Geraldine Thorsten's The Goddess in Your Stars reinterprets the familiar sun signs in the light of modern Goddess scholarship. (It may seem to some of our readers that we are constantly harping on the need for footnotes, but honestly! With such a lovely and extensive bibliography, it's extremely irritating to find not one footnote in this book.) In the chapter on Leo the Lion, we read that "he did not stalk the heavens alone but followed at the heels of the Great Goddess. The brilliant star cluster we know as the Sickle of Leo were the Bow Stars to Egyptians, and they signified the Goddess as Satis, who strides through the sky, armed with bow and arrows, followed by Her lion." Several paragraphs follow that discuss the Goddess and Her lions, like Cybele, in many different cultures.
Thorsten's discussion of the human temperament as seen through the signs is directed at women, like Ffiona Morgan's, but is deeper and more extensive. She discusses the qualities of each sign in terms of the Sun (identity and central life purpose) and the Moon (emotions and deep self). As a Capricorn Sun, 1 am very familiar with reading about myself in terms of my organizational abilities, my ambitions and leadership qualities. But 1 am also an artist, and so 1 was pleased to read here that a Capricornian gift "which to my mind is never sufficiently stressed in discussing Sun in Capricorn, is the tremendous creative energy it bestows upon you ... The act of creation is, in a certain sense, a process of establishing order from chaos."
Like Morgan, Thorsten presents several visualizations for each sign. Sagittarians (Sun, Moon or Rising) might meditate on the Great Mares Epona and Macha, or the Caillech Bheur, or Rhiannon (all horse goddesses) or Diana of the Silver Bow. Taureans might experience themselves as graceful Cretan bull-leapers, or feeling themselves transform into a tree, feel their roots sink down deep into the body of Gala.
Even though I question the subtitle of this book ("The Original Feminine Meanings of the Sun Signs") and the premise that these Goddesses are the original zodiac signs (where's the footnotes?), I find the mythic information fascinating and the insights into each personality invaluable.
~review by Joanna Colbert
Author: Geraldine Thorsten
Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1989
272 pgs, $9.95 (portions previously published in 1980 as God Herself)
