love. In this book, I will call you a Priestess to validate your authority over your own spiritual journey. A Priestess looks within for direction and listens to the whispers, whimpers, and guttural groans of her inner wise woman. A Priestess is an elder. A Priestess is a woman who, regardless of linear age, has done the work and earned the right to say who she is and what she believes....
 
“I will call you a Witch to affirm your birthright as a holy healer, to vindicate those socially rejected women who were hunted — who still are hunted in many parts of the world — in the name of not only patriarchy but also institutionalized racism, classism, and persistent imperialism. I will call you Witch to give a fierce nod to our stolen feminine spirituality and to give your wisdom a real name....

“This path is wild because we cannot possibly predict where it will lead us…. In these pages, I will call this wild path the Red Road, the always-spiraling, unmapped route toward a woman’s spiritual home.”

 

The Introduction goes on to introduce the 5 sections of The Holy Wild, each called a Book and named after the traditional elements of Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and the not-so-familiar to some—Ether. Each book begins with a chapter of “verses,” that is, poetic writing, and continues with chapters about and of rituals and magick. The Books are related to various Goddess imagery and female/feminine archetypes. It is within these sections that Dulsky’s scholarly structuring is most strongly exhibited. Here are some examples:
 
The “Book of Earth” is devoted to “The Wild Feminine Archtype: The Priestess of the Wild Earth. Its “Earth Verses,” section asks readers to “envision yourself encircled by your ancestors as you read.” Dulsky then relates the Earth archetype to the “sovereign maiden,” aspect of the Goddess and specifically to the mythology of Lilith, Persephone-Kore, and Inanna. It also includes comments, several related writings including at least one from the Abrahamic (Abrahamic is a term that refers to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, that is, religions that can be traced back to the patriarch Abraham) Bible and a suggestions for the reader’s writing and other assignments. The section on Earth Rituals has 7 rituals including those for “the Everyday Warrioress,” “Forbidden Fruit,” and “Self-Initiation.” Earth Magick includes a 4-part “welcoming” working related to Lilith, and also has 4 other workings.
 
The Book of Water is devoted to “The Wild Feminine Archetype: The Maiden of the Unbridled Feminine.” It focuses on the women and goddesses Salome, Freya, and Lalita.  The “Water Verses” section’s 10 parts includes “Revisioning Salome,”and “Our Wild Art and Unbridled Sensuality.” In the ritual section you will find rituals for the solstices and equinoxes, and 5 other rituals, including one of dance involving masks and veils and another with 3 parts. Among the 6 workings in the The Water Magic section are “Crafting the Cosmic Egg,”and “Making Holy Water.”
 
The Books of Fire, Air, and Ether include similar definitions, sections, and workings. The Book of Fire is devoted to the “Prophetess of the Wild Fire” and focuses on the “Dark Goddess,” and more specifically the women and goddesses known as “Mother of Babylon” (Christian Bible), Medusa, Oya, Kali, Brighid, and Hestia. The Book of Air archetype is “Witch of Sacred Love” and/or “Sacred Healer,” which include the women and goddesses Mary Magdalene, Aphrodite, Oshun, and Paravati. The Book of Ether archetype is “The Queen of the Ethereal Divine,” including the Hag or the Crone. It includes the Biblical  Jezebel and the “dark goddesses” Hekate, Baba Yaga, and The Cailleach.”
 
The last chapter of The Holy Wild is named, “Her Revelation.” Its 2^nd paragraph begins: “A woman can certainly bring about the End of Days —the end of the world as we know it….” This relates it to the “Book of Revelation” the last book in the Christian Bible. Yet as in discussions in other parts of the book, Dulsky also departs in her writing from Abrahamic religions and adds other associations, such as “nature-based practices,” contact with Goddess, magick, and other Goddess associations. And the author begins the last section of this book with these words:
“Here in this book I offered you no religion. To be heathen is to predate the spiritual systems that have bound us. To my mind our modern religions have too often, though certainly not always, been a largely male-led dimension of systemized spirituality that is easily spoon-fed to the masses when seasoned with a good deal of fear.”
 
Though some people may object to this book’s combining Goddess Spirituality with material from the Abrahamic Bible, it may open the way to Goddess for others, particularly those just beginning on this path, for whom the book is especially suitable. It will also be an asset for those seeking to combine Goddess with Christianity or Judaism (a practice becoming increasing common) whether they are just starting on the Goddess path or have been on it for some time. In any case, The Holy Wild is terrific teaching tool and is extraordinarily well written.

The book’s back matter includes an Appendix with sources for further study, divided by the 5 Books of The Holy Wild; Acknowledgements; Notes on the material on the various chapters; Additional Resources for  Kali, Lalita, Oshun, and Oya; and a 14-page index.

Danielle Dulsky is author of 2 books related to Goddess Spirituality. She is also an artist, yoga teacher, energy worker, and founder of Living Mandala Yoga teacher training programs. She leads women’s circles, witchcraft workshops, and energy healing trainings and lives in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. For more information, see her website, DanielleDulsky.com.

Review: Book by Nancy Vedder-Shults

The World is Your Oracle: Divinatory Practice For Tapping Your Inner Wisdom And Getting The Answers You Need by Nancy Vedder-Shults, Quarto Publishing Group USA 2017,240 pages (Also available as an e-book.)

This short interview is meant as an introduction to Nancy Vedder-Shults’ book, The World is Your Oracle. For the interview section of this review, the reviewer is using the name she usually writes under, Judith Laura. Her blogger name for this blog is Medusa, and will appear at the end of the review

Judith Laura: How does The World is Your Oracle relate to Goddess spirituality?

Nancy Vedder-Shults: The book is a compilation of 40 different techniques for accessing your deep knowing, 1/3 of which are visual, 1/3 auditory, and 1/3 kinesthetic. It comes directly out of my work in feminist spirituality, although it certainly could be used by men as well.

Judith Laura: In what way(s) do these techniques come out of your work in feminist spirituality?

Nancy Vedder-Shults: I was in a deeply magical coven of seven women in the 1990s. Since there were 7 of us, we decided that for a year and a day each of us would be responsible for one of the 7 chakras. We put colored slips of paper into a hat and selected one a piece. When I picked indigo, signifying the 6th chakra, I must have blanched. The sixth chakra, also known as the third eye, is the site of intuition and psychic awareness. I didn’t consider myself very psychic at the time and wondered why I had chosen that chakra. What this experience began was an intense exploration of intuition and ways of tapping into our inner wisdom. The World is Your Oracle is a direct result. I don’t think I would have researched and written it if I hadn’t been in that coven.
 
Judith Laura: Are there any other ways that your approach in this book grew out of your work in feminist or Goddess spirituality?
 
Nancy Vedder-Shults: I discovered divination as a Goddess woman, so for me it’s obvious that these techniques are a part of my spirituality. If I had remained in my birth religion, I would never have encountered them. I practice Wicca, and I’m also a Unitarian Universalist. This second religion may be THE most tolerant religion in the world. There are no dogmas or beliefs that we ascribe to, so there are UUs of many stripes — Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, pagan, atheist, agnostic, and even a few Muslims. As a UU, I wanted my book — which comes out of the magical practices that Goddess feminists perform — to be accessible to any open-minded person. Molly Remer in her review called it "not a specifically pagan book, but instead is markedly (and enjoyably!) interfaith in approach, while also being culturally respectful.” That made me feel great, because it meant that I had not imposed my beliefs on others, but allowed them to realize how the techniques could be useful to them, whatever their beliefs.

And now for my review:

Beginning with the first chapter, “Preparing, Interpreting, and Honoring your Oracle,” the book contains a wealth of helpful material. In addition to being a look at oracles through the author’s lens of feminist spirituality, The World Is Your Oracle is a fascinating book on a metaphysical topic that the author bases strongly on science. For example, Vedder-Shults writes in the 2^nd chapter, “… Science has recently demonstrated a number of techniques that can make our divinations even more successful.” Some of these techniques, the author writes, are smiling, replacing worry and anxiety with trust, broadening your attention but also letting your mind wander. In addition, in this section the author discusses 5 other ways for aiding divination based on scientific research.

 
While maintaining a focus on science, Vedder-Shults includes light touches that keep the book from bogging down. The title of the book itself is one of these for me. “The World is Your Oracle,” to me is a play on the saying “The world is your oyster,” (an expression originally from Shakespeare), only in the case of the book we are looking for answers to questions, or help from what some call “psychic” perceptions, whereas in the common maxim, we are giving a new meaning or an expanded role to oysters—that an oyster represents enjoyment or simply that we have some type of ownership of the world . Another light touch is use of the term “brain blink” in the chapter discussed above on science. The author gives four recommendations for encouraging “brain blink.”
 
Both the cover (which shows what I assume is a world egg breaking open and releasing a bird, and which surrounds the main title with the subtitle), and the interior illustrations are by the author’s daughter, Linnea Vedder. They add greatly to this book. Most of the chapters begin with a color illustration. Beginning with the chapter sections of “Visual Techniques” the chapter sections also have color illustration. For example, the section on air begins with a color illustrations that seems to me to illustrate the displayed boxed text for “winds of change: this modern form of wind divination (austromancy) allows you to read your oracle in the movements of an object blown by the wind.” This chapter section and those that follow on visual techniques connected with air (ashes, balloon diagrams, books, candles, creatures, dreams, mirrors, numbers, scrying, spirit guides, stars) also contain further instructions titled “Steps” and “Continuing the Journey.” Similar color illustrations, accompanied by boxed explanatory quotes, as well as separate sections with instructions are included in the chapters on Auditory Techniques and Kinesthetic Techniques, each of which have at least 14 sections each on various techniques.
 
The Back Matter contains Works Frequently Cited; References; Endnotes, including those from the works of Layne Redmond, Gerina Dunwich, Robert Graves, D.J. Conway, James Lovelock; Resources, with sections on “chanting and other music” including material on Atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, “Om Tara,” featuring Chants for the Queen of Heaven and Songs of the Earth: Music of the Earth; and Pagan, Wiccan, or Native American. Also, “drumming,” “gods, goddesses, saints, and power animals,” whose material includes work by Ted Andrews, and Patricia Monaghan; and “birds, animals, and insects.” There is also a 6-page index, whose citations include Alpha brain wave activity, Sigmund Freud, Gaia theory, Guided meditation, Carl Jung, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and Trance state. The Appendix section has spaces for the reader to fill in personal meanings and includes topics of “Creatures” with 3 charts of Associations with Common North American Bugs, ….Animals, …Birds’. The topics of “Numbers” and “Body Sense” have one chart each.

The World Is Your Oracle is a down-to-earth description of how to use mysticism and mystical techniques to achieve excellence in oracular practice. Well thought out and organized, it is appropriate for the person first starting to use oracles as well as those who have been involved in this form of divination for quite some time.

According to Vedder-Shults’ biography at the end of the book, she participated in the Women’s Studies program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1975-1991, received a Ph.D, and is “a storyteller, writer, and musician.” She has written for SageWoman magazine and Tikkun Daily blog and has recorded Chants for the Queen of Heaven. Her website is Mamasminstrel.net