Wicca 404 – Advanced Goddess Thealogy

So I bought a book over at Amazon from my wish list. I have been dying for some Wicca books that go way beyond “Wicca 101″ and one on my list was “Wicca 404: Advanced Goddess Thealogy” by Esra Free. It’s a small book, less than 100 pages and I haven’t finished it yet because I have been heavily involved in another book I am doing a review on that is about 10 times the size of this book. But anywho for those of us who are looking for reading beyond the scope of “Wicca 101″ or “Beginner paganism”, finding these books can be downright frustrating. And although I haven’t finished this one yet, it has equally frustrated me. First off it is a very dry read. Call me crazy but I like  a read that isn’t about squeezing in every big word they can find in the dictionary. I am not asking so much for layman’s terms but when you write a book that sounds more like lawyer-speak, it’s hard to get anything from it. Simplicity (even with the most complicated topics) is often the best way to go to reach your audience. Secondly there is this one  sentence blurb that has bothered me from the moment I read it.

 “Everything alive, here on Earth, is born of a woman, of a female creature of its own species”

Now just to give some reference to the context of where this statement comes from, Ms. Free was discussing how The Great Mother isn’t so much a supernatural deity removed from our Earthly regions but a natural divine being that is in all things (trees, the sky, air we breathe, etc etc.). And I totally was agreeing with her and nodding my head until I got to:

“Everything alive, here on Earth, is born of a woman, of a female creature of its own species”

My very first thought was “No no no, what about the seahorses!”. Then I questioned my own memory, was it egg to sperm or sperm to egg for the seahorses? So I googled and sure enough, the female seahorse passes her egg to the male seahorse who then carries the fertilized eggs AND gives birth. When I mentioned this to my husband he mentioned other fish and insects do this as well, so naturally I had to go poking around on that one too. I quickly learned that pipefish and leafy dragons (both of which I think are closely related to the seahorse) are in fact males who become impregnated and give birth. Upon researching for male insects giving birth I was unsuccessful so it’s possible the hubs was just mistaken on that one.

I think this boils down to one problem that I seem to have with alot of books on Wicca is this lean to the Goddess. Quite a few people talk about the balance of God and Goddess but often books are more skewed to the Goddess. And granted I DID purchase a book on Goddess Thealogy so I guess I should have expected it more. But it’ s still frustrating. I have no issue with anyone leaning to a more Goddess filled tradition. Mother Grove, a temple I often attend their public rituals and have joined their choir, is solely about the Goddess. It’s not that they don’t acknowledge Her Consort, it’s just you don’t venerate Him there. At home, in my own personal rituals and spells I often venerate both, because I need both. And finding a book that isn’t skewed one way or another is really hard.

As I have said, I have not finished the book. I am going to finish it and try my best to ignore that glaring false sentence. I think that despite the error, Ms. Free can still offer some deep insight into the Divine.