For those of you who don't know who Starhawk is, she is amazing. She wrote 2 of the books that I base my goddess worship on. I first read her freshmen year of college and just knew that what she was saying was right. She knew how to put all those thoughts that ran in my head into order.

Last night I went up to Northwestern to see her speak at the conference, "The Feminine Divine in Cross-Cultural Perspective." I know what you're thinking, "Roni, why didn't you go to all of it?" Well my dears I just couldn't find time for all three days. I guess that's why I'm a lazy pagan. But I made it up to see her speak.

Her talk was titled, "Goddesses for the End Times" and immediately discussed why she titled her talk as such. For one she does not think we are at the "End of Times" as some people think we might be at. The phrase comes from when she was down in NOLA helping with the clean-up with Common Ground. She found a Barbie doll covered in muck and went to clean it and toss it. Then she thought better of it. She cleaned her up a bit and placed in a green bush with one arm extended as if to wave 'hi'. Starhawk thought someone should return to their home with someone welcoming them. As she walked away, she thought that the Barbie looked like a goddess, in her green bush. That Barbie became the Goddess of End Times.

Starhawk is also a huge environmentalist. She spent a lot of time discussing how global climate change cannot be reversed until we give up a powerful story/belief - That humans transcend nature's limits.

She went on to discuss a list of goddesses that she believes we need during the end times or just times of chaos, which is now.

* Goddess of true humility: She brings us back to being human, to being dirty/mucky.
* Goddess of loss & grief: Her face could be an Iraqi mother, Cindy Sheehan, or an old growth tree in the middle of a clear cut. Despair empowerment. Starhawk talked a lot about how we get stuck in our grief. (more on that later) She also pointed out that we can't have fertility without death - ask a gardener.
* Goddess of transformative action: Her face could be tree sitters, Zapatista women. Starhawk discussed one meaning of power - the ability to create from within and how that does not limit someone else. That we should feed off of each other's creativity. Just because you can write stories does not mean I can't write stories too.
* Domestic Goddess: Permaculture design; if we apply human genius we can have joy.
* Uncannonized Goddess/Goddess of Unwelcomed Information: She has some male aspects; Her work is often dismissed by the academy; she is not included in the cannon; Alice Walker, etc.
* Erotic Goddess: She did not have a full example yet, but took requests. 2-3 people suggested Annie Sprinkle.
* Goddess of Social Nurturing: Starhawk talked a lot about Lakoff's book and how nurturing is strength.

Her closing statements were about how we need to embrace the body, life, and regeneration.

There was a Q&A session and selfishly with my heart in my throat I stood up and asked her a two-part question. "How can we help each other work out of being stuck in our grief. The administration took advantage of our collective grief after the terrorist attacks. And also, how do you work your way out of a personal rut?"

She spoke kindly and gently about how we all have our own timetables. That just because we are trailing others, we should not feel bad that we are not where others are. She also said that we should have at least one person we can go to in order to just vent, cry, scream, etc.

On the first point, it made me feel better. Part of my rut is made up of this feeling that I'm dragging my family down. Questioning why I can't just heal when my dad & youngest sisters are much more healed than I am.

On the last point, I know she's right. I've always known this. But there are limits to even closest friendships. I know people are busy and even the best of friends can snap and reject you - even for one minute. I know of one friend who told me just a year before my mom died that he was tired of people coming to him with all their problems. Now how am I supposed to go to him with my sorrow? Even thou I know that he'd hold me while I cried?

To end on a brighter note. I got to say thank you to her at the reception and did another selfish thing - got her to sign my copy of "The Pagan Book of Living and Dying" which I started soon after my mom died, but then just stopped. As some of you can attest, I'm not shy about going up to rock stars and saying hi, but Starhawk was different. She totally had me in a trance and I couldn't say much of anything to her. I wanted to tell her how much she changed my life, how much even just a few pages of "The Pagan Book of Living and Dying" helped me, but all I could say was thank you. But I think I'll start rereading that book. I won't blog about it. Even the small amount of notes I already have are so personal that it hurts to reread them.

If you got all the way to the end. Thanks.

Labels: goddess