Overview: This brand new book entitled Pagan Portals - Athena: Goddess of Wisdom and War brings forth to us the mythology of Athena, a gray-eyed goddess who offers wisdom and strength in life’s everyday battles.

Verdict: For those unaware, Athena, born fully formed and ready for battle, is a goddess as fierce as she is wise. Helping other deities in times of war, she uses strategy to devise the most reasonable path to victory.

As an Olympian and virgin deity, Athena reminds us how strong we can be when we know ourselves fully and honor our unique strengths. Vengeful and determined, Athena is the gray-eyed one with an owl on her shoulder and the protector of Athens.

Not only can Athena inspire us in difficult times; she can also remind us of our innate wisdom to know what is best — and act on it.

Growing up in a Catholic household where my sister was always nose-deep inside books of mythology such as this one, Athena was justifiably her go-to for inspiration and determination.

And so, as I was soon to learn from both her and, of course, now this magnificently prosed, and dutifully sculpted new book, that Athena is the Virgin immaculately conceived by the Father without touch of woman – the Daughter of God in the holy triad of heaven. Unlike the Queen of Heaven, Hera, Athena is a peculiarly male goddess: as a virgin, she does not concern herself with sex or marriage in the typical female manner, rejecting all suitors and fending of would-be rapists like Hephaestus – an episode which led to the creation of Athens.

She is talented in all the womanly arts but goes about wearing the battledress proper to men. She was gestated inside a male body, and she emerged not from the impure thighs of a mother but from the lofty head of her father – a man’s brainchild. Born fully formed and ready-armed, she needed no nursing and needed to spend no time in the women’s quarters of Olympus, as girls would generally do, and therefore took no influence from her father’s petty, jealous, and intemperate wife. She is, in the ancients’ view, quite the opposite of what a woman should be: an exception that proves the rule.

And so here in Pagan Portals - Athena: Goddess of Wisdom and War from author Irisanya Moon, we get a profound introductory presentation into the life of the goddess Athena. Originally published one chapter at time on the Pagan Collective blog as a work-in-progress series, now we are gifted the full version; one that she also thanks the mighty city of Athens for helping her write (a city that has been part of her writing since 2013).

Indeed, Moon’s perspective is influenced by her prior writing, personal gnosis, and magickal experience and thus this brilliant new introductory prose to Athena is one steeped in not only educational text, but clearly showcases a devoted love and admiration for the powerful goddess in question by the author.

About the Author - Irisanya Moon (she/they) is an author, witch, international teacher, poet, and Reclaiming initiate who has practiced magick for 20+ years. She has taught in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia, bringing her blend of grounded, graceful, and radically authentic facilitation to inspire transformation and liberation at the personal and collective levels.

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