Martin Luther King has had a huge impact on my life. I was still a child during the height of the civil rights movement, and I remember watching the Freedom Rides on TV and begging my mother to let me go to the South. She assured me that there would still be injustices to fight when I got older, and sadly enough, she was certainly right about that.

I was seventeen when King was murdured, and already an antiwar activist in my high school. But it was in the early eighties, when I took part in nonviolent direct actions against nuclear power and nuclear weapons, that I began to read his writings and study his ideas. I became a nonviolence trainer and have had the great privilege of introducing new activists to this form of struggle for nearly three decades.

Continue »

On the outskirts of Ben Gurion International Airport there is a jail where those who are denied entry into Israel are taken to wait. It’s not a horrible place, as jails go—the windows open, albeit with bars on the other side, admitting the dawn chorus of birdsong and a breeze that hints of rain. The food is as bad as only institutional Israeli food can be—but no one is starving, or screaming. Much worse places exist, especially for Palestinians, who can be held for months in ‘Administrative Detention’ without formal charge or trial. Yet this is a sad place, full of disappointment and shattered hopes.

That's where I was put a few weeks ago when I was denied entry into Israel.

Continue »

The Question: Which "ism" is more entrenched in America, sexism or racism? Which should religion address?

Which ‘ism’ is more entrenched? Sexism and racism work together. They’re like two legs of a monster, marching in concert, trampling our compassion, our ideals, and our freedom underfoot. Religion, if it hopes to be a force of love and liberation, must address both.

Continue »

Patrick McCollum doesn’t look like a Pagan. Although he does wear a large pentacle, he dresses conservatively in dark slacks and a button down shirt, even at a Pagan festival where flowing capes and horned headdresses are perfectly in style. We met on a panel at Pantheacon, an annual gathering in San Jose in mid February, and continued our conversation over breakfast. A slim, soft spoken man with short hair and neatly trimmed mustache, McCollum looks more like a southern preacher or an off-duty military lawyer.

And in fact, he is a preacher and he battles to uphold the law. As Director of the National Correctional Chaplaincy Directors Association, he fights every day for the religious rights of prisoners—Pagans, but also other minority religions.

Continue »

“I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to make real change in Washington…I’m asking you to believe in yours.”

That’s the message on the top of Obama’s website—a message of faith, belief and empowerment. It speaks well, both of him and of us, that his message is receiving such a strong response.

Continue »

It’s all very well to propose amending the Constitution to be in line with ‘God’s standards’—the question is always, which God? What set of standards? And who gets to decide?

Continue »

Would I vote for a resolution affirming the importance and contributions of Christmas and Christianity? As my readers may have noted, I’m a Pagan, but I’d vote for such a resolution—heck, I’d even introduce it, if it went like this:

Continue »

Britain’s equality chief might think it’s time to put Christ in the center of public celebrations, but Britain is a country that has long had an established church, and that this country was founded by people who were fleeing religious persecution by that very establishment. As Americans, we have different traditions that include a strong commitment to the separation of church and state, and the resistance to establishing any religion as our official faith. For to do that relegates all other religions to second class status, and deeply interferes with our freedom to worship as we choose, to follow our own conscience and our own interpretation of divine guidance.

So no, I don’t think we’re being too ‘politically correct’ to hold to the guiding principles that our Constitution is founded upon. As someone who was raised Jewish and who is a practicing Pagan, I support Christmas. I think it’s a beautiful holiday, a wonderful celebration of birth and hope in the midst of the dark of winter. I support Christ being the ’star of the show’ in every Christian Church and Christian home. I sympathize deeply with my Christian and secular friends who are struggling to keep the holiday from devolving into CommercialMass or Giftmas and to focus on its deeper meaning. I do not support Christ being the star of the show in public celebrations—not unless he’s willing to share the stage with Lugh the Sun God and Saule the Sun Goddess, Mohammed, Buddha, Krishna, Judah Macabee and a host of others. Even then, either someone gets left out or every celebration becomes an interminable endurance test. And how do atheists get equal time?

Let’s keep our celebrations respectful of the multiplicity of approaches to religion and faith that make us a rich, diverse, and free society.

To Pagans, sexuality is sacred, for it holds within it the possibility of deep, loving, ecstatic connection to the great creative life-force we call the Goddess. So, we start from the premise that sex itself is a good thing. However, we also recognize that many people carry deep wounds around their sexuality, and that sex can be a terrain of pain as well as pleasure. For that reason, we need to be gentle with one another, and aware of how power and coercion can poison the well of the erotic.

Continue »

When harm is being done, our prime concern should be to stop it. Until that is done, forgiveness is not appropriate—we should be focused on ending the abuse and righting the wrong. Women are always being asked to forgive our abusers—but unless the abuse is stopped, forgiveness can easily become collusion and victim blaming.

Once the wrong has been ended, when the wrongdoers have shown remorse, admitted their fault, offered apologies and made amends, forgiveness can be a way of letting go and moving on. If we continue to nurse a hurt or chew on a resentment, we give away our power and compound the hurt that was done to us.

Continue »

Torture is never justified. Torture dehumanizes the torturers, even more than the victims, and demoralizes the society that condones and allows it. Torture does not produce safety or security or even accurate information. Under torture, people will say anything, implicate anyone. The use of torture undermines our moral credibility and makes a lie of any claims that we stand for democracy or even decency. Every time we torture, we create a hundred new enemies.

Continue »

Our spiritual tradition sees the sacred as The Goddess, the Great Mother of all, and there can be no greater moral imperative than to care for the young and to nurture the next generation. Not just for our own biological children—but for all, and for the health of the environment that supports life, for we are all interconnected and interdependent.

No one gets through life without loss and sorrow, without times when grief overwhelms our ability to cope, without some instances of bad luck, injury or disease. It is our responsibility as a community to share the burdens, not to let them fall on individuals or isolated families, and especially, not to let them fall on children who have the least resources with which to meet them.

Continue »

Perhaps our thinking about Halloween would be clearer if we recognized that there are really two Halloweens. There’s the Pagan Halloween, a deeply spiritual time of year for us, and a profound celebration of the cycles of death and rebirth, which I have discussed in my post “The Real Meaning of Halloween.”

Continue »

The Real Meaning of Halloween
By Starhawk

Ghosts and goblins, witches on broomsticks, pumpkins, candy and spiderwebs…it’s that time of year again. Halloween—probably every child’s favorite holiday, combining the irresistible attractions of dressing up in costume and gorging on candy.

But there’s a deeper spiritual meaning that underlies the holiday for Pagans and real Witches—those who follow earth-based Goddess traditions that predate Christianity.

Continue »

From a Pagan point of view, there’s no contradiction between religion and science. Our Goddess is immanent in the earth and the cycles of nature, and the more we understand about the earth, the deeper is our sense of awe and wonder.

In The Spiral Dance, I wrote: “In future or contemporary Goddess religion, a photograph of the earth as seen from space might be our mandala. We might meditate on the structure of the atom as well as icons of ancient Goddesses; and se see the years Jane Goodall spent observing cimpanzees in the light of a spiritual discipline. Physics, mathematics, ecology and biochemistry more and more approach the mystical. New myths can take their concepts and make them numinous, so they infuse our attitudes and actions with wonder at the richness of life.” (Starhawk. The Spiral Dance, p.220)

Continue »

Starhawk’s Fall/Winter Schedule:

* The Spiral Dance -- October 27, San Francisco
* Samhain ritual -- October 28, Sebastopol
* On-Line Course: "Inner Compass: Finding and Holding the Vision" -- starts November 12
* Urban Earth Activist Training Weekend Series -- starts November 16 - 18, San Francisco
* Winter Solstice ritual -- December 20, Sebastopol
* Earth Activist Training -- January 5-19, Sonoma County, California
* Advanced Earth Activist Training: "Earth-Healing Strategies" -- February 10-17, Sonoma County

Continue »

Do all major religions share values of love, compassion and forgiveness, as the Dalai Lama says? I can’t speak for ‘all religions’—I can only speak as a Pagan about the values I see in our tradition. Even there, probably every Pagan would give a slightly different answer.

The heart of our spirituality is the understanding that everything is interconnected and interrelated, and that the Goddess is immanent—embodied in the world, in nature and in human beings, not separate. Love and compassion spring naturally from that worldview, for love is the way we connect with the Goddess—love aroused by the beauty of the natural world, love stirred into being by our connections with each other, love that cherishes the well being of the beloved. Of course, for us passionate, sexual, erotic love is also sacred--a way of deeply connecting to the Goddess—and that does not seem to be common in all major religions.

‘Forgiveness’ would not be my number three Pagan spiritual value. I would put justice, freedom, beauty, balance, ecological responsibility and creativity up there, not in any ranked order. Human forgiveness needs to come after a wrongdoer repents and makes amends for a hurt—otherwise, premature forgiveness can simply perpetuate systemic violence. The Goddess’ forgiveness—well, we don’t really see the Goddess as administering a system of transgression and punishment. Rather, she faces us continually with the challenges we need in order to grow. If we fail to meet those challenges, she just keep giving us the same ones over and over again, sometimes in more and more extreme forms. Sometimes a flat-out punishment might be easier to take. But we always have the chance to grow and change.

If there’s one belief religions do share, sometimes against all evidence to the contrary, it’s that our practices and insights will make people better than they would be otherwise. Yet there are Buddhists who fail in compassion, Christians who lack charity, and yes, even Pagans who drive SUVs and don’t compost their garbage. Knowing that, perhaps we can practice some compassion toward each other, judging people not by what they profess to believe but by their actions, and not blaming other religions for the transgressions of their imperfect followers.

Continue »

One of my earliest memories is watching a Sunday morning religious show when I was about four years old. When they talked about people dying and going to heaven, I remember clearly thinking, “That’s stupid, everyone know when you die you come back as another person.” Learning that neither my parents, relatives or Hebrew school teachers shared this belief didn’t shake it in the least, so I was delighted, when I grew older, to discover other religions that did, including Paganism.

Continue »

On this tragic anniversary, I’d like to remind us all that whether we say God or Goddess, him or her, however we depict the divine, the ultimate essence is love.

Pagans believe that we are each an embodiment of the Goddess. Other religions speak of the divine spark in each human being, or the incarnation of God on earth. They are all telling us to treat each person as if she or he might be God walking around, perhaps begging for a meal or a kind word, perhaps hitching a ride as Pele the volcano Goddess is said to do in Hawaii.

If we treat each human being as if she or he might be Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, or Gaia herself, if we cherish that spark of creativity and compassion in all, then we might create a world in which we see our differences as facets of the jewel of truth—something to delight in and cherish, not a reason to divide ourselves and destroy. If we strive for a world based on justice for all—not just those we agree with, but all—we will diminish the causes for hate and despair that lead to acts of violence.

Continue »

I’m cheering for my Pagan sisters and brothers who are demonstrating on this Fourth of July for the right to have a Pagan chaplain in the military. Our constitution, which they have volunteered to defend, grants us the freedom of religion. That doesn’t mean “freedom of any religion we approve of but not those that make us uncomfortable or that we’ve never heard of.” It means freedom to follow the calling of one’s own faith and conscience.

Continue »