Gleanings is a gathering of hitherto uncollected essays written by Christine Downing during the quarter century since the publication in 1981 of her seminal book, The Goddess: Mythological Images of the Feminine . Many of the essays continue her exploration of Greek goddess traditions and other aspects of Greek mythology. Others grow out of her ongoing involvement with the thought of both Freud and Jung. The interrelationship between polis and psyche, city and soul, is a central theme of several of these papers, including those that focus on the Holocaust. Various facets of lesbian and gay experience are also examined.

Mythopoetic Musings is a gathering of essays and reworked lectures written by Christine Downing during the years since the 2006 publication of her earlier collection Gleanings. Many represent returns to the themes and images, the stories and writers, that have played a central role in her writing and teaching since she began her scholarly career. Amplifications not retractions. As always, they intertwine the academic and the personal and communicate her conviction that a genuinely depth psychological engagement with any theme will inevitably lead us to ourselves. Our stories. As she says, "I have been a teacher and a writer, but really what I have been is a story-teller. I think I can safely tell myself, I'll never stop being one."