I went to the Feminine Divine in Cross-Cultural Perspective Conference
I just got back from Northwestern University. I had a brilliant time at the conference, the organizer Barbara Newman is such a cool lady (and she wears the most fantastic caftans). Starhawk not only gave the keynote address, she drummed and led a Spiral Dance afterward. How cool is that! I spent a whole day and parts of two other days immersed in constant spiritual intellectual discourse and activity with other Goddess people comparing many different traditions. I found it easy to make friends there, all the people there were so cool.
Carol Christ gave a talk on feminist thealogy and death. She was talking about the understanding of death and afterlife as one of the main differences between Goddess religion and patriarchal theology. Her research was based on not only studying Minoan Goddess culture but also living in Greece and participating in traditional rituals with Greek village women, figuring the basics wouldn't have changed over the years even if the name changed to Christianity. Carol said the Christian formula "do ut des" (I give so that you may give) does not work in Goddess culture. The tradition she traced back to Minoan religion is "I give back in gratitude because you always keep giving."
It was a small conference, about 100 people, and the attendees were over 90% women. I wanted to say a shout out to the handful of men there, men who were cool with sitting in a room full of women talking about girly stuff. More power-from-within to them! :)
I heard a lot of scholars and students talking about Islam, but mostly how they don't know much about it. I don't know why hardly anyone so far has done anything to build bridges between Paganism and Islam. One Witch who has done that is yezida. She was doing it years before I started it independently of her, and when I started saying it, Witches told me "Thorn is doing that." I was pleased to learn that she and sista S.R. were doing it too. In fact, S.R. and I started it going for each other when we first met. Several people at the conference spoke up and asked about Islam, so I began to speak out about what I've been finding there. Carol Christ thanked me for telling her about it. It was the fulfillment of a dream I've long had: attending such a conference, sharing my thoughts on this with scholars in the field, and being well received. I really want to do this some more.
On the subject of Islam-Witchcraft relations: One woman in the audience at Starhawk's lecture said that the burning times came about as a direct result of repressive changes in laws made as a result of threat and fear to Christendom from Islam. First they made repressive laws to get the Muslims, then they turned around and used this repression on the Witches. She drew a parallel between that sequence of events and the Patriot Act in present-day America. It's enough to make a Witch feel uneasy.
In discussions the conference kept touching on subjects I'd long thought about, and it was good to know others were thinking about these things too--for example, what are Goddess religion and feminine divine spirituality doing as the predominant faith in some patriarchal social orders? Some scholars who have published books on this are Alf Hiltebeitel, Is the Goddess a Feminist? and Sarah Caldwell's work on Kali. At the conference they discussed a dualistic model: The feminine divine can be either a model to empower women-- the Goddess does this so you can too-- or "compensatory"-- only Goddesses can do this, so you can't. Do what? Be powerful, independent, fierce, respected beings. Like Kali. Also during the conference a third model to answer this question came out, which some called "subversive." ;) Another very popular theme at the conference, which came up in several papers and discussions, was gender fluidity. They loved that concept. Wait till I tell them about the gender fluidity of Allah...
Chün-Fang Yu spoke on Kwan Yin and told an anecdote from her childhood during World War II in China. Her maternal grandmother was a very devout Buddhist and prayed to Kwan Yin early every morning. Her mother was a modern intellectual. One day they were about to board a river ferry. Suddenly Professor Yu's grandmother had a vision of Kwan Yin dressed in white, standing in the river gesturing to her to go back, to get away. So her grandmother refused to board the boat. Her mother was not persuaded by the vision and argued that they should go ahead and get on. They kept arguing for a long time, and finally her mother gave in. Then when the boat pulled away into the river, it struck a mine that had been left by the retreating Japanese, which exploded and killed everyone on the boat. "So if we hadn't heeded Kwan Yin's warning, I wouldn't be talking to you today." Naturally, this audience loves nothing better than women telling such cool anecdotes of their grandmothers.
Throughout the brief conference, Barbara Newman got much applause and gratitude for bringing us together, and the applause for her and Starhawk included zagharît ululation. When the main form of cheering heard is ululation, you know you're at a feminist event. :)
There were only two other Reclaiming Witches who registered for the conference (yeah, I was hoping to see more of youz), two women of Chicago Reclaiming, including my dear friend Jennifer B. who is a brilliant ritualist--although more folks showed up to see Starhawk--her talk was free and well attended. At the reception afterward everybody there (with only a couple exceptions) joined in the Spiral Dance around a table full of food and floral arrangement which she suggested as an image to use. People who had never even heard of Starhawk or Spiral Dances before joined in. Not everybody got the concept of looking into everyone else's eyes, but I'm glad they got an experience of the dance. I was there representing SpiralHeart--that's what I had them put under my name--so lots of people who had never heard of Reclaiming asked me what SpiralHeart is, and I got to tell them.
Thanks to Goddess my ideas were well received, and I was personally well received. I feel very blessed at fitting in among them, because gatherings like this are my favorite things. You can intuit when people in a movement aren't sincere in what they're doing, when they're faking it or their heart isn't in it. At this conference I really did feel the spirit bringing people together in perfect love and perfect trust. I felt the participants truly were acting and speaking from their hearts. Goddess's blessing.
Carol Christ gave a talk on feminist thealogy and death. She was talking about the understanding of death and afterlife as one of the main differences between Goddess religion and patriarchal theology. Her research was based on not only studying Minoan Goddess culture but also living in Greece and participating in traditional rituals with Greek village women, figuring the basics wouldn't have changed over the years even if the name changed to Christianity. Carol said the Christian formula "do ut des" (I give so that you may give) does not work in Goddess culture. The tradition she traced back to Minoan religion is "I give back in gratitude because you always keep giving."
It was a small conference, about 100 people, and the attendees were over 90% women. I wanted to say a shout out to the handful of men there, men who were cool with sitting in a room full of women talking about girly stuff. More power-from-within to them! :)
I heard a lot of scholars and students talking about Islam, but mostly how they don't know much about it. I don't know why hardly anyone so far has done anything to build bridges between Paganism and Islam. One Witch who has done that is yezida. She was doing it years before I started it independently of her, and when I started saying it, Witches told me "Thorn is doing that." I was pleased to learn that she and sista S.R. were doing it too. In fact, S.R. and I started it going for each other when we first met. Several people at the conference spoke up and asked about Islam, so I began to speak out about what I've been finding there. Carol Christ thanked me for telling her about it. It was the fulfillment of a dream I've long had: attending such a conference, sharing my thoughts on this with scholars in the field, and being well received. I really want to do this some more.
On the subject of Islam-Witchcraft relations: One woman in the audience at Starhawk's lecture said that the burning times came about as a direct result of repressive changes in laws made as a result of threat and fear to Christendom from Islam. First they made repressive laws to get the Muslims, then they turned around and used this repression on the Witches. She drew a parallel between that sequence of events and the Patriot Act in present-day America. It's enough to make a Witch feel uneasy.
In discussions the conference kept touching on subjects I'd long thought about, and it was good to know others were thinking about these things too--for example, what are Goddess religion and feminine divine spirituality doing as the predominant faith in some patriarchal social orders? Some scholars who have published books on this are Alf Hiltebeitel, Is the Goddess a Feminist? and Sarah Caldwell's work on Kali. At the conference they discussed a dualistic model: The feminine divine can be either a model to empower women-- the Goddess does this so you can too-- or "compensatory"-- only Goddesses can do this, so you can't. Do what? Be powerful, independent, fierce, respected beings. Like Kali. Also during the conference a third model to answer this question came out, which some called "subversive." ;) Another very popular theme at the conference, which came up in several papers and discussions, was gender fluidity. They loved that concept. Wait till I tell them about the gender fluidity of Allah...
Chün-Fang Yu spoke on Kwan Yin and told an anecdote from her childhood during World War II in China. Her maternal grandmother was a very devout Buddhist and prayed to Kwan Yin early every morning. Her mother was a modern intellectual. One day they were about to board a river ferry. Suddenly Professor Yu's grandmother had a vision of Kwan Yin dressed in white, standing in the river gesturing to her to go back, to get away. So her grandmother refused to board the boat. Her mother was not persuaded by the vision and argued that they should go ahead and get on. They kept arguing for a long time, and finally her mother gave in. Then when the boat pulled away into the river, it struck a mine that had been left by the retreating Japanese, which exploded and killed everyone on the boat. "So if we hadn't heeded Kwan Yin's warning, I wouldn't be talking to you today." Naturally, this audience loves nothing better than women telling such cool anecdotes of their grandmothers.
Throughout the brief conference, Barbara Newman got much applause and gratitude for bringing us together, and the applause for her and Starhawk included zagharît ululation. When the main form of cheering heard is ululation, you know you're at a feminist event. :)
There were only two other Reclaiming Witches who registered for the conference (yeah, I was hoping to see more of youz), two women of Chicago Reclaiming, including my dear friend Jennifer B. who is a brilliant ritualist--although more folks showed up to see Starhawk--her talk was free and well attended. At the reception afterward everybody there (with only a couple exceptions) joined in the Spiral Dance around a table full of food and floral arrangement which she suggested as an image to use. People who had never even heard of Starhawk or Spiral Dances before joined in. Not everybody got the concept of looking into everyone else's eyes, but I'm glad they got an experience of the dance. I was there representing SpiralHeart--that's what I had them put under my name--so lots of people who had never heard of Reclaiming asked me what SpiralHeart is, and I got to tell them.
Thanks to Goddess my ideas were well received, and I was personally well received. I feel very blessed at fitting in among them, because gatherings like this are my favorite things. You can intuit when people in a movement aren't sincere in what they're doing, when they're faking it or their heart isn't in it. At this conference I really did feel the spirit bringing people together in perfect love and perfect trust. I felt the participants truly were acting and speaking from their hearts. Goddess's blessing.