Charon. He is the ferryman who carries the souls of the dead across the River Styx in the gloomy Greek underworld. Two coins pay his fee, but his work never ceases. In this collection of essays, fiction, poetry, and prayers, this often-neglected divine being is properly recognized and honored by modern polytheists. Mysterious and foreboding, Charon nevertheless waits for us all. Paying our respects while still living will put us in good standing when it comes time to cross the river.

Demeter. Ancient and modern devotees alike know Demeter to be a complex Goddess. As demonstrated by the poetry, essays, short fiction, and artwork collected in this anthology, she is a Goddess of many guises. Some devotees see her as an aspect of the Great Goddess, the source of all creation. For others, She is part of a fluid trinity, encompassing the phases of a woman's life and the cycles of the year. Some experience Demeter as identical to the Roman Ceres, while still others consider them distinct entities. Some honor her as the Mistress of Good Green Growing Things, Lady of Herbs and...

Devourer Lady of Perfume She of the Ointment Jars Mistress of the Crowns Queen of the Sky Who Rules Over All the Gods Bast is a complex Goddess of many names and many forms. She is sometimes a cat, sometimes a woman with the head of a cat, sometimes a woman with the head of a lion. She is both fiercely maternal, and wrathful. She is compassionate and sensuous, but also savage and grim. She is both huntress, and protector. As her devotees past and present attest, She is a Goddess of great beauty, great warmth, and great terror. A Goddess truly worthy of our devotion. Dua Bast

Poseidon. Amphitrite. Nereus and the Nereids. Triton and Tethys. Iris and the Graeae. Proteus and Styx and Medusa. They are of the sea, and more than the sea. They are the primordial ocean from which life arose, and which continues to sustain the world. They are the saltwater in our blood. They are storm and wind and tide and crashing waves. They are glorious beings of water and salt and light, avengers of injustice and providers of bounty. They are fathers and mothers and lovers. They are wrathful and exuberant, compassionate and wise, quixotic and impulsive and shrewd. They are Powers most...

Warrior. Healer. Hunter. Guardian. Mother. Daughter. Eye of the Sun and Arbiter of Justice. Mistress of Dread and Lady of the Slaughter. The Red Lioness. The Drunken One. Sekhmet is a complex Goddess, an ancient and ferocious Deity impossible to fit into a single, simple category. That is, after all, the way and nature of Gods: they are beings of awe and power and grace and wrath. All of these qualities are apparent in the poems, hymns, essays, rites, myths, and artwork which follow. Her modern-day devotees, scattered across the globe, find in Her a fiercely protective mother, a sly and...

The Horae. The Charites. The Mousai. They are the Horae: Goddesses of time, spring growth, new buds and first fruits. They oversee just laws, right conduct, and peace. As above, so below: the orderly progression of the seasons is mirrored by the order of a society in balance with the will of the Gods. They are the Charities: Goddesses of beauty, charm, elegance, and deportment, who watch over all the finer things in life; that which makes the human condition bearable, and civilization truly civilized. They are the Mousai, or Muses: Goddesses who inspire poets, dancers, dramatists, comedians,...

Lady of the Moon. Mother of the Stars. Sister of Sun and Dawn. Wanderer of the Night. Selene. She is the glorious silver light whom mortals have gazed at in wonder since time immemorial. She is the indefinable spirit of the night, gentler than the hot and boisterous day. She is love both amorous and maternal. She is peace and rest. To her devotees ancient and modern, she is all of these things, and so much more. The poems, prayers, rites, stories, artwork, and essays collected here celebrate this most awesome and beautiful of Goddesses. O epainos einai sto Selene "

Anat, Ereshkigal, Artemis, Juno, Venus, Bast, Seshat, Brigid, Arduinna, Freyja, Hel, Yemaya, Mawu, Pele, Ix Chel, Kuan Yin, Tara, Sarasvati, Kali. Goddesses were, and still are, widely worshipped. Not just in far off places, but close by, right here. People today sing to these Goddesses, pray to them, dance for them, make offerings - and write for them. The poetry and prose and art collected here celebrates Goddesses from all over the world. Like the Goddesses they honor, these tales and poems and works of art vary from the humorous to the horrific, from the deeply personal to the deeply...

Kali. The Morrigan. Set. The Cailleach. Medusa. Shiva. Melinoe. Odin. Herne. Ereshkigal. They are the Dark Ones. They are frightening and strange and wrathful and odd. Reviled, ignored, feared, and misunderstood, they are the Deities and spirits and monsters of war and disease, savage justice, cataclysm, and death. But also of painful transformation, self-reflection, and enlightenment. Stand in awe of them. Fear them. Then go to them.