Goddesslands, Book II
First Edition, 10 Custom Books
186 pages
Handsewn and bound exclusively
By Marianne Press
http:mariannepress.blogspot.com
This book, the second of the Goddesslands Trilogy, chronicles the continuing story of Pamé La Calmette as she embarks on a quest to find the voices of her ancestors in Ireland and England. In a series of adventures and misadventures, sprinkled with her neuroses and her numen, the evolution of the Trilogy continues its modern day fairy tale.
READERS SAY:
I feel privileged to have been able to hold and read Goddesslands 2, which still lives and breathes with your insight, vision and gut-wrenching experiences. I was able to relive all the arduous brilliance of your creating and responding to the voices you've been true to.
Ann Yeomans, Archetypal therapist
Your writing is so beautiful, Pamé, your words read like a ritual invocation of the soul herself! In these very personal pages you let poetry and memory entwine! You let text be a provenance of everything you've gathered to this book, a summation of all your previous intuitions, broader and tougher for having been imagined. Thank you for bringing me to this lyrical expression of your experience.
Al Attanasio, writer
Goddesslands, Book II is a text book of metaphors, alliterations, and allusion where the ancient and present are interwoven in a tapestry of consciousness typified by the presence of old man oneEye. Book II is a classic in a time of facebook and smart phones, a paradox sprinkled with unintentional humor.
Becky Otero, free spirit.
EXCERPT
Gortfadda
(The Long Field)
Night has fallen over the long fields, smooth topped mountains, and tufted hills. Night has come to the spongy bog. Darkness brings shadows to the primordial earth where, under the meager light of a crescent moon, gape pits made wide and deep from the Irish tradition of carving slabs of turf. This peat fuels the stoves and hearths of the small stone houses scattered over the broad, rolling fields of County Kerry. I sit before the iron bellied stove and I am warm. The old stones of this cottage harbor me and I am safe. A salty haze from Tahilla Bay visits my doorstep. Above me, the moon smiles. The bones of the ancient ones pull me down to my soul's ground. The trees of the Kilarney forest have blessed my purpose, which is life. The blossoms of the fuchsia bush have given benediction to my journey, which is life. The free-range cows of Sneam and the stars of the Irish night have shown me my direction. And it is Life.
But the way will not be easy. The old Celtic world, once shrouded by the mists of a dreamless reality—the advent of the Catholic Church—is now barred by a solidified toxic curtain of tour bus exhaust and dime-a-dozen leprechaun trinkets. The wilds of Kerry, whose mountains, primeval forests, and oak groves were once contained by the magic ring of this peninsula, are carved by rutted roads clogged with megaton coaches filled with moms and pops from Missouri wearing druid T-shirts.
Lined with quaint accommodations, the Ring of Kerry road could be more aptly called "B&B Lane." The locals, impoverished by centuries of abuse from the English and having lost their brightest sons and daughters to America, thrive on the economy from the English and American tourists. They tell me they are happy. I hope they are. But they don't appear happy. Somewhere the Soul knows the curtain has come down.
The way will not be easy. Hopes for finding another virgin land like my valley in the Pyrenees, were quickly dashed. But here I have landed and here I have found my intention. It is no longer to find the old Avalon in Ireland. Rather, it is to pick up the thread of the unconscious and let it lead me to the images that will become the cornerstone of a new temple. For here is the reckoning—a new Avalon must rise from the mists, this condensation formed from the tears of what was lost and the mystery of not yet knowing what will be found. Here, with light born from a strong sadness and an eternal loneliness, the curtain may rise again.
Sitting on the steps this morning I noticed the "fairy hill" in the distance—the burial mound of children lost to the Famine. Two ducks waddled up to me, wet from an early swim in the pond. They splashed me while shaking their sodden wings. A large shadow settled on the fairy hill as the ducks slipped back into the water. N came by with a rosebush. She began planting it by my front window. The spirits sighed.
Night returns. I feel the warmth from the peat fire, I smell the bread baking in the oven, and I hear the brown rice simmering on the stove. I observe from the front window mountains lit by a full moon, shadowed by the wild Irish clouds. This view brings to mind images of the white beaches of Lamb's Head, the rocky cove below Tahilla Church, and the skelligs jutting from the waters at the tip of the peninsula. Then, memories of the Kilarney forest when I, forgotten but remembering, dashed down the wooded path into the shrubs and hugged a 3000 year old tree.
Oh Gortfadda, to be here is to know your land and hear your echoing from the well of ancient ecstasies and sorrows. Though you are hidden beneath centuries of overgrown brambles, I have found your voice. It echoes upward from my inner holy well.
Another day, another rain storm. One black cloud swallows the sky in an angry gulp. Belle, the goat nibbles the wet grass. The high hills, curved and smooth, are sensuous lines drawing the form of Woman. She says she is Mother. She says she is the Goddess Macha returned to us.
And what does Macha say about Blackwater Forest now that the magic woods are cut down? She says,
“When the trees were enchanted,
There was hope for the trees.”
And upon the Long Field,
I fall to my knees.
