The return of the goddess : a divine comedy / Elizabeth Cunningham.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cunningham, Elizabeth, 1953-

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Goddess religion--Fiction.

Goddess religion.

Christian ethics--Fiction.

Christian ethics.

Hudson River Valley (N.Y. and N.J.)--Fiction.

Hudson River Valley (N.Y. and N.J.).

United States--Hudson River Valley.

Genre:

Fiction.

Parables.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

384 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Edition:

First paperback edition.

Place of Publication:

Barrytown, N.Y. : Station Hill, 1993.

Summary:

The Goddess has returned. She's taken shape as a clay figure in the unlikely hands of an Episcopal priest's wife, an innocent event that ends up changing the lives of everyone around. She invades the dreams of a wealthy old woman who thinks women priests are a scandal. She entices a poker-playing, Black ex-convict onto totally unfamiliar terrain. Then there's the wild old man in the woods who's watching for a sign. In the struggle between Pagan and Christian values, between sex and the sacred, these and other remarkable characters are transformed utterly, united in an urgent call to save a sacred grove. Blackwood, an old estate in the Hudson Valley and the heart of this compelling novel, shelters an ancient stand of trees, a repository of healing power that will be lost to the world if the trees fall. Like forests the world over, Blackwood is under immediate threat from developers who worship no god but "the bottom line". Against these seemingly inexorable forces stand four human beings, awakening to themselves, to each other, to their own unsuspected strengths, and the irresistible, erotic, life-giving power of the Goddess. Theirs is a story rich with Divine and Human comedy, by turns irreverent and profound, outrageously funny and extremely tender. With remarkable psychological depth and literary subtlety, Elizabeth Cunningham writes in the great story-telling tradition of C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald - but from a deeply female, earth-centered point of view. For readers of Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, Ms. Cunningham's novel offers an added appeal. She tells us: The Goddess is Now. This is your life. She is happening to you.

ISBN:

0882681575

9780882681573

OCLC:

228391661