The Return of the Goddess Quotes

“Don’t call me Naomi, which means pleasant. But call me Miriam, which means bitterness. I will weep, and I will not be comforted, for the Lord God hath dealt bitterly with me.” She would light a candle to Mary, Esther decided.”
― Elizabeth Cunningham, The Return of the Goddess: A Divine Comedy

“sacrifice and denial are not always one and the same. The word sacrifice means to make sacred. Life is sacred, and sacrifice is returning to life what life has given. A sacrifice might be something offered or relinquished. Something dies and becomes the ground of new life, and both the life and the death are sacred.”
― Elizabeth Cunningham, The Return of the Goddess: A Divine Comedy

“It is not easy,” he began, “for the snake to shed skin. The new skin underneath is extremely sensitive, tender to the slightest touch. The snake at this time has a tendency to heightened temperament. It is all in the natural order of things.”
― Elizabeth Cunningham, The Return of the Goddess: A Divine Comedy

“Today was Mardi Gras, Marvin remembered. The Episcopals called it Shrove Tuesday, Maria had explained to him, because they were supposed to shrive themselves of their sins, which, loosely translated, meant something like: no more jive, time to shrive, almost Lent, time to repent.”
― Elizabeth Cunningham, The Return of the Goddess: A Divine Comedy

“They had always been there, just hidden, sometimes, sadly, self-hating, but always there. The women, the church within the church, like Mary in the Sacristy, with their own secret rites. The thread wound back through a labyrinth, through thousands of years, into a ball, round and bright as the full moon.”
― Elizabeth Cunningham, The Return of the Goddess: A Divine Comedy