THE COURAGE OF TURTLES - Central Washington University

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Unger 32 third finger of your left hand, rub a few drops of your menstrual blood on the candle. . . .@ But the Morristown Full-moon Circle is considerably more moderate. This lunar luau is a warm support group, effusive in its praise for the swivelhipped computer analyst. Still, a nervous Donna Wilshire whispers loudly to her guest, AThis isn=t typical!@ Actually, there doesn=t seem to be a typical feminist spiritual group in the New York area. Moonfire, perhaps the most famous Manhattan group, is not meeting now because its leader, Amethyst, is Afeeling burned-out.@ Goddess worship in the city is a diverse, do-it-yourself proposition that borrows freely from a variety of pagan traditions. Margot Adler, a <strong>Central</strong> Park West witch who is a correspondent for National Public Radio and author of Drawing Down the Moon, the definitive work on paganism in the United States, identifies two streams of the Goddess movement: AThere=s the feminist stream and a slightly different one, the neo-pagan Wiccan movement. They have different histories, really, which doesn=t mean some people don=t move back and forth between them.@ Adler, forty-four, the granddaughter of the psychiatrist Alfred Adler, lives with her nonpagan husband in a comfortable, rambling apartment filled with books and plants. With her dark good looks, earthy warmth, and sophisticated intelligence, she makes being a witch seem as reasonable as joining Channel 13. Adler says she knows of about twenty good-witch covens in Manhattan (with more than 200 members altogether). AAs far as Goddess-spirituality groups, there are fewer in New York than in a lot of other places.@ Within the two streams of Goddess worship C the feminist and the Wiccan C are further distinctions. Some Wiccan covens are open to visitors, some closed. Some are heterosexual, some are feminist, others are lesbian separatist. Some followers worship in the nude. Feminist Goddess groups, or circles, vary, too C with those in the Dianic tradition emphasizing the Greek-goddess archetypes in their rituals and others focusing on herbal healing. The latter call themselves Green Witches or Wise Women. Still others concentrate on Native American teachings and deities. Naturally, there is some friction among the groups. Certain feminist witches claim that the Craft is Awimmin's religion@ and should exclude men, a prospect that upsets traditional witches, who cherish the Wiccan ideal of a male-female balance. AI do get upset and unhappy when people say Wicca should be exclusively female,@ says a male witch known in the Manhattan Wiccan community as Black Lotus. AThere was a three-day Goddess festival at the New York Open Center [in SoHo] last year that allowed men in only at night. Assuming the Goddess is for women only is silly.@
Unger 33 Christopher Hatton, another male witch, says, AMy attitude toward the very small group that wants to exclude men is the same as it would be toward men who want to exclude women from religion. I have a very low opinion of them.@ Beyond the sexist strife, some East Coast worshipers have problems with the magical Native American branch of the movement. AThe shamanistic tradition isn=t the Goddess movement,@ says one New Jersey woman. ASome women are very adamant about not participating in Native American rituals, and now the Native American followers are pissed off. But the medicine wheel is not our symbol. Herbal healing is our tradition as North American witches.@ (She admits, however, that she and her friends Ahave done sweat lodges.@) Part of the feminist stream, the New Jersey group was formed around Barbara G. Walker, author of The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets and seven other scholarly works on the Goddess published by Harper & Row. Women who first met at one of Walker=s book signings at a local store six years ago make up the core of the halfmoon circle and another Aintellectual support group,@ explains Donna Wilshire, one of the most enthusiastic members. Wilshire is an intense, talkative mother of two grown children, with a dancer=s body and a mass of curly brown hair framing her heart-shaped face. Her husband of thirty years, Bruce Wilshire, is a professor of philosophy at Rutgers who, she says, Ais into shaman journeys.@ He says that in his marriage to Donna he has had three wives. AThe first cooked for me. The second cried a lot. The third is a goddess.@ Donna Wilshire grew up in a Catholic boarding home, struggled to become an actress, then spent a decade being Athe perfect wife, garnishing every dish with a palette of colors.@ When she realized in the late sixties that her husband Adidn=t care about any of that,@ Wilshire became depressed. Eventually, Ahe knew something was wrong and brought home books by Betty Friedan and Merlin Stone.@ Stone=s When God Was a Woman is a seminal volume for many. Published in 1976, it attempts to document the Goddess cults of Stone Age matriarchal societies in the Near and Middle East and their destruction by patriarchal, Indo-European bad guys. AThis is the best time of my life,@ Wilshire says. AI=m confident. I=m performing sacred work that combines all the things the world keeps separate. I can use my whole self because that's what the Goddess is: whole.@ The lives of Donna Wilshire=s friends Nancy Blair and Lynn Peters C slender, attractive sculptors in their thirties C also revolve around the Goddess. The two run Star River Productions, a New Brunswick, New Jersey, company that makes Amuseum-quality@ Goddess statues and jewelry. Blair, a petite brunette, is passionate about her beliefs. AWe used to do full-moon rituals with women we knew from the local co-op and through our business, gathering together to raise energy,@ she says. ABut we've taken it more private. Groups can drain
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THE COURAGE OF TURTLES - Central Washington University

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