 |
Young Starhawk in the California woods..
|
When the history of religion and spirituality in the late 20th
Century America is written it is possible that the most influential person might not be some mega-church pastor with a perfect pompadour and dazzling white smile, a learned theologian with a break-out idea, a Prelate or
President of some denomination, or the guru of some eastern mysticism, but a nice Jewish
girl from St. Paul, Minnesota
with wild hair and a penchant for colorful flowing robes.
Miriam
Simos was born on June 17, 1951. Both of her parents were the children of
Jewish emigrants from Russia.
Her father died when she was
only 5 and she was brought up by her mother, Bertha Claire Goldfarb Simos,
a professor of social work at the University of California at Berkley. They lived in Venice, a beach town
that was a center of surfing and alternative lifestyles.
Miriam’s mother was a feminist and she was an activist herself by the time she
attended high school where she was
close to fellow student Christina Hoff
Sommers, who would go on in later years to fame as a leading conservative critic of modern feminism.
Miriam was a bright student and a sponge
for the social changes swirling
around her. Enrolling at UCLA she aspired to be a writer, graduating in 1973. While going on to pursue a graduate degree in
film there she wrote A
Weight of Gold an autobiographical
novel and screen play about
growing up in Venice, which won the prestigious Samuel Goldwyn Writing Award.
Although the novel was not published,
the recognition and encouragement led her to try to make a literary career in New York. She then returned
to California. Basing herself in the Bay Area she was active in feminist, peace, anti-nuclear, ecological,
and anarchist circles.
She was drawn to the burgeoning neo-pagan movement, especially Wicca and took the craft name Starhawk, under which she would climb to fame and
influence within the movement. She
studied under Victor Anderson, who
synthesized various world shamanistic traditions and founded the Feri Tradition to make those beliefs
accessible to Americans. She also
studied with Zsuzsanna Budapest, founder
of Dianic Wicca, a monotheistic goddess worshiping group
who meet in women-only covens. Budapest’s Susan B. Anthony Coven was both feminist/separatist and engaged in the politics of the world.
 |
The 20th Anniversary editions of Starhawk' influential manifesto for eco-feminist and activist paganism.
|
Starhawk herself was also drawn
deeply to a mystic connection to the earth.
She was alienated by the refusal of many of her neo-pagan contemporaries, particularly in main stream Wicca to
engage in the world. She synthesized her
experienced into a manifesto of sorts on a muscular
Goddess worship, The Spiral Dance which she completed
in 1977.
Frustratingly, she was unable to find a publisher.
Feminist religious scholar Carol P. Christ included an article by
Starhawk on witchcraft and the Goddess
movement in her influential anthology, Womanspirit Rising in 1979. In that book Starhawk explained herself:
I am a witch, by which I mean that
I am somebody who believes that the earth is sacred, and that women and women’s
bodies are one expression of that sacred being.
My spirituality has always been linked to my feminism. Feminism is about challenging unequal power
structures. So, it also means challenging inequalities in race, class, sexual
preference. What we need to be doing is not just changing who holds power, but
changing the way we conceive of power. There is the power we’re all familiar
with—power over. But there is another kind of power—power from within. For a
woman, it is the power to be fertile either in terms of having babies or
writing books or dancing or baking bread or being a great organizer. It is the
kind of power that doesn’t depend on depriving someone else.
Inclusion in that book led to the
publication of The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great
Goddess by Harper and Row
later the same year. It became one of
the bestselling and most influential
neo-pagan books ever published. It was a
compendium of theological thought, history,
and ritual practices. New editions published on the 10th and 20th
anniversaries of the first edition expanded on the original with additional
reflection on the growth and evolutions of Starhawks’s thought.
The book was widely influential well
beyond the still small and idiosyncratic world of neo-paganism. It was avidly read by feminists, those
interested in deep ecology, and
women in small towns and cities who had felt isolated and alone.
Meanwhile Starhawk was also pursuing
a Masters Degree in Psychology from the University of Antioch West in San Francisco, from which she graduated
in 1982 leading to an academic career
at institutions that include John F.
Kennedy University, Antioch West, the Institute
of Culture and Creation Spirituality at Holy Names College, and Wisdom University. She is presently adjunct faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and is currently affiliated with United for Peace and Justice, Earth
Activist Training, and other groups.
Starhawk’s deep critique of the
common rhetoric of patriarchy and
her concern that connection to the Earth and nature calls for a kind of activism in the world that was new to
neo-paganism. She pointedly asked, “What do we do...those of us who do believe
the earth is sacred, who do believe that we have a responsibility to care for
the living systems that sustain us, and who do believe that we have a
responsibility to take care of each other?”
Brining that activism to the public
has been key. In 1979 to celebrate the
publication of her book Starhawk and friends organized a Bay Area Samhain (Halloween) celebration including a mass
Spiral Dance. Out of that loose association grew the Reclaiming Community, now an international movement that fuses
neo-paganism with activism and offers classes in non-violence, civil
disobedience, organizing and the like.
It is particularly active in overcoming the sense of white privilege which Starhawk believes
has infested much of the neo-pagan
community.
 |
Starhawk was active in founding CUUPS which helped lead to the adoption of the Unitarian Universalsit 7th Principle--"respect for the independent web of existance of which we are a part.
|
Starhawk was an early and
influentially active member of the Covenant
of Unitarian Universalist Pagans (CUUPS). She contributed heavily to the adoption of the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Seventh
Principle, “Respect for the Interdependent Web of All Existence of Which We
Are a Part” in 1983, a move led by the faith’s growing eco-feminist
movement. That inclusion has in many
ways profoundly changed traditional Unitarian Universalism broadening its roots from radical Christianity and modern Humanism, influencing the way the faith act in the world, and being
a major catalyst for a revival of spirituality in the liberal faith. She continues to lead CUUPS workshops and
retreats.
Although she helped found and
continues to be active in the Covenant
of the Goddess, legally recognized as a church since 1977. Starhawk’s interest transcends institutionalism in organized religion. Through various activities, agencies, and
groups she seeks to share a broad vision that transcends any single cult or practice. To this end she
has published widely. In addition for
the editions of the Spiral Dance her
many books include Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex, and Politics in 1982, where she
elaborated on the role of ritual as an agent of societal change; Truth
Or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority and Mystery in 1987, a synthetization
her views on personal development, political action and witchcraft into a psychology of liberation; and the ecotopian
novel The Fifth Sacred Thing in 1993.
In addition her articles and essays have been widely published and
translated around the world.
In the late ‘80’s Starhawk revisited
her old interest in films, writing and staring in three films known
collectively as the Women and Spirituality Trilogy for the National Film Board of Canada.
The widely hailed poetic documentaries include Goddess Remembered
in 1989, The Burning Times in
1990, and Full Circle in
1993. In addition she has released
numerous spoken word CDs.
Activism
as continued to be important to Starhawk.
She leads training sessions in mindful activism and civil disobedience
for many groups. She contributes to a YouTube video series aimed at Unitarian
Universalist activists and she wrote the
call-to-action for the women’s peace organization Code Pink which
engaged in numerous high profile civil disobedience actions in protest to the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 |
Today Starhawk is probably the most influential elder or crone of feminist neo-paganism.
|
Today her
earth-based, feminist spirituality is widely influential beyond the growing
neo-pagan community. She is taught in theological schools and seminaries and theologians seek to
reconcile the Divine Feminine and
active, muscular reverence for the Earth with traditional Christianity. Starhawk address this wider world as a major
contributor to Belief Net and as a
columnist for On Faith, the Newsweek/Washington
Post online forum on religion.
At 63 Starhawk lives communally with
her second husband David Miller in
San Francisco and also spends time at a simple hut in the woods western Sonoma County, California, where she
practices permaculture in her
extensive gardens, meditates, and writes.
Starhawk wrote
in 2017, “In the midst of the swirling
chaos of this political moment
comes the festival of Brigid, ancient
Celtic Goddess of fire and water, of smithcraft, poetry and healing. Below is a Brigid poem,
loosely based on the invocation I offered at a Reclaiming’s Brigid ritual,
as thousands crowded into airports
around the country to resist Trump’s
illegal Muslim ban.”
 |
Starhawk chose this illustration for her poem--A stylized Unitarian Universalist chalice superimposed of Brigid's fiery forge.
|
Brigid of the
Forge,
the alchemy of
making metal out of rock,
forging tools
and weapons both.
We are a
community uncomfortable with weapons.
We have spent
our lives, some of us,
fighting against
them.
Yet now there
are lessons we need to learn
from the blade.
We have been
hammered.
Now teach us to
have an edge,
sharp and
discerning,
to cut through
lies.
We need the
unity, the determination,
the momentum of
a sword thrust.
The warrior’s
selfless focus,
to be strategic,
to have a point.
We would rather
wield
the digging fork
or the pruning hook,
but we are
called now,
not only to
defend,
but to advance.
Brigid you are
fire and water,
Holy well and
sacred flame.
May the
protectors of water
drink from your
well.
May the
homeless, the refugees,
warm themselves
at your hearth.
You are smith,
but also poet and healer.
May our words
ring true as steel,
or better, as a
great, chiming bell,
cracks mended.
May we carve out
a space,
where our hands
are free
to let go the
grip on the hilt,
and open
to the caress of
healing.
And may our
hands
join with your
great hand
to grasp that
torch of liberty
and raise it
high
above the
currents’ rush and swell—
a welcome, a
promise, a pledge.
—Starhawk
In
2012 as U.S. remote control war
continued rage in a Iraq, Afghanistan, and other corners
of the world Starhawk spoke out.
Maenad Prophecy
When kings wage
unjust war,
When poison
fills the skies,
When the rich
prey on the poor,
When hope for
justice dies
When a spell
lies o’er the land,
Of malice and of
lies,
Then a wild and
fearless band
Of women shall
arise
Crazy saints,
yoginis,
Peering through
the gloom,
Maenads and
dakinis
Witches grab
your brooms!
Sweep away the
stench
Sweep away the
sneers!
Sweep away the
clench
Of hunger and of
fears
Dance to feel
the passion
Dance to wake
the wild,
To honor deep
compassion,
For the forest
and the child,
Dance to keep
the Arctic cool,
To keep the
jungle green,
Dance for every
holy fool,
For every wound
unseen.
Dance for
justice, dance for peace
Dance for life
to thrive,
May beauty,
health and joy increase
For every being
alive
Dance in love,
dance in wrath,
For chains to
fall apart,
Dance to choose
a better path,
Dance for
strength of heart,
All across the
nation,
Bankers quail
and glower,
Cracked is the
foundation
Of the bastions
of power
Strong walls
crumble,
Kings face their
final hour,
An angry earth
shall rumble,
Down shall fall
the Tower.
And through its
stones shall weave the roots
Of a living tree
That offers us
its shining fruits
Of truth and
liberty
Fruit to fill
each empty hand
With sweet gifts
of the earth
Dance to heal
this bleeding land--
A new world
comes to birth.
—Starhawk
Both
of those protest poems were rooted
in Starhawk's most enduring value—
Community
Somewhere, there
are people
to whom we can
speak with passion
without having the
words catch in our throats.
Somewhere a
circle of hands will open to receive us,
eyes will light
up as we enter,
voices will
celebrate with us
whenever we come
into our own power.
Community means
strength that joins us our strength
to do the work
that needs to be done.
Arms to hold us
when we falter.
A circle of
healing. A circle of friends.
Someplace where
we can be free.
—Starhawk
