Starhawk quotes - page 2

Starhawk is an American writer, activist, and one of the most prominent voices in modern Paganism and ecofeminism. Her books, including "The Spiral Dance," have inspired generations of spiritual seekers and environmentalists. She continues to lead workshops and rituals promoting social justice and earth-based spirituality. Here are 40 of her quotes:

The water we hold sacred is not some abstract image or fantasy of Water, but the real stuff that we need to drink and bathe and grow our gardens, that provides the crucial habitat for fish and plants and thousands of other creatures, that is the Earth's literal life blood.

Starhawk

I am a witch, by which I mean that I am somebody who believes that the earth is sacred, and that women and women's bodies are one expression of that sacred being.

Starhawk

Systems don't change easily. Systems try to maintain themselves, and seek equilibrium. To change a system, you need to shake it up, disrupt the equilibrium. That often requires conflict.

Starhawk

Our goal is not to get out of the world or to get out of life, but to integrate it, to celebrate it, to embrace it fully, and to embrace all the different cycles within it.

Starhawk

Another common, unspoken assumption is that spirituality is about calm and peace, and conflict is unspiritual. Which of course makes it hard to integrate the spiritual with the political, which is all about conflict. In New Age circles, a common slogan is that "What you resist, persists." Truly spiritual people are never supposed to be confrontational or adversarial - that would be perpetuating an unevolved, "us-them" dualism. I don't know from what spiritual tradition the "what you resist, persists" slogan originated, but I often want to ask those who blithely repeat it, "What's your evidence?" When it is so patently obvious that what you don't resist persists like hell and spreads all over the place. In fact, good, strong, solid resistance may be the only thing that stands between us and hell. Hitler didn't persist because of the Resistance - he succeeded in taking over Germany and murdering millions because not enough people resisted.

Starhawk

The Trickster represents the quality of randomness and chance in the universe, without which there could be no freedom. In the Craft the Goddess is not omnipotent. The cosmos is interesting rather than perfect, and everything is not part of some greater plan, nor is all necessarily under control. Understanding this keeps us humble, able to admit that we cannot know or control or define everything.

Starhawk

The Conqueror, whose core issue is safety splits us into Conqueror and Enemy/Victim, tells us, "Don't trust!" and generates fear, paranoia, distortions of reality, and the need to annihilate enemies. The Conqueror seduces us by making us feel special, sometimes grandiose and self-righteous, sometimes especially weak and victimized.

Starhawk

The Censor, whose core issue is isolation and connection, splits us into Silencer and Secret-to-be-kept, tells us, "Don't speak of it; don't see it; you're the only one who ever felt that." Possessed by the Censor, we feel shame confusion, and blame, often for the victim, or we live in denial. The Censor deludes us with the belief that the pain we are in will go away if we don't name it or speak of it.

Starhawk

Much of what is written on the craft is biased in one way or another, so weed out what is useful to you and ignore the rest. I see the next few years as being crucial in the transformation of our culture away from the patriarchal death cults and toward the love of life, of nature, of the female principle. The craft is only one path among the many opening up for women, and many of us will blaze new trails as we explore the uncharted country of our own interiors. The heritage, the culture, the knowledge of the ancient priestesses, healers, poets, singers, and seers were nearly lost, but a seed survived the flames that will blossom in a new age into thousands of flowers. The long sleep of Mother Goddess is ended. May She awaken in each of our hearts - Merry meet, merry part, and blessed be.

Starhawk

I'm going to end with a vision I have for the winter solstice: There are bonfires everywhere strung along the beaches, blazing on twin peaks on all the high places. In the parks and on rooftops small groups gather around cauldrons. There are no mass meetings, only circles.

Starhawk

We join together to earth the power of the season and to slip between the worlds, the voices saying to every one of us, "Wake up, you are it, you are a part of the circle of the wise. There is no mystery that has not already been revealed to you. There is no power you do not already have. You share in all the love there is. The goddess awakens in infinite forms and a thousand disguises. She is found where she is least expected, appears out of nowhere and everywhere to illumine the open heart. She is singing, crying, moaning, wailing, shrieking, crooning to us, to be awake, to commit ourselves to life, to be a lover in the world and of the world, to join our voices in the single song of constant change and creation. For her law is to love all beings, and she is the cup of the drink of life. The circle is ever open, ever unbroken.

Starhawk

Spirituality and ritual are not something removed from the world, but are deeply embedded in it. Reclaiming is founded on Earth-based spirituality, which rejects the split between spirit and matter, and claims nature and the physical, material world as equally sacred with the spirit.

Starhawk

Systems don't change easily. Systems try to maintain themselves, and seek equilibrium. To change a system, you need to shake it up, disrupt the equilibrium. That often requires conflict. To me, conflict is a deeply spiritual place. It's the high-energy place where power meets power, where change and transformation can occur.

Starhawk