Priestess of Pompeii (eBook)

Pompeii, 1st Century BCE Fate intervenes when a baby girl destined to be a servant is abandoned and miraculously found by a wealthy merchant family. Epileptic seizures and prophetic dreams disturb young Rufilla's life and loves. Leaving home, she embarks on a journey to ancient Greece, where rituals, both healing and provocative, compel her to reconcile her powerful desire for independence with the expected role as someone's wife. Goddesses and gods, oracles and healers, women of wisdom and mystery are her guides in this ancient tale, and those voices call out to women today.

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The Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii is famous for its cycle of Dionysian Ritual Frescoes. This book is the fictional story of a real person, the Domina of the Villa, Rufilla Istacidia, who lived in Pompeii First Century BCE. Rufilla is born to parents in the servant class. Still, when her mother dies, her father renounces the baby, and her miraculous rescue by a wealthy Pompeiian family fatefully transforms her destiny. Rufilla's epilepsy is considered a sacred illness that not only produces violent episodes of seizures but prophetic dreams. A foreboding dream and its ensuing darkness serve as a catalyst to begin the initiate's journey where sexual awakening mirrors spiritual illumination. The book takes readers to healing sites in ancient Greece: Epidaurus, Ariadne's Palace of Knossos on Crete, the Sanctuary of Apollo, and the Oracle of Delphi. Rufilla receives messages through dreams, Dionysian rituals, and mythological encounters as she struggles with her conflicting feelings over traditional marital duties and the desire to be completely free and independent. Priestess of Pompeii is an epic yet intimate portrayal of Rufilla's world in ancient Pompeii and Greece. Mythology and history intertwine, like the inner and outer worlds of life. Whether on the pirate-infested seas, in the quiet of sacred sanctuaries, inside Julius Caesar's politics, swept up in the bustling marketplaces, or in the throes of erotic rituals, Priestess of Pompeii is not only a book for time travelers but is a portal into a woman's coming of age through the lens of Jungian psychology.