Review by Ruth Rosenhek, environmental justice activist
published in:
EINGANA The Journal of the Victorian Association for Environmental Education, Vol 29 Number 1, April 2006.
PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion
Glenys Livingstone Ph.D., Lincoln NE:iUniverse Inc.
ISBN: 0-595-34990-0
When Glenys Livingstone says that she wants to be part of the re-creation, to actually “do” something new, she does. Livingstone succeeds by offering us a creative and bold account of “PaGaian Cosmology”, a contemporary understanding of Pagan religious tradition brought together in a cosmology that is based in the indigenous female-related religions of ‘Gaia’.
Reinventing language as she goes, Livingstone spins us in a spiral dance that begins with an explanation of methodology that is as fascinating as the re-storying of the Female Metaphor that follows: an account of Goddess in Her three aspects of Virgin, Mother and Crone. Livingstone adeptly captures our imagination as she passionately associates Her with Cosmogenesis, the Unfolding of the Cosmos –introducing us to Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme’s three dynamics of the Universe: differentiation, communion and autopoiesis.
Livingstone goes on from there to embody the Female Metaphor in Seasonal Ritual as we are served up a practical and engaging hands-on description of the 8 seasonal time/space celebrations from the Wheel of Life including scripts from rituals that the author uses in her celebrations in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia
The reader feels like she is at the Samhain ritual itself consuming gingerbread snakes to “devour old shapes of our culture, our world, transform them in our beings.” The spell is cast as we easily imagine wrapping ourselves in golden thread, lighting the candles, anointing each other with oil, and joining with Persephone to plant bulbs as we tend our sorrows.
Livingstone effortlessly waves her wand to weave together strands from a broad spectrum of authors and theorists – Brian Swimme, Thomas Berry, Mary Daly, Charlene Spretnak, Starhawk, Jean Houston, Lynn Margulis, Joseph Campbell, David Abram, James Lovelock – in a rich and colourful tapestry that knits together paganism, Goddess religion and Cosmology. Throughout, Livingstone adds a light touch of the personal that waltzes gracefully with these others.
Thoughtfully, Livingstone offers the reader detailed references, notes and comprehensive index making the work useful as an academic text .
Glenys Livingstone’s book is a fine example of what she refers to as Geotherapy, a term coined by Brian Swimme to speak of how the vision of the whole story of Earth, of the Universe may enable the human to proceed from the present alienated pathological mode of being to wholeness – as we learn our Story.
Here, our Story is brought to life in a stunning example of what Thomas Berry calls The Great Work. This is a compelling invitation to join in a devotional practice of celebrating PaGaian Cosmology, “becoming receptive to Gaia’s speech, heard deep within and deep without…We come to??feel?? the infinite belonging and to act in accord.”
Highly recommended!
REVIEW by Susan Meeker-Lowry
GAIAN VOICES Vol. 3 No. 3 & 4
PaGaian Cosmology by Glenys Livingstone, Ph.D., iUniverse, 2005
PaGaian Cosmology, subtitled Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion, is a wonderful new book. PaGaian, Livingstone explains, “expresses a reclaiming of the term ‘Pagan’ as meaning a person who dwells in the ‘country’, yet with ‘Gaian’ spliced in, it expresses a renewed and contemporary understanding of that ‘country’”. What I love about this book is exactly that—the integration of Gaia and cosmology into Earth-based spirituality, which I feel is lacking in many more traditional Pagan/Goddess approaches. The elements are there, of course, and the connection to the Earth, but that sense of expansion, of deep belonging, and the magnificence of the New Story (to quote Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme, both of whom have greatly influenced Livingstone) which brings in the Universe and the Cosmos is often missing. As Livingstone expresses in the Introduction, “Plants grow better with a depth of soil. So it is with humans: a perception of the organic depth of being, inclusive of Origins of the Universe, enables a being to flourish.”
The research and experiences that inform this book took place over a period of years and involved the author as well as a core group of women who helped create and participate in rituals which, Livingstone suggests, “may be the human conscious response to the announcements of the Universe—an act of conscious participation . . . a human-size replication of the Drama, the Dynamic we find ourselves in.”
The first three chapters lay some groundwork, helping the reader to understand and connect with Gaia, Gaia Theory, Cosmogenesis (the unfolding of the Universe which is ongoing and in which everything/everyone participates), Goddess religion and “Re-Storying Goddess”. Chapter Four, “Cosmogenesis and the Female Metaphor” is a pivotal chapter in which Livingstone translates the more scientific language of cosmogenesis into a poetic and metaphorical Goddess-inspired story. I remember years ago being so enthralled with the way Thomas Berry expressed himself in The Dream of the Earth that I read it out loud just to hear the words. Then it struck me that not everyone would necessarily get what he was saying. What to me read like poetry would perhaps need to be translated into a more metaphorical language to reach more people. A great job, indeed!
The rest of the book is devoted to ritual, starting with the “PaGaian Wheel of the Year” (Livingstone uses southern hemisphere dates so Samhain, for instance, is April 30) and moving into “celebrating the creative dynamic”. Livingstone has evolved the rituals and “scripts” over the years “as a means to embody this Wholly Creative Dynamic—to get with Gaia’s ‘plot’ as I see it.” They can be used as is, adapted a bit, or seen as merely suggestive—a guideline for your own creativity. I usually resist ritual scripts, but I like that Livingstone has integrated Gaian sensibilities, so they resonate.
The book concludes with nine appendices which include “Thomas Berry’s Twelve Principles of a Functional Cosmology”, “Teachings for Sabbat Rituals”, and a great Winter Solstice song, “PaGaian Joy to the World” sung to the tune of “Joy to the World” (“Joy to the World, the Light returns, Let All receive Her Love.”
PaGaian Cosmology is a deep, awesome book. There’s nothing quite like it, at least not that I’ve seen. It’s well-researched and footnoted as well as accessible, fun, and inspiring. I highly recommend it! Available through booksellers or from iUniverse: www.iuniverse.com; 1-800-288-4677.
