Seeking the God of Ecstasy

In this modern vision quest, readers discover that the capacity to live joyfully and creatively is intimately wed to the erotic life of the soul. Melina Costello gives a gripping firsthand account of the ecstatic flights and dark impulses that accompany a woman's inner journey of self-awakening. Progressing through dreamscape encounters with Dionysus, the Greek god of ecstasy, Costello boldly addresses sexual repressions and spiritual assumptions as she seeks to liberate her inner and secular life. Half-mortal and half-god, Dionysus personifies humanity's instinctual sense of unity with the natural world. To receive the ecstatic light of divine truth which is granted to those who enter his realm, she must also embrace the deity's shadowy impulses of erotic desire. Her seduction by Dionysus compels her to re-imagine sexual love as a creative participation in the soul's boundless fertility, not as a demoralization of spiritual values. Opening the realm of discovery in Seeking the God of Ecstasy, Costello invites readers into a world that is both breathtakingly personal and universal.