Dianna Rhyan's book, Staff of Laurel, Staff of Ash is an exploration of myth and landscape. Drawing on stories from the fertile crescent, this is a wide ranging book exploring the role of landscape in myth, and myth in landscape. It's a book about relationship and wonder, sacredness in the landscape and the complexity of human relationships with all of that - historical and modern.
However, this is by no means your regular investigative text picking through the evidence and suggesting interpretations. This is a highly poetic book and much more of a felt response to myth and landscape alike. The writing is stunningly beautiful. There were many lines that caused me to make audible gasping noises. The text is rich with ideas and inspiration - so rich that you need to read it slowly, dipping in for a taste before surfacing to draw breath and contemplate it all. I feel I read it too quickly, and would ideally have spent weeks on it, slowly savouring each small chapter. Had I not been sent it as a review book I would probably have taken a very different approach to reading it.
This is very much a book for bards, with sacred inspiration infusing every page. It's both inspiring, and suggestive of ways in which we might want to explore our own craft and inspiration. For the Druid, there is a great deal to think about philosophically around relationships with the land - human and godly relationships alike. For anyone interested in the myths that come from the lands around the Mediterranean, it's a fascinating read.
This is the sort of book that reads like a spell. It may slip inside you, acting on you in ways that you cannot quite name. It is a spell of falling in love with the land, and seeing the sacred in the world around us. This is a beautiful book and like nothing else I have ever read. If you are someone who can relish prose that is also poetry, and who welcomes writing that is more evocative and more mystical, this is definitely for you.
More on the publisher's website - https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/moon-books/our-books/staff-laurel-staff-ash
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