A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos

Description of A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos

This book is the documentation of a poetic ceremonial process practiced over decades, which has been the making of a world, a creative  context in which She could be expressed and heard. This ceremonial practice is based in the Seasonal Moments of Earth-Sun relationship: that is, specifically the Solstices, Equinoxes and cross-quarter transitions of the Old European indigenous traditions. This has been synthesized with a scientific understanding of the unfolding Cosmos, and with female metaphor for the sacred: named as a “PaGaian” cosmology. The poetic process of ceremony described, over the year-long cycle of Earth-Sun creativity is a Geo-therapy, a placing of self within a womb of creativity, a microcosm of the Womb of the Cosmos, the habitat of all being, in which we dwell. This documentation was enabled and enhanced by the author’s academic doctoral work which allowed organic and transpersonal research methods, wherein ceremony, meditations, and intuitive cognitions were part of the learning. The circle of stones on the front cover represents this devotional practice and is reminiscent of the great stone circles built by ancestral peoples, which were ceremonial sites celebrating relationship with the beauty and terror of being alive in this awesome universe.

A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos Book Endorsements
"This is a deeply spiritual work, beautifully articulating the sacrality and the profundity of our lives and of the cosmos. Glenys Livingstone writes of communions, celebrations, wonderfully creative ceremonies, the continuity of life: our turns around the Wheel of the Year."
-Miriam Robbins Dexter, Author of Whence the Goddesses: a Source Book and  Sacred Display: Divine and Magical Female Figures of Eurasia

 "This book is a blessing! Bestowing knowledge, wisdom, and beauty, it presents new possibilities for a greater felt connection with the cosmos. The ceremonies for a PaGaian Wheel of the Year will surely inspire spiritual creativity."
-Charlene Spretnak, Author of Lost Goddesses of Early Greece

"In order to enter A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos, begin the night before. Go out under the stars and let their beauty soak into you. Bring to mind the 320 million Earth-like planets sprinkled throughout the Milky Way galaxy and imagine there are other beings out there who are, simultaneously, trying to imagine us. As you climb into bed, reflect on the stunning truth coming from both the ancient ones and the contemporary scientists, that you are at the center of the universe, at the very center along with everyone else. After a deep sleep, you will be ready to enter the PaGaian wheel of ceremony which has taken Glenys an entire lifetime to create. She has had to struggle out of the unconscious arrogance and profound ignorance of industrial society in their dismissal of the wisdom embedded in Goddess-based cultures. Working with other poets of the cosmos, she has constructed a spiritual practice that enables us to root ourselves in place and celebrate the sacred annual journey about the sun. By releasing ourselves into the wisdom of her ceremonies, we find our creative energies reinvigorated as we set forth to give poetic expression to the divine presence in which we live. Glenys Livingstone, the author of this cosmological poetry, is a planetary treasure."
-Brian Thomas Swimme, Author of Cosmogenesis

“In these times we need to remember our cosmic origins, the organic power we have within us collectively and personally. Glenys' book offers inspiration for such a journey which is both in and out at the same time: it presents an action that may be entered into to enable our atrophied sensitivities to our Earth, our place of being. The process described in this book helps us remember how old we really are, and also how young and vibrant we may be. As Joanna Macy says: it’s time for us to act our age.”
-John Seed, deep ecology activist, co-author (with Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess) of Thinking Like a Mountain: Toward a Council of All Beings. 

"For years and years, we Goddess-folk have chanted, sung and whispered--the Great Mother is returning! Now, in these challenging times, we are blessed with a deeply personal, profoundly universal book from the inimitable Glenys Livingstone. Buy this book, sisters. Read this book, brothers. Live this book, children of Our Sacred Mother."
-H. Byron Ballard, Witch, Priestess, Author....

 Cover art by Julie Cunningham


Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. has been on a Goddess path since 1979. She is the author of PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion, which fuses the indigenous traditions of Old Europe with scientific theory, feminism, and a poetic relationship with placeThis book was an outcome of her doctoral work in Social Ecology. Glenys was born and lives in country Australia, where she has facilitated Seasonal ceremony for decades, taught classes, and mentored apprentices. Her new book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony documents the synthesis of her work over the past decades. She is the author of the children’s book My Name is Medusa, and co-editor of the anthology Re-visioning Medusa: from Monster to Divine Wisdom. In 2014, Glenys co-facilitated the Mago Pilgrimage to Korea with Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang. Glenys is a contributor to eleven anthologies including Goddessesin World Culture edited by Patricia Monaghan (2011), Foremothers of the Women’s Spirituality Movement edited by Miriam Robbins Dexter and Vicki Noble (2015), and Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture, edited my Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang (2018). She produced PaGaian Cosmology Meditations CDs and teaches a year-long on-line course "Celebrating Cosmogenesis in the Wheel of the Year" for both hemispheres. Her website is http://pagaian.org.

We will offer a full color version and a black and white edition. We will release this magnificent 379-page book in 2023.

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