Travels within the Soul of the Goddess

Savage Breast: One Man's Search for the Goddess by Tim Ward
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Savage Breast is not about a set of breasts on a savage woman, rather it is about ne man’s explorations into the realms of the Goddess. In my eyes it is a three pronged journey. The first prong which is readily distinguishable is about a visiting different sites around the world dedicated to this goddess or that Goddess. The second prong is a journey into the anima of man and how the male anima, or female part of the psyche is stunted. The third prong is a journey into the author’s mind in order for him to confront this own personal issues.

Dealing with the inner issues, the author readily explains his own issues with women. In my mind it seems as though he has a love hate relation with them and he consistently berates himself for seeing them only as sex objects. In the books beginning he can never form satisfactory relationship with a woman. AS a result he ends up having numerous one night stands to fil that ever growing hunger with in. Men seem to see women as mothers or lovers or limit them to certain roles. Men have made women subservient, they have clipped t females wings and limited her power and in doing so have limited themselves in the process and cut their own wings.
While our spirituality would benefit from being more inclusive of the feminine and allowing more room for spiritual leader, I find all this male self-criticism to be a bit problematic. I am not sure if dissing patriarchy is the way to go. Sure we defiantly need more equality, but putting one down over the other is not the answer. Being totally honest I feel that man and women of modern times are spiritually immature and under developed. As an observer of this time frame I find that women can veer towards materialism, manipulation and less than forthright communication. Men suffer from using women for carnal purposes and can be quite rough.

Perhaps my favorite part was about Athena. She may have had her origin on some other Greek isle an she may be a newer version of an older goddess. In a way she is Zeus’s first born with his wife Methis. Like Cronus before him, he swallows his offspring. Athena is born from a headache and in the original version she is sprouting angel wings. The eternal battle hardened virgin, she is a model for many women who have defeminized themselves to make it in man’s world. Of course some of this is understandable because the game is patriarchal, rules written by men t lay many game in a manly sort of way. Tim Ward, the author, always tries to impress this kind of woman an finds himself coming up short. Yet you also learn that women tend to get along better with men than they do other women. As a co-worker of mine states “Women attack other women, they do not go after men” there is a competition between them and when women communicate they’re constantly trying to probe each other mind to find out what they’re thinking.
Tim’s journey leads him to a fruitful relationship after years of research, traveling and hard work. Along the way shrines to goddesses like Gai, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hecate and several Central European goddesses are discussed and visited. They are part of the anima and dwell in each man and in each woman. The Goddesses are part of the soul.


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