The Return of the Goddess: A Divine Comedy
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She takes shape in the hands of an Episcopal priest’s shy, retiring wife. She invades the dreams of a grande dame who thinks women priests are a scandal. She lures a poker-playing ex-convict onto unfamiliar terrain, literally. Then there is the mysterious old man in the wood, who’s been watching, waiting for a sign of her return.
Who is the Goddess? Where has she been for so long? What does she want from the four human beings whose lives she is turning upside down and inside out?
As they confront these questions, Esther, Spencer, Marvin and Fergus find themselves drawn together, forging friendships across boundaries of age, class and race, discovering—and recovering—powerful, erotic passions. All their encounters, with themselves and each other, lead them deeper into Blackwood, an old estate that shelters an imperiled grove of trees sacred to the Goddess, a grove it becomes their mission to save.
The Return of the Goddess, A Divine Comedy marks Cunningham’s first explicit exploration of Christianity and the power of a divine feminine, long forgotten, obscured, and suppressed by the Church. She went on to write The Maeve Chronicles, featuring her iconic, outspoken Celtic Magdalen. The Return of the Goddess takes the reader inside the world of Cunningham’s origins where a gap in a wall leads from the church to the sacred grove.
Twenty-six years after its first publication The Return of the Goddess, A Divine Comedy remains a classic in what has become a movement, both within established religions and beyond, to reclaim the goddess and to embody her return.
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Elizabeth Cunningham is the descendant of generations of Episcopal priests. She grew up hearing rich (sometimes terrifying) liturgical and biblical language. She was also an avid reader of fairytales and fantasy novels. She was happiest in the enchanted wood of the overgrown estate next door to the church. Her religious background, the magic of fairytales, and the numinous experience of nature continue to inform her work.
Cunningham is best known for The Maeve Chronicles, a bestselling series of award-winning novels, including The Passion of Mary Magdalen. Her earlier novels include The Wild Mother, The Return of the Goddess, as well as How to Spin Gold.
Cunningham lives in High Falls, New York. She loves to hike, garden, nap with her cat, and practice Tai Chi Chuan. She is passionate about the preservation and restoration of her region and the planet. She supports an end to reliance on fossil fuels.
In addition to writing, Cunningham is in private practice as a counselor. She is a fellow emeritus of Black Earth Institute and writes regularly for Feminism and Religion blogsite. The mother of grown children, she lives with her husband, Douglas Smyth, and her cat.
