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Gestalt and Jungian psychologists Jennifer and Roger Woolger have written a fascinating guide to the goddess qualities that live within us all. Learn how to navigate the turning points in your life by understanding which goddess type is coming to the fore. Wonderfully affirming, profound in its implications, THE GODDESS WITHIN helps restore the feminine to its rightful place in the modern consciousness and offers every woman the unique opportunity to learn about her own power to transform herself. Goddess Within: A Guide to the Eternal Myths that Shape Women's Lives
The book is about women but not a read for women only. There are sections for men. The book breaks down the personalities of six different Greek Goddess and how all six are in women today. I found the book tremendously healing. You do not have to read from cover to cover you can skip around the book and not miss anything. There is a quiz in the back of it to see which Goddesses influences you and yes everyone feels the influence of these six wonderful female archetypes. English I have recommended this book to a lot of people. I really am a fan of archetypes and their effectiveness in helping people take a step outside themselves to accept the things that are hard to accept about themselves or to gain appreciation into strengths which they may have been taking for granted. American culture is too egocentric and the result is people are feeling disconnected than ever and even worse, are unable to see themselves clearly. You need distance to be able to see yourself and archetypes provide that. This book is well done and the written test to determine the order of your archetypes was very accurate and insightful for me. English I found Goddess Within quite illuminating, as I haven't read much Greco/Roman mythology yet. I'm not of the same belief system as the authors, and at times found that an impediment, but was able to read around those limitations and learn quite a bit. It does indeed help with insights into personality types and the ways they may change over a woman's life. Not a bad introduction to mythology and archetypes, if this is up your alley in terms of your area of interest. English Bought this for a friend and she was extremely happy with it. It came in really good shape! English This book is fascinating. Definitely has some good points about how I see myself as a woman and how I define my relationships with my mother and other important women. I don't agree with everything in it, but I found it very worth reading. English
This book covers quite a lot of ground in considering the goddess in all her forms, Hera the heroine, Aphrodite the love goddess, Athena the career woman, Artemis the nature lover and individualistic non conventional woman. It was good to look at these types and compare them to myself and others, and I can see that they all do really fit our psyches, and would help us to know ourselves a bit better. Worth a read! English OK. I found it a little formulaic. English Goddess Within was awesome. Arrived as promised. Excellent service English The Goddess Within: A Guide to the Eternal Myths that Shape Women's Lives by Jennifer Barker Woolger and Roger J. Woolger. Not recommended.
The Goddess Within is an attempt to explore and explain contemporary psychological issues and social trends through the ancient Greek goddesses Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hera, Persephone, and Demeter. The premise is based on the idea that the whole goddess of matriarchal times has been divided and wounded, that patriarchal society suffers due to the resulting imbalance, and that we need to restore the balance and the multiple roles and energies of the goddess (and women).
One problem with The Goddess Within is reflected in the subtitle. There are no goddesses that shape women's lives; rather, humans shaped the goddesses including their splintering. At times, the authors seem to forget that distinction, especially when they make such statements as: . the two goddesses who are, so to speak, expressing their larger grievance through the two women. Perhaps it is simply the two women expressing their own grievances, which they have in common with other women.
The most basic problem, however, is the division of everything into the masculine and feminine. Is the earth really female? The moon? Why is the sun male? The authors talk at length about the moon, but never acknowledge that, without the male sun, there would be no nurturing of life on earth. Why is intellect a male attribute? Emotion female? Are these the kind of labels that reveal human psychology or repress a deeper exploration? Since each goddess is held to represent certain traits, are they necessary at all? Can six goddesses represent the feminine in its entirety? Essentially, psychology can be made to fit into any system desired.
What is troubling, however, is the authors' claim that balance is missing in our patriarchal world and their insistence that a matriarchy should replace it. The amount of gratuitous male bashing leaves no doubt about how they truly feel about balance. For example: Growing Athena soon learns to curb her frustration at male stupidity and ineptitude, however and All men have in them heroes, lovers, fathers, leaders, listeners, protectors of one kind or another and it is never too asking too much to make the long overdue sacrifice of the whining little boy that prevents their emergence. The message throughout is that everything wrong with the world, from war to pollution, is due to masculine thinking.
The authors also bring a great deal of personal bias to their discussion. They believe that Demeter (motherhood) is undervalued and suggest that mothers be allowed to return to their jobs after being granted five year leaves a greater privilege than National Guardsmen have. They don't point out that someone must fill Demeter's shoes involuntarily perhaps even a type who doesn't want to work extra hours and who would like to experience life, too. (I've done my share of working late so mothers can get to daycare and events on time my own admitted bias.) They say that families with children are relegated to fast food restaurants and blue collar diners, another phenomenon that doesn't fit in with my observations.
That leads to another problem The Goddess Within seems dated. Writing in 1989, the authors discuss movements that the average American today has not heard of suggesting they are not so much movements as the typical handful of people from each generation who deviate from societal norms. There has been no growing return to rural living; if anything, suburbs continue to expand. There is no growing sensitivity toward the earth goddess among the masses. What the authors label patriarchal values war, conquest, corporate power, degradation of the earth are even stronger today. If the question is one of balance of matriarchal and patriarchal values, as the Woolgers define them, the world is as or out of balance than ever.
The Woolgers, however, do not seem to propose balance, but a return to the matriarchy, where patriarchal Christianity as practiced and rational science (which they tuck in together as odd bedfellows) are subject to the goddess ignoring the benefits that Christianity and science have given western society and focusing only on the harm they have done. For example, science has brought us nuclear weapons, but it has also contributed cures, treatments, and surgeries for ailments that would have killed millions of us early in life.
Rarely do the Woolgers mention the gods and then it is primarily as consorts to the goddesses (or, in Zeus's case, as the ultimate patriarch). If balance of these values should be the goal of the individual and society, why not The Gods and Goddesses Within: A Guide to the Eternal Myths That Shape Men's and Women's Lives? In their slavish devotion to the feminine (and feminist), the Woolgers devalue the masculine. To them, no matter how much a doting father adores and is adored by his daughter, he is still far from a mother's love of her little girl. He did not bear her in his body; he cannot experience that great mystery. Is this really true? Does every woman who bears children experience it as a great mystery? And what of the great mysteries that men can and do experience? It is this lack of balance and wholeness that undermines the Woolgers' claims.
Some women (and men) may find the goddess portraits very useful in assessing themselves and the women in their lives (for example, the Hera mother is easily identifiable) as well as their relationships. The goddess portraits and sidebars are also somewhat useful in the study of Greek and Roman mythology. Beyond that, however, The Goddess Within is little than trendy, empty, male bashing feminism of the worst kind.
My goddess scores:
Athena (goddess of wisdom) 17
Artemis (goddess of the wilds) 29
Aphrodite (goddess of love) 22
Hera (queen of heaven) 9
Persephone (goddess of the underworld) 23
Demeter (goddess of life) 1
Diane L. Schirf, 5 February 2005. English intresting. But thanks for quick delivery English
