In grandmother Moon, Hungarian-born Zsuzsanna (Z) Budapest does many wonderful things, all with magical artistry. Reading this book is like visiting a most beloved grandmother or a friendly neighborhood witch. The visit is filled with pleasure, both erotic and spiritual; we come away refreshed and wiser.

Budapest introduces us to ourselves, as if for the first time, as the only lunar primates on earth, the only species that menstruates and therefore does not experience estrus. Women do not automatically mate with all men during certain biologically appropriate time periods; humans mate by female choice—throughout the whole year.

Budapest fashions fables, charming and utterly instructive ones, in which our female mythological heroes and goddesses come alive, step out of paintings and off temple walls, to guide and entertain us. Budapest interviews them. She cajoles and challenges them on our behalf. She respects their power and does not lie to them. In fact, she carefully delights them (and us) with her fresh and vivid use of language, her boldness, her flirtatiousness, humility, and humanity.

For example, Budapest takes Venus to task and then implores Her to give human beings the “right” lovers—who will also stay with us forever. (Venus keeps changing shape as Budapest visits with her, but her most preferred shape is as a “fat lady”: a Rubens figure, the original Venus of Willendorf.) Venus finally explains why we humans have problems with love—and what to do about it.

Budapest suggests and out outlines rituals to overcome self-hatred, self-blame, shame, envy, and guilt, so deeply inbred in so many women. She wants women to love and celebrate our bodies, given to us by Nature: menstruation, pregnancy, menopause, sensuality, wrinkles, fat, aging, death, uniqueness and all.

Budapest sometimes speaks in a powerful, incantatory voice. She re-tells faery tales from all over the world; they are chilling and exceedingly useful when seen through feminist eyes. Budapest describes moon-related holy-days from many countries: China, Japan, India, Israel, Greece, Europe, and South and North America. She also recommends candle-burning rituals to deal with a wide variety of ailments: envy, boredom, loneliness, pain, illness, death.

Budapest would like us to experience as much ecstasy as possible, as long as we’re also politically conscious, and “harm none.” Budapest explains why women still cry at weddings and why the ancient symbolism of weddings still has the power to move so many women.

She also, quite wonderfully, quite purposefully, describes moments in her own life and in her work as a priestess and ritualist. Highlights include: her 50th birthday celebration; an especially wonderful marriage (or trysting) ceremony she performed for a couple whose adult children had finally persuaded them to “tie the knot” or jump over the broom together. Budapest’s recent return to “democratic” Hungary and to her passionately political family; the death of her beloved mother, a well-known sculptor; her confrontation with 500 very angry Christian fundamentalists in California, who tried to stop her from speaking about Goddesses in the public library—and how the state police protected her; how she got a women who was arguing with her during one of her lectures to just slip away. (Budapest respectfully unmasked her as the Goddess of Discord.)