8 Quotes by Patricia Monaghan

The American definition of paganism is especially suspect among the Irish, too, when it seems to imply adherence to some British cult. The fact that most of the self-proclaimed "witches" in Ireland are English does not escape comment, and notice is also given to the number of American tourists who traipse through on pilgrimages to these minor celebrities and make no inquires about local beliefs.

Grief is a strange journey. Each time we embark upon it, it is as though we have never taken its roads before. No, I have that wrong: each grief brings us through a familiar landscape carved into unrecognizable contours. For we do not only lose another person; we lose the person we were with the one we lost.

The goddess has never been lost. It is just that some of us have forgotten how to find her.

The gift of creating new life needs to be, once again, welcomed and honoured as one of the most mysterious of human powers. And women need to be confirmed in their decisions to use this power however and whenever they see fit.

Nothing grows well without space and air.

I’m a bit uncomfortable, truth be told, with being seen as an expert, because there is always so much more to learn. I see myself as a perpetual student of the goddess.

This is the monkey mind of which Zen speaks: the mind that worries, doubts, frets about the past, makes lists, all the time chattering like a monkey.

I did not have to believe. I only had to wonder.