This book DID literally hit me over the head - in a book shop! I was browsing through the books and this novel fell off the top shelf landing on my head before it hit the floor. At the time I was more interested in the books I had under my arm so I placed it back on the shelf....but 6 months later I regretted that decision and trackedit down.

I have a large interest in Avalon - I find that era particularily fascinating and this book was a great insight but more importantly it was just a great read about one womens journey and connection to Avalon. There are so few books like this around (that I can find) - I am grateful this one smacked me over the head to be noticed, lol!

This book was appreciated from perspective of a younger woman also, so not only midlife women will enjoy! Made me think!

I just read this book as I approach my 60th birthday and am having some discomfort with reaching that age. I had read Crones Don't Whine several years ago also by this author, but didn't connect it when I purchased Crossing to Avalon.
I found this book so interesting, enlightening, and helpful that it will go on the shelf with other books I lend out but always want back. I was able to connect the Goddess ideas with the Jungian archetypes and then directly to how I feel personally in a more direct way than with any previous books I've read. I would highly recommend this book. I'm not sure if it would have made the same great impression on me if I hadn't earlier done some reading on these subjects.

Crossing to Avalon is part of the Goddess Movement that many women are finding after being raised in male-dominated religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Goddess of Ms. Bolen is almost a material, earthy Person as opposed to the spiritual sky God. The author makes several interesting points about opening oneself to Spirit and accepting the Body as sacred as a monstrance or a shrine. Other reviewers have given their opinions on the strengths of this book, so I will not repeat them here.

The book has many of the same weaknesses as others in the Goddess genre. Avalon posits that before the horrible men got into power and forced their horrible male gods on us, everyone worshipped a Goddess figure and celebrated female things like menstruation, menopause, birth, etc. There was little violence and women ruled over men with their profound wisdom and magic powers.

It does not bother Ms. Bolen, who is a psychiatrist, that there was no writing from these times and therefore no way to really know what the people said or did about almost anything. Feminist spirituality devotees can write a novel about a little figurine that looks like a pregnant (or perhaps obese) female and turn it into the Venus of Willendorf. Reality on the historical front is not as important as creating a misanthropic mythology that puts the Female front and center. I doubt Ms. Bolen would be as open-minded about the medical information she reads in psychiatric review journals. She would want footnotes and facts and testing done, something that is not a part of Goddess History.

I found Ms. Bolen's musings on pregnancy, birth, breast feeding, and menstruation to be fanciful. I doubt that it was "patriarchy" that decided to call menstruation "the curse." I imagine it was coined by women who were sick and tired of bloating and cramping every single month and feeling exhausted and bitchy. There is a reason the birth control pill that allows a woman to bleed only once or twice a year is wildly popular. A lot of male-created religions have menstrual taboos and I used to think they were ridiculous until I thought, "perhaps women started them to give us an excuse to take a break once a month. 'Make dinner? I'm on my period; you know I can't touch your food/go to the mosque/have sex with you for a week!'"

Ms. Bolen's ideology of Body as Sacred ignores that it is our Body that we have in common with every other mammal, and it is only our Minds that have evolved beyond them. A dog menstruates, gives birth, and suckles. It is precisely our Body that gives us a disadvantage to men -- before antibiotics and hospital births, women died years and years before men. Before chemical birth control a woman could expect to become pregnant every year until menopause, and traditional families all over the world had more kids than you can count with your fingers. Before formula, children sometimes died because their mothers did not make enough milk to sustain them. Women are on the average smaller, weaker, and slower than men. This sort of feminist spirituality seems to take what makes us vulnerable to "patriarchal oppression" and celebrate it. It reminds me of Buffy the Vampire, where anorexic Sarah Michelle Gellar would fight off males who could have snapped her neck in a second and not broken a sweat. THAT is the reality of the female body.

I admit that I hold to an Aristotelian view of the Primacy of the Mind and not the Body, and I am not an epiphenominalist as I think Jean Bolen appears to be. This influences the way I read books like this. I get the impression as I read that Ms. Bolen is soooo spiritual that she can miss that "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." Women consoling each other becomes a Goddess infusion in her mind, rather than the very physical brain response that people and animals get when touched and comforted. The fact that the author is a psychiatrist interests me, since she does not appear to hold that emotions and responses are related to a physical brain but are instead part of a numinous Thing that lives within us, perhaps the Goddess.

You know, I have to say - this book is awesome - especially if you are a woman.

I am not.

THIS BOOK IS
--------------- P R E T E N T I O U S !!! -----------------
as all get-out!

I am reading this as a women's studies requirement at a "womens centered" university I attend (what can I say?).I am struggling to read this book and find parallels to the male journey... argh. If you are a guy, skip this!
I know all of you are going to click on the "no" helpful voting button for this review - I don't care.CLICK IT TWICE FOR ALL I GIVE A RATS TUSHY. I just spent more than 800 bucks AND WASTED 3 MONTHS OF MY LIFE to take this class called the 'Psychology of Women' that took me on a womans mid life spiritual quest. Men, stay away from this book. Women, bare your teeth and vote NO to this review because I am evil. Thank you.