Teen Goddess: How to Look, Love & Live Like A Goddess
by Catherine Wishart
Llewellyn Worldwide
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Let’s cast a spell, and enter the world of the disaffected teenage girl. Besieged by hormonal invaders, a zillion crises ruin her life – weight gain, unfashionable parents, sadistic teachers, and no boy in all of Middlevale High will ever ask her to the prom. It’s heck in a hand truck, with nowhere to turn. Aha! But wait! This isn•t the first time a woman has dealt with growing up, and standing behind our little lost lass are dozens of powerful women, mystical or not, all of whom can ride to the rescue with the right choice of cosmetics, clothing, mystical rites, and incantations. All will be well, if only the young lady shapes up, ignores the outside distractions, and gets on the Church Of The Random Goddess bandwagon. Details are spelled out right in this handy yet chunky looking paperback, in an easy to follow format.
So what’s the drill? Well, standard stuff – keep a diary, have faith in your abilities, pray to your goddess, meditate. It’s sort of a generic religion, stripped of all the messy animal sacrifice and inconvenient Thou Shalt Nots. The final result will be a healthy, happy, incense burning young lady in frilly Stevie Nicks gear, at ease with her physical self and about to start dating a guy who won’t slap her silly just on account. Catholicism it’s not, but it’s better than ending up on Jerry Springer.
What does come out of this otherwise ¨ber New Age book is an excellent set of Goddess stories, designed to inspire the lost soul. There are historical figure – Scathach, the punk Rock Goddess and Queen Boadicea, The Avenging Goddess. And there are Goddesses from reasonable established religious traditions such as Aphrodite, Freya, and Mary (yes, HIS mom), and my favorite, Sarasvati, the Hindu goddess of sensuality AND homework. Each comes with a biography, exercises, fashion tips, and spells you can cast to rid yourself of annoying people. Each requires different shoes, clothes, and lip-gloss. Each will tell you some interesting cultural, historical, and personal items that are good background when conversation lags over cheap white wine in a plastic cup at the art opening. Did you know that there are 10 degrees of marriage in Celtic society? That a woman trained Cuchulain, the famous Irish Warrior? That the Mori of New Zealand received the gift of fire from Mahuika after her kid put out everyone’s cooking fire? All good useful stuff, and not too hard to digest. If you•re a troubled teen, and have sunk so low as to seek personal advice from Ink 19, this might be a good recovery plan. If you’re not, it’s still a good source book, sort of like Bullfinch’s Mythology, but easier to digest. I have to go now; I have a Fire Spell to cast on the guy in the next cubicle. What’s there to lose?
Llewellyn Worldwide: http://www.llewellyn.com/
