In which, apparently, I am pretentious and picky in my efforts to deconstruct.

( A general reaction, and three journaling questions posed by the book. )

A brief introduction to the text: This book, by Kisma K. Stepanich, is the first of a pair (the latter one, I believe, is to be more focused on shamanic practices.) I first purchased it back in high school, read it swiftly, and discarded it in favour of things that seemed more accessible to me at the time (read: Silver RavenWolf.) I recently found myself thinking of it for no reason I could particularly define, and went hunting in my bookshelves. Thanks to my habit of never discarding books ever, I was able to find it right where it should be.

When I was sixteen, I found this book to be far too dry and couldn't draw out any of the relevant lessons within it. Now, almost twenty-six, I am having real difficulty taking it seriously. Take for example the following statement in the summary on the back of the book: "Faery Wicca unveils the authentic beliefs and practices of Irish Faery Wicca, the ancient earth-centered religion that by oral tradition survived centuries of oppression and formed the basis for many forms of Celtic Wicca...Because initiation can only be acquired under the direction of an Ollamh (Elder Priestess) of the Faery-Faith, instruction in this guide is presented by a traditionally initiated Ollamh and Faith expert."

Once my inner historian stopped rolling on the floor laughing fit to wet herself, I decided to give it a try regardless, as the worst that would happen was me wasting a few hours and moving on to another source of information. As with The Spiral Dance, I expect to take notes on each chapter and reproduce them here. Each chapter also comes with journal questions to answer, which I have been doing in my reading thus far. I expect a fair bit of sarcasm to flavour my reactions to this book, because really, I would not be myself if that were not the case.

That being said, ( Onward! )

Last of these posts! Finally.

The reaction to this chapter is rather more marked by the intervening time than not; I will preserve the way I originally wrote it because I think there is value in seeing things from the past, and then add my current comments at the end.

~*~

And what do I, personally, do to serve the Goddess? I think I have the tendency to feel I must engage in some act of obvious public service in order to really live Wicca. Setting aside thoughts on the influence of the Christian model under which I was raised and the tendency to service that is Virgo, much needs doing to reclaim the Earth and heal its wounds. Each individual must work toward this goal. Yet this need not mean going out and spending every Saturday picking up garbage on the beach, for example, although that is a good pursuit as well.

Always there are some who will do more than others. If I recycle, if I turn off the lights when they are not needed, if I do not stand soaking in the shower for 20 minutes, I am doing something.

My role? I don't know. But I think I had better start by getting my own life in order. I could do so much more if not plagued by guilt and poor self-esteem. Selfish? Maybe. But, dammit, I want to be healthy for once. I think I'm starting to get there, but it's a long, slow road.

~*~

And now: a long, slow road for sure, but I am getting there. I've gotten a lot better at recognizing when I'm freaking out about something because of me being an idiot, and when I'm freaking out about something for a legitimate reason. I catch myself doing things and I know I'm doing them not from any valid evidence, but because I'm in panic mode from low self-esteem, and I've developed ways to either break the unproductive cycle of thinking or else to redirect it into a form that will be more positive.

I took a break from writing for almost 3 years (2003-2006) and came back a much better writer and with an overall deeper understanding of what I was doing. Perhaps the same was necessary with regards to these studies; certainly I think I now have a much better idea of what I need/want from my religious practices than I did in 2005.

Well, it's good that I took rather more detailed notes on this book than is my habit, as those notes are now three years old. Oops.

Both of these chapters focus on rituals. In Chapter Eleven, Starhawk provides a few examples of lunar rituals, and in Chapter Twelve, Sabbat rituals.

The Waxing Moon ritual's concept appeals to me, although I don't think I'd want to do it every month. (Particularly in my present living situation, it's challenging to get comfortable time and space in which to work; my room is quite crowded and the climate is not conducive to working outside most of the time.)

The Full Moon ritual presents a turn-based way of raising a cone of power that I find interesting. Personally, if I were involved in a group ritual, I'd be more inclined to have everyone raising power concurrently, as I think it might lead to people getting distracted or bored when it is not their turn.

Then again, my own rituals (both lunar and solar) are much more often worshipful or meditative rather than spell-work. Many of the rituals in the books that I presently own suggest a spell-like quality or intent in the way that they are structured, which doesn't do much for me. Although this is a flippant and perhaps sarcastic way of describing it, my rituals tend more toward "hey, I'm here. what's up? You're awesome. Thanks for all the shinies. Bye!" (My rituals also often tend to be short: I'm here for a purpose. I've expressed and completed my purpose. We're set.)

Question: Should I move home this August?
Deck: Arthurian Tarot, by Caitlin and John Matthews
Spread: 11-card Celtic Cross

( Notes on the Deck )

( Notes on Significator, positions, cards, meanings, and interpretations )

Lately I have been having bouts of anxiety - usually late at night when everyone else has gone to bed but I am not quite ready to sleep - and it occurred to me that i've been sadly neglecting spiritual studies these past several months. I don't normally turn to divination for comfort, as knowledge is not often a comforting thing, but I wanted more a sense of what, precisely, is causing me to be so anxious.

For this reading, I used the Arthurian Tarot, and the Prydwen's Anchor spread (loosely similar in function to the Celtic Cross, though not in form.)

Card One (Prevailing Circumstances): Sword King. The Sword king is a wise counsellor and judge who cuts to the heart of the matter. I interpret this as me seeking such a counsellor, or perhaps pursuing knowledge and truth myself.

Card Two (Current Direction): Stone Queen. The Stone Queen is noble and practical, nurturing and providing security. I wonder if I am trying to be this? There have been a few occasions in recent months when I have caught myself "mothering" younger friends.

Card Three: How Am I Preventing the Free Flow of my Life? Grail Knight. The Grail Knight is a fertile dreamer who gets others to believe in his dreams. Am I, then, dreaming overmuch and doing too little? It seems likely.

Card Four (Available Opportunities): Sword Four. Seclusion, meditation, rest and rejuvenation, replenishment of spirit. If this is indeed an available opportunity I'd like to know where; I think I could use it.

Card Five (Home and Family Factors): Grail Queen. Intuitive and sympathetic, as well as compassionate. The first thing that sprang to mind when I saw this was Natalie.

Card Six (Job and Vocational Factors): Sword Maiden. The Sword Maiden quickly grasps ideas and materializes them. I do usually feel like I'm the fastest to pic up on new training and new ideas, and I have been working to implement new processes to streamline things on the team. I would like to move to a position where my skills are more valued, though; materializing the idea of a new job?

Card Seven (Relationship Factors): Grail Hallow. Healing, restoration after barrenness, abundance, nurturing. This seems accurate, though it's slow going and my stubbornness doesn't help. Perhaps an admonition that it is there for the having, if I will but see and accept.

Card Eight (What to be Self-Aware Of): Grail Two: Love, harmony, partnership, cooperation. These things are available if I will accept them and put forth the effort needed to make them work.

Card Nine (The Past): Spear Ten. Excessive burdens, over-expansion of resources. In a purely practical sense, I spent much of the past three months or so feeling stretched very very thin, with not nearly enough time for myself and too much committed to everyone else. Coudl also tie in to the various Grails (Spears being in opposition) and refer to past relationships.

Card Ten (The Future or an Overview): X. The Round Table, first Major Arcana card in the reading. Evolution, passing of a relationship to another phase, Karma.

The first thing I noticed was the abundance of Grails. The second thing I noticed was how many court cards there were. That suggests to me that the devil is in the details, as it were, and also embodied in specific people rather than broad concepts. The Grail Knight could be an idealized dream that is unlikely to be realized; the lesson being to get one's head out of the clouds and back in the real world. Grails indicate a lot of emotional forces at work, while Swords, being air, indicate a lot of intellectual forces at work. That ties in to the issues I've been struggling with that are formed of emotional abuse and my own inability to "cut through" the crap left behind and move on to forge a new path.

One each of Kings, Knights, and Maidens, and two Queens. The only Major Arcana card is in the future position, suggesting that once details are resolved I can move on to seeing the forest rather than the trees.

Although I didn't come to the Tarot looking for comfort, I found it. Maybe I just needed to know where to look.

I keep compulsive records of my divination, partly because it was something I was advised on very early in my explorations of the Pagan path and partly because I have a memory like Swiss cheese and will never remember anything that happened more than ten minutes ago.

I came across this reading last night when I was noting down last night's reading, and was rather astounded at what I came up with in hindsight. Which I always am, which is another reason I keep compulsive notes.

The deck I used is the Arthurian Tarot, and the spread is Prydwen's Anchor, which is similar in function to the Celtic Cross. I was doing just a general reading.

( LJ-Cut! Yay! )

So, asoniel's acquisition of a very pretty Tarot deck inspired me to go back and poke at mine, which is an idea that's been nagging at me for a while and I just haven't gotten around to doing it. Anyway.

The deck I used is the Arthurian Tarot by Caitlín and John Matthews, which I like because the art style appeals to me and because I have an easier time relating to the mythology behind the card images than with, say, the Rider-Waite deck (which I despise, but anyway.)

A few quick notes about this deck: The four suits are Swords (Air), Spears (Fire), Grails (Water) and Stones (Earth). The Aces are Hallows, while the court cards are Maiden (Page), Knight, Queen, and King. The Major Arcana have nearly all been renamed (with the exception of the Sun, the Moon, and the Star) to fit better within the Arthurian mythos, although the basic theme of the cards has remained consistent. Additionally, the book provides no reversed meanings, so I have had to try to infer those in this reading.

I just wanted to do a regular Celtic Cross spread, for general information, since I didn't have any particular questions in mind.

( Onward to the reading... )

The initiation ritual presented in this chapter differs greatly from what I have read before, primarily because my previous reading was from books centered around solitary practice. The group aspect is rather interesting.

I think the continuity of the initiation process (teacher to student and so on down the lineage of the tradition) is important, but if it were my own choice and I were running a tradition, I would strongly encourage an initiate to hold her own, private self-initiation ritual as well, just her and the gods. In fact, I would encourage such a thing to take place before the group initiation ritual, as I feel it is important to make that connection on a deeply personal level as well as on the level of the group mind. Then again, I'm very big on personal interaction with the Divine.

I found this chapter extremely difficult to focus on and to read, until I got to the exercises at the end. All the discussion of trance state seems extremely disconnected and not well thought out. I can understand trying to convey the indescribability of such a state through the use of language in this fashion, but it just made me disinclined to continue reading; as previously discussed, I often find disconnected writing of this sort annoying and confusing. (This includes my own pointless babble in my own journal, actually.)

I do like the guided trance meditations presented in this chapter. I often find that my mind wnaders during meditation and I quickly lose my focus. Generally I do not choose to meditate upon a specific subject; the meditation I most often use is the chakra fountain exercise found in Silver RavenWolf's To Ride A Silver Broomstick. However, I do plan to begin the Hallowquest meditations presented in the book that accompanies the Arthurian Tarot; I wish to find out if a more giuded meditation fomat would be helpful and I think it will help me understand that Tarot deck more deeply. As I have found I prefer that deck to any of the other oracles I own (and I own three tarot decks, three sets of runes, ogham cards, and a set of star cards), I feel I would gain a lot from such a course of meditation.

This chapter has a lot of interesting information, but only one thing really jumped out at me: the discussion on how everyone is psychic, equally able to read auras and astrally project and the like.

I've said it before elsewhere, and I'll repeat it here. For someone who claims to be a Wiccan and who believes in the reality of magic and divination, I'm astoundingly skeptical of any or all of the following: psychic powers, astral projection, telepathy, psychic "attacks," psychic "vampires," psychometry, aura-reading, et cetera. Most people laying claim to any of those powers elicit immediate disbelieving laughter (which I know is not nice, but it's my automatic reaction.)

I have encountered one exception to this rule, only one instance in which I am willing to invest belief regarding the person's abilities. And I have to admit, that one's only because there's overwhelming evidence to support it which I have personally experienced. I recall reading in a pagan community some months ago a ramble about a person who went out in the woods with their friends to practice fencing with boffer weapons (foam wrapped round PVC pipe so you don't actually hurt people) and, in the process, stumbled across what this person was convinced was the spirit of a witch who'd been raped and murdered during the Burning Times. My own immense historical rant regarding that time period left completely out of it, I laughed about that incident for a week. The extent to which people are highly suggestible and foolish about this manner of thing entertains me greatly.

Now that I've shown myself to be an insensitive bitch, I'll move on to a new chapter.

I find the description on p. 123 to be accurate for the lighter side of magic (if somewhat flowery), but as in many parts of this book, Starhawk seems to have forgotten there is a darker side to magic. Me, personally, I've never found a compelling reason to use a spell designed to harm, bind, or otherwise cause general badness, but I'm still aware it's there.

The discussion about the requirement of honesty in one's personal life (p. 125) just reeks of bullshit to me. My overwhelming impression is one of "only good and moral people can cast spells and expect them to work." I don't feel this is an accurate representation; one can believe in oneself without being a cheerful shiny GOOD-PERSON. The statements on the personal belief and conviction needed to do magic do ring true, but come on, there are bad people out there, and those bad people are just as capable of using and misusing power as the good people, plus we all exist in shades of grey anyway.

I find the discussion of love spells on p. 129 to be far more intelligent than I was expecting. Personally I'm not interested in casting a love spell on a specific person; they don't really love me if I exert my magical will to make them do so, now do they? Also, I'm impressed by the point that love spells tend to draw sex. When I do a spell of that nature, which is fairly rare, I tend to set it up as "please bring into my life a person with the following qualities, with whom I could build a relationship" and let it go from there.

The herbal spells provided in this chapter are quite interesting, though the general outlines are similar to what I have read elsewhere.

I originally intended to do this as two separate entries, but since the chapters work together and since they seem designed to be read together, I ended up doing both at once.

I do appreciate the value for an introductory text in emphasizing the divine feminine and the way She permeates the world, an aspect of the Divine that is barely if ever mentioned in the Judeo-Christian tradition (at least as I remember my 13 years of education in that tradition.) When I first started doing rituals and prayers (at the tender age of sixteen) I found myself emphasizing the Goddess much more, as well. Whether that was because the texts I was reading at the time placed similar emphasis, or out of a subconscious need to reject patriarchal religion, I am unsure. However, as I've gotten older and done more Craft practice, my perspective on the God and Goddess has shifted to place them with equal importance compared to each other. It is not just about the Goddess; I would even argue it's not even mostly about the Goddess. It's about Celu the Divine Perfection. The God and the Goddess are separate, balanced, equally important aspects. Too much emphasis on the divine feminine risks marginalizing the divine masculine in a reversal of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Emphasizing the divine female is important, especially for newer students of Wicca, and I'm very aware that many of the traditional writings about Wicca (such as the Charge of the Star Goddess) place more emphasis on the Goddess. For me, though, I believe that the God is just as important, especially considering how many of the festivals involve both deities (wedding at Beltaine, the battles of the Oak and Holly Kings as the Solstices, etc.)

"Nakedness is a sign that the Witch's loyalty is to the truth before any ideology or comforting illusions." (p. 97) Leaving the veracity of this claim completely aside because I don't know enough to address it intelligently, this sparked a series of realizations for me regarding my own ritual practice. It's no secret that I have abysmal self-esteem; I'm very uncomfortable with my body (particularly after I gained 25 pounds in about 5 months) and would most often rate my own appearance as low on the scale as I can get. When I first started practicing rituals, I didn't have a ritual robe and I didn't feel comfortable working skyclad (primarily because I was 16, working in the basement of my parents' house and could just imagine the conversation that would ensue if Mom or Dad wandered in. Explaining my new choice in religion was bad enough!). Therefore, I ended up converting a bathrobe into my pro tempore ritual robe and compromised with nudity insofar as I didn't wear anything under the robe.

My ritual practice fell off somewhat during my first two years of college. I shared a dorm room freshman year with a distinctly difficult young woman. (I've no doubt I annoyed her as much as she annoyed me, but that's neither here nor there.) Sophomore year I had a single room, but was one door down from the most obnoxious people in the dorm. They played rap "music" (which I loathe) loud enough to rattle the knicknacks on my desk at all hours of the day, and were prone to slamming doors at random times and setting off the fire-door alarm late in the evening, which is when I prefer to do my rituals. It seemed like every time I got settled in for divination or ritual, there went some new bit of idiocy they had concocted (including knocking on my window and demanding I let them in the fire door at 1 am, but that is another story.)

Junior year I finally had an apartment (albeit a shared one) with my own bedroom, which was fairly peaceful and quiet. I started doing regular rituals again and, being as there was no one to see me nor anyone who was going to just barge into my room, I decided to try working skyclad. I was horribly uncomfortable with it the first few times and considered getting myself a ritual robe, but stuck with it and gradually got more accustomed to it. (The fact that I got accustomed to it during a beastly hot summer when wearing clothes at all was awful may have had something to do with it.) I still loathe my body but I don't notice it anymore when I am in my ritual circle. I've noticed that as soon as I have my altar set up and I pick up the incense holder to begin creating sacred space, that nagging part of my brain shuts off and goes away until I've taken up the circle and put my tools away. I forget to be self-conscious and self-loathing when I'm doing a ritual. So that's my ramble on nudity in ritual. I don't think that at this point in my life I'd be comfortable in a group skyclad ritual, but maybe I'll get there.

Back to the book now....I really like the description Starhawk gives of the God's role on p. 108. "He is gentle, tender, and comforting, but He is also the Hunter. He is the Dying God--but his death is always in the service of the life force. He is untamed sexuality--but sexuality as a deep, holy, connecting power. He is the power of feeling, and the image of what men could be if they were liberated from the constraints of patriarchal culture." I also like the summary on pp. 113-114 of the roles of the God throughout the Wheel of the Year.

When I read this chapter over initially I had the distinct impression that Starhawk was trying to force a secondary, subserviant role onto the God. I cannot now find the passages that caused me to think this, though I had written down the page numbers, but the impression stuck with me. I've gone over my issues with this already in this post, so I'm going to leave it alone for now.

OK. That was quite a bit of writing! Time to shower and sleep.

I am not a fan of the encouragement to make random loud noises to scare away bad spirits, celebrate, or create group mind. Personally I would just find that distracting. in my own ritual practice I prefer a gradual and even building of energy. Also, the design of her invocations (pp. 74-75) appears unduly artificial to me, though I've no doubt someone else would view mine in a similar fashion.

I don't agree with the Biblical associations that lion, eagle, and bull conjure for me, though I am unsure what animals I might substitute. Also, where did she come up with the elemental spirits' names in the invocations on pp. 76-78? The name Tiamat suggests Babylonian influence, but I'd like to know what I'm inviting into my circle before I call it, thanks very much all the same.

I finally did find something very useful on p. 79, the pentacle meditations. I like the parallels she draws to the Oghams and it creates connections I had not previously made between some aspects of life. I need to go back and re-do my ogham and rune notes, with meditation notes. The problem will be finding somewhere to meditate, and time to do it without falling asleep.

Facing the altar north just doesn't work for me. In my early Craft explorations I did face north, but as I work more and more with Celtic Reconstructionism I find I face my altar east. Dawn is when things start in my mind and knowledge is where the basis of Craft lies (to know, to will, to dare, to be silent.) The set-up of my room lends itself well to facing my altar east; my closet doors, on which I hung my various Goddess posters, are on the east side of my room so that is where my altar faces.

I do find the invocations listed in this book to be very off-putting and far too formal. Then again, I am very rarely pleased with something that someone else wrote when it comes to my own work (with the notable exception of the quote from Starhawk of "The circle is cast and we are between the worlds....", which I do like - otherwise I tend to write my own invocations, and re-write them constantly.)

Starhawk states on p. 49 "Witchcraft tends to attract people who, by nature, do not like to join groups." I would add to this, "for the sake of conformity." I don't mind joining groups. Most of my Wiccan and Pagan friends do not mind joining groups. It's groups of stupid people that bug me.

More fake history on p. 50. This gets very old very quickly. How the hell do we know how underground pagan religions were actually structured if they did exist during the medieval times and the Inquisition?

On pp. 55-56, she comments that covens generally do not charge for training. This may be true in an ideal world, but most of the information I've found through Witchvox and other sites have listed training fees.

The sound exercises described on pp. 58-59 would actually have the opposite effect from what is intended. Random noises make me crazy. I would never be able to focus.

I like the advice on meditation that Starhawk provides, but I do not find it helpful for me personally. My mind is often busy runing frm one thought or task to the next. I need to make a new meditation CD, I think, to make something very specific that will tell my brain "now is the time to stop thinking." Either that or find some good guided exercises.

I had the notes on this chapter written up a long time ago, I just never got around to posting them. So here we go.

I find the discussion or metaphor of multiple selves (p. 35) to be inherently contradictory to Starhawk's emphasis on immanence. I also find the Shadow Play exercise to be personally irrelevant. I understand what she's trying to convey, but it doesn't work for me at all.

The relationship of the three selves, discussed on p. 36, may be helpful for some people, but I find it to be self-contradictory. The point is to integrate one's various parts; demanding that Younger Self be an intermediary enforces separation. Even when I daydream or visualize I find myself, not translating, but thinking in terms of a story. Does this mean I am too left-brained? As someone who devotes a significant portion of her time to daydreaming and art, I don't think so.

The description of male on p. 41 bothers me deeply. Regardless of her intentions, the words Starhawk chooses make the male and male divinity sound fundamentally negative.

I find the use of the word "witch" (p. 46) without qualifiers to be arrogant. The statement "No true Witches today practice human sacrifice, torture, or any form of ritual murder. Anyone who does is not a Witch, but a psychopath" is misleading and self-important. Who gives Starhawk the right to decide what labels people may apply to themselves? More than that, who made her the arbiter of a true Witch? Since when is the modern Wiccan variant on Witchcraft the only true path? I find this to be equivalent to a Protestant Christian saying that "no true Christian directs his or her prayers to anyone besides God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit." Would Catholics then not be true Christians because they direct prayers to saints as intercessors to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? I think not.

My final observation is not on the chapter itself, but on the "ten years later" update on pp. 218-220. Although I understand and affirm the power of sex, growth and fertility as life force, symbol, reality, and need, I am not sure I agree with the overt sexual imagery in the Wheel of the Year. Yes, as the seasons turn, plants and animals are born, live, die, rest, and are reborn. The spring fertility festivals and the autumn harvest festivals in their triads are an important part of the Wheel of the Year, encompassing as they do the four Cross-Quarters and the two days of balance, bu there you have the key - balance. It is all well and good to celebrate sexuality, but I feel Starhawk carries the notion too far in her evangelical attempt to convey religious ecstasy. I feel that many modern Pagans over-emphasize the sexual aspect of the religion, thus creating an atmosphere which encourages derision and degrading remarks from outside about promiscuity and orgy. I enjoy sexual activities. I think they have a place in life and in the ritual circle. Starhawk's emphasis, however, almost seems to put sexuality as the central pillar of the religion, and that does not seem right to me. The central pillar of any religion should be faith and belief.

This entry will be split into three parts: A brief ramble on the deck that I use, the details of the spread, and the interpretations I draw from it.

( On Tarot decks, and my deck )

( Merlin's Mirror Spread - A Spread For Understanding Yourself )</p>

( Meanings, cards, and thoughts ) Well! That was quite a bit, and now I am tired.

Preface: I will be doing a series of entries on this particular text, which is the first one I am tackling in my effort to read through all of my various Pagan-oriented literature, which overflows my bookshelf constantly. My purpose in so doing is to determine what I like and dislike about each point brought up, and to determine why. All notes and page numbers are taken from the tenth anniversary edition of Starhawk's The Spiral Dance, published by Harper San Francisco. This edition is copyright 1989.

In this chapter, entitled "Witchcraft as Goddess Religion," Starhawk endeavors to present a historical background to the relatively new religion of Witchcraft. Much of the chapter consists of an extensive history section about how Witchcraft and Paganism have descended from prehistorical times into the present. Now, maybe it's just my healthy dose of cynicism with regards to the Murray thesis (and any Pagan who insists they are following the pure traditions of [insert group here]), not to mention revisionist Pagan history, but this entire section is fluffier than my cat. I particularly object to her assertion on pp. 16-18 that the native newly settled farmer peoples of the British Isles retreated into the hills to become the Faerie Folk at the coming of the Indo-European conquerors.

Also, on p. 19, Starhawk asserts that the medieval times saw a resurgence of the Old Religion and that female power led to the witch trials. As a medieval historian, I feel absolutely compelled to wave the bullshit flag. During this time period, the Pagan religions of Western Europe were becoming more integrated with Catholic Christianity, not less. While the witch hunts of the Inquisition did seek to strip women of power by targeting senile women, ugly women, and beautiful women (because sexual desire in women was considered immoral, sex being solely for the purpose of creating more Christian babies), I am far from convinced that this had any connection to the pagan religions predating Christianity. I would argue that the Inquisition was aimed at eradicating secular female power and deviance within the Catholic Christian Church rather than the older Pagan religions.

My skepticism on Starhawk's view of Pagan history continues into pp. 21-22, where she asserts the same tired old line: Wicca/Witchcraft has been handed down since the time of Merlin (or any other famous Pagan figure you care to name). I categorically refuse to accept this reasoning. While it is possible that there are a few unbroken family traditions of Paganism handed down from the days long since lost to the mists of myth rather than the records of history, and while it is entirely possible that modern traditions contain grains of knowledge handed down through folk tales from those days, I maintain that Witchcraft or Wicca in its modern form is the brainchild of Gerald Gardner, pieced together from whatever scraps he found appealing and amended extensively since that time. This is part of the strength of modern Paganism as a whole: adaptability and individuality. Modern Wicca, to my mind, consists of extensive reconstructionism based initially on written, oral, pictorial, archaeological, legendary, and historical sources, greatly modified by the requirements of the modern world. I sincerely doubt that anyone in the modern world practices their craft EXACTLY the way their forebears in the [insert group here] tradition did. The historical evidence is simply too inconclusive for this to be the case.

There is another aspect of this book on p. 22 that drives me right straight up the wall. Starhawk emphasizes the "intuitiveness" of Pagan practice and "doing what feels right." I'm going to pull over an assertion from Why Wiccans Suck that I feel really sums up everything that is wrong with this statement. The author is discussing that one should always research one's deities before using them. In this example, the deity being referred to is Diana: "Hey, if you're gonna worship somebody, at least make some effort to understandthem first. Don't put some sunflowers on her altar "because it feels right" only to learn later that Diana really, really HATES sunflowers." (http://www.whywiccanssuck.com/unfluff.html) This, I feel, is a core problem with many of the "fluffier" Wiccan books and websites out there. They emphasize doing what feels right rather than getting off your fat lazy ass and doing some work. Research your deities. Know what you can about the culture you are studying. Also, beware of your sources. If you're looking for facts about Celtic anthropology, religion, and culture, you're a lot better off reading Ronald Hutton than you are Edain McCoy. You should still make sure that what you're doing "feels right," because your religion should never make you uncomfortable, but for the love of all gods old and new, KNOW WHAT THE HELL YOU ARE DOING.

Another point I find extremely objectionable about this chapter is the extreme feminist tone it takes. I understand that Starhawk is a feminist and that her Craft will take that aspect. Even with that, and the fact that modern Wicca is highly feminist and female-centric, I find her obsession with female power insulting. Maybe it's because I have grown up in a world where women are perhaps not quite so subject to overt domination, sexism, and control than the world Starhawk grew up in, but both genders have equal gifts to offer. If it were possible to switch my body over to a male body, keeping all the same physical, mental, and emotional traits, I would be no more or less capable in any respect (except that I could pee standing up, which can never be discounted.) Neither gender is better than the other. Starhawk seriously needs to get over herself.

Finally, and along the same lines as the above, I fundamentally disagree with the Jungian duality mentioned on pp. 24-25. People do not have a female aspect and a male aspect; gender is a construct of society much more than it is the possession of a uterus or a penis. We are simply people. Gender is a matter of physiology rather than mentality. Society makes it a mentality; with enough effort it would be possible to reverse social attitudes to the point that women hold more social power and men find themselves relegated to the status of "those who lift heavy things and provide procreative opportunities." (This is possible on the scale of decades and even centuries, mind you.) I find that, for a wonder, I do agree with her updated statements indicated on p. 215; it is about the only idea I agree with in this chapter.

On reflection, I find I am entirely disappointed by this text. I know that many Pagans cite it as their awesome introductory text with excellent material contained therein. It may simply be that I have not gotten to the excellent material as of yet. However, I find Starhawk's delight in revisionist, sketchy history and her female-centric attitude more offputting than enlightening. I hate to say it, but I've found more of worth stated in Silver RavenWolf, whom I know many Pagans decry as a severe fluffbunny.