Ireland in Autumn…a special time.
The chill of early mornings and the ripening of hedgerow fruit.
Blackbirds swooping low over woodland paths that wind out from the cottage.
Grass, wet with early morning dew and mist rising from the valley, wisping skyward towards Kilronan Mountain. 
The morning bridges late Summer and early Autumn in an ethereal, almost magical way.
There is nothing for it but to step into the gardens and be amazed at the gentle progression of the season, for we are, in essence, seasonal beings, dependent on the cyclical nature of the Earth.
Marija Gimbutas frames this beautifully, eloquently in concluding her book, “The Language of the Goddess,” writing: “The Goddess gradually retreated into the depths of forests or onto mountain-tops, where she remains to this day in beliefs and fairy stories.
Human alienation from the vital roots of earthly life ensued, the results of which are clear in our contemporary society.
But the cycles never stop turning, and now we find the Goddess reemerging from the forests and mountains, bringing us hope for the future, returning us to our most ancient human roots.”
Maria Gimbutas, a foremost archaeologist of her time, in this most brilliantly researched book, goes on to conclude, “The Goddess in all her manifestations was a symbol of the unity of all life in Nature.
Her power was in water and stone, in tomb and cave, in animals and birds, snakes and fish, hills, trees and flowers. hence the holistic and mythopoeic perception of the sacredness and mystery of all there is on Earth.”
Joseph Campbell, who introduces the book, writes; “One cannot but feel that in the appearance of this volume at just this turn of the century there is an evident relevance to the universally recognized need in our time for a general transformation of consciousness.
The message here is of an actual age of harmony and peace in accord with the creative energies of Nature which for a spell of some four thousand prehistoric years anteceded the five thousand of what James Joyce has termed the “nightmare” (of contending tribal and national interests) from which it is certainly now time for this planet to wake.”