The Diva Digest

After a brief hiatus to heal, regroup and reform, The Diva Digest staff is back and ready to resume providing you with the best book and product reviews on the net!  New review copies have been ordered and will be arriving soon and as you know, our turnover time is extremely expeditious, so you will be seeing fresh reviews of new and future releases in no time!

Thank you so much for the enormous volume of emails we received asking when we would again be up and running!  We are very excited to be back in business again!  Our staff underwent quite a change as several folks were asked by The Universe to relocate, seek medical treatment, switch (real world) jobs and have other major life changes take precedence.  

The nation is going through amazing changes right now that are leading people to whole new lives and The Diva Digest is no exception.  Our growing pains and adjustments seem to be finalized and we are now really to burst back onto the scene.  

Again, thanks to all of you for your incredible support and for your kind words, but most of all, thanks for missing us!!

Katrina Rasbold
Editor in Chief
The Diva Digest

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Wow!  What an amazing book!  The tag line is “A Divine Guide to Finding Love and Happiness,” which makes it sound like something along the lines of a quick fix Wiccan spell book.

This book is, instead, a guide to life; specifically, the living of the magickal life every day in every situation.  If more women would read this book, internalize the very wise lessons and embody the Goddesses as they are represented here, we would surely rule the world (and find love and happiness as well).

Thirty-six Goddesses or so are divided up into categories such as “Love and Romance,” “Work and Finance,” “Family Life and Friendships” and such.  The choices of Goddesses represented span many different pantheons and are a perfect mix for imbibing Average Woman with grace, self-respect, compassion, independence and just about every other attribute we should be expressing into the world.  Each section has an entry detailing who the Goddess is, how to invite Her into your life and how to keep Her with you.

This book is a must-read for women and a beautiful copendeum of information about the Female Divine.

Based on the research and experiences I have had with Shamanic Craft, along with basic gut reactions, my impression is that it is a more Earthy, grass-roots, no-frills form of Paganism that is experientially seated in explorations and encounters both in the physical worlds and the worlds beyond.  

It has long had an appeal for me as I tend to operate as a “no frills” Witch.  I brought this optimism and interest into the reviewing of this book and overall, I was not disappointed.

One stumbling block I encountered as I read the book is the feeling that Ms. Wood confuses the paths of Wicca and Witchcraft when it would have been very easy to include a very brief discernment between the two.  Clearly, she herself is a Wiccan and a Witch, but on a very broad level, this is not usually the case.  Many Witches do not indentify themselves with Wicca and the words seem to be used interchangeably in several places in the book, which I feel lends unnecessary confusion and misrepresentation.

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Often, when a work is labeled as “ambitious,” it is a tounge-in-cheek way of saying that the author aimed for a high mark and missed or wandered off in the Land of Verbosity, never to be seen again.

In this case, the author does neither.  Instead, my impression is that she shot high and hit the mark dead on.  To be specific, in almost 30 years of paranormal and magical study, I have never encountered a more complete and fully applicable instruction manual for trancework and astral travel, as well as many other considerations that come into play when we begin exploring words beyond our own physical landscape.

The book is appropriately cautious without being paranoid.  It is instructional without being condescending or lecturing.  It is never dry or overstated.  Thoroughally examaning all aspects of working on the inner plane, the reader will be very well prepared to begin this sort of adventure without fear of unexpected or dangerous experiences.

Part of me thinks I should recuse myself from reviewing this deck considering that Juliet Sharman-Burke is one of my favorite Tarot writers and was also one of the first I ever read decades ago when I first began exploring the Tarot.  In my mind, she can do no wrong.

I was eager to review this deck, however and very excited to get it in my hot little hands.  I am less familiar with Giovanni Caselli’s work unless you consider the other Giovanni Caselli - small factoid here - who invented the first fax machine around 1856.  

The deck is reminiscent of the many decks put out by Lo Scarabeo (which this is not) in that the majority of the figures in the cards are fairly expressionless and the color themes are mostly in pastels.   

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Been checking on the return of some of my own favorite TV shows and thought I’d bring you up to date in case they are your favorites as well.

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For those suffering in spirit, body and mind from Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, I cannot imagine a more complete and useful reference being in existence.  The authors have assembled an exhaustive concondance that will answer literally any question a person could have about the condition, including herbal remedies for many of the accompanying maladies and an assessment of the effects of natural intervention such as acupuncture, reflexology and aromatherapy.

The balance between natural treatments and contemporary medical break throughs in addressing this condition is aptly reached, making this volume a near-mandatory reference for those with PCOS to have on hand.  It is easy to read and easy to navigate, so reading only the sections that specifically apply is also an option.  I can’t imagine anyone putting this book down once they have started reading it.  There is much more valuable information included than one would ever imagine they need to know…until they find it.  It is truly a treasure.

You simply will not find a more fun book to read.  For those of you who were fans as a kid of the Ripley’s Believe It or Not series (As I was!  *Hand proudly in the air!*), you have found a happy home in this fantastic collection of “freaky facts & strange stories.” 

Did you know that after all of the battling, Atilla the Hun died of a nosebleed?  On his wedding night?  That chimpanzees have been recorded as using up to 13 different herbs medicinally?  That Aldous Huxley and C. S. Lewis both died the same day John F. Kennedy was assassinated?

This is bathroom reading at its very finest and trust me, that’s a compliment.

Oh well, typical Mama Silver.  By that I mean INCREDIBLE!  I think Silver actually has a psychic link into my life, Goddess bless her sweet little Witchy Diva heart.  When I was a newbie Witch reading Z Budapest and Buckland and the Farrars and such, she released “To Ride a Silver Broomstick” and won my undying allegience for her no nonsense, thrift store, laugh at yourself/not with yourself, joyful living take on the here-to-fore, stodgy, “DON’T LIGHT THAT CANDLE LAST!!!” dogma filled world of Wicca.  She was one of the first to suggest that perhaps the Emperor (or Empress) had no clothes on and that we did not have to be afraid of stepping outside of the stringent dictates of the classic traditions and doing our own thing as an Ecclectic Witch.  She paved the way for many others to come who would embrace the joy and light-heartedness of Craft and enter into it with fun and openness rather than with fear and control. 

As she released her follow up books To Light a Sacred Flame and To Stir a Magick Cauldron, it followed precisely my own progression through the degree levels.  She released Hexcraft right when my interest in the Pennsylvania Dutch traditions came about.  Teen Witch heralded my daughter’s coming of age as a Witchling.  Now, Hedge Witch follows my own progression out of Wicca and into that sacred place I call “That Which Cannot Be Defined,” a.k.a. “Hedge Witchery.”  It is a practice beyond the typical labels that takes you deeper into the belly of Craft to find your Witchy roots and move past the pomp and ceremony of Wicca. 

This book is full of practical and clever spellwork and knowledge and also is, incidentally, a delightful read because of Silver’s engaging way of speaking.  The observations and revelations she shares, particularly in the first part of the book, strongly reflect the growth and wisdom she has developed as an evolving Pagan.  I am delighted that she put this information out into the world and I eagerly look forward to her future books.  Many thanks for the time that she took to compile this enjoyable read. 

As a practitioner of a couple of decades, you get to the point where you wonder if there is anything new under the sun any more.  The next time I feel that way, I’m betting Silver will put out a new book.

*sigh*  I’m such a groupie it’s not even funny.  Eileen Connolly, Nancy Garen and Rachel Pollack were the names on which I cut my little newbie Tarot teeth back in the deepest, darkest 1980’s when I first began reading cards.  With the subtitle of “Spiritual Teachings and Deeper Meanings,” I could not wait to get my hands on this book.

Overall, it did not disappoint.  If I’d phoned up Ms. Pollack and said, “Rache, write a book and tell me everything you know and every thought you’ve had about each of the 78 classic Tarot cards” and she answered, “OK, no problem,” this is the book that would result.  Her writing style is still as engaging and easy as it was 20-some years ago when I first started reading her work.  It is just as informative and impressive as “Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom.“  My own complaint:  I did not care for the illustrations. 

I would say that this book almost presents too much information to take in except that I am a “hit the ground running” kind of person with the subject of the Tarot and like to lick up just about every bit of insight I can find about different ways to read the cards and new considerations regarding the classic illustrations.   For me, there isn’t a point of “too much information” and I enjoyed every word of this book. 

I fully expect to go back over it again and again, just as I do with the Tarot, each time picking out something new and seeing a paragraph or sentence in a new light.