THE COURAGE OF TURTLES - Central Washington University

Unger 38
they did not know how to create some kind of new alliance calling on the pagans, the
Goddess people, the environmental people. I don't know if that meant it wasn=t time yet
of whether they just fC ed up.@
Serenity Young, an adjunct professor of religion at Hunter College, says that there
is a great deal of Across-fertilization going on between orthodox religions and the
Goddess movement. Reformists within the church and the synagogue visit Goddess
groups and take the rituals back with them.@ Young believes that Aif the movement can
keep its political focus, it will last. If it just becomes about sitting around in the woods
and feeling good, it won=t.@
In New York today, the Goddess movement lacks cohesion C and that may be its
most appealing attribute. There is room for the most individualized styles of worship,
whether enacting or sculpting powerful feminine images, communing with herbs, or
casting spells for success. What can be bad about a belief system that includes women
and joy? Celebrating nature=s mysteries and women=s connection to them clearly feels
right to many.
Perhaps only those who are particularly wounded or angry will respond to the
more strident and excessive elements of the movement. And sophisticates would
probably wince when Robin Bennett tells her New Moon circle to Ago with the flow.@ But
the low, modern coffee table in the young Green Witch=s simple downtown apartment
makes a fairly decent altar. And to the assembled faithful, the guided meditation she
leads is as much of a religious rite as Sunday mornings at St. Pat=s are to others.
The ages of the ten women C early twenties to early forties C are as diverse as
their vocations, which include nurse, photographer, young mother, and writer. They are
asked to picture a spiral staircase with a cave at the bottom. The cave is inhabited by
their Wise Woman, who has a message for them. The women focus on what they want
to get rid of as the moon=s cycle ends and what new seeds they want to plant in the
coming one.
With a feather, each woman wafts the smoke from the smudge pot-a rich blend of
cedar, sage, and mugwort over the body of the person next to her, sending Asupportive
wishes.@ Then everyone drinks herbal tea and, holding the talking stick, says what's on
her mind.
Rituals like these C part Seder and part consciousness-raising group C may strike
some outsiders as silly or strange. But the fact is that these disparate women C who
want to connect with something more eternal than L.A. Law C are all immensely likable
and intelligent. And it's just possible that with the tea, the chants, the good wishes, and
the Goddess statue, they'll have a pretty good month.