THE COURAGE OF TURTLES - Central Washington University

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the performance with her mouth half open. Since the mid-seventies, Wilshire has been
a devotee of feminist spirituality and an avid proselytizer for the movement. She fears
that tonight's pagan pastiche could be enough to convince a guest that Goddess worship
is, well, a little off the wall.
By some estimates, more than a hundred thousand people across the United
States worship the Goddess. Notices of their moon circles are pinned to bulletin boards
in suburban supermarkets and near the checkout counters of health-food stores.
Recently, fliers announcing Goddess meetings have been taped to the mirrors of the
women's rest rooms at Merrill Lynch and at a nurse's station in New York Hospital.
While adopting a religion based on the pagan worship of nature may seem
extreme, some of the practices have caught on. AYou wouldn=t believe the number of
cars and drivers sitting out on East Ninth Street while some lady in a Chanel suit was
inside buying tarot cards or a copy of Robert Graves's The White Goddess,@ says Dee
Kissinger, a fortuneteller who used to work at Enchantments, a Goddess store in the
East Village.
Many of those who dabble become disciples. Since the rebirth of feminism in the
seventies and amid growing disenchantment with organized religion, thousands of
Americans have moved C to borrow the title of a book by philosopher Mary Daly C
beyond God the father.
For some, like Donna Wilshire, goddess worship is the spiritual aspect of
feminism. Viewing themselves as an oppressed class, these women have rejected the
patriarchal, hierarchical tenets of the Judeo-Christian ethic. (Buddhism is also on their
hit list.) Their spiritual quest reaches all the way back to the Stone Age worship of
fertility goddesses, to shamanism and witchcraft, where they find strong, holy images of
women to revere. This Afeminist theology@ or Afeminist spirituality@ celebrates a
composite archetype: part Neolithic fertility symbol, part Hera, part woman warrior.
Along the same lines, many worshipers see the Goddess as Mother Nature, and
they follow a pantheistic principle that calls for living in harmony with the Earth and its
seasons. Many men as well as women who are involved in the antinuclear movement,
ecological concerns, or animal rights regard their activities as an outgrowth of this
reverence for the Earth Goddess.
But there is another branch of Goddess worship, which has evolved from an
older, occult tradition independent of the women=s movement. The men and women in
this group are followers of Athe Craft,@ or Wicca C which is the Old English word for
Awitch.@ The good witches and wizards of Wicca C who are in no way related to
satanism, Christianity's dark opposite C believe that theirs is Athe old religion@ of
goddesses like the Roman deity Diana, practiced throughout Europe before the arrival of
Christianity.