Security Doesn't Expect You To Be Carrying Trees

SageWoman is one of those magazines, like Ms., that I subscribe to even though their frequent dry periods. I think that it's important for them to exist, even though at times that seems like the work of an old priestess, tending the temple, waiting for the day when the Goddess will return. This month's SageWoman, cover picture of Joan of Arc with her sword's pommel substituting for nipples notwithstanding, is one of the juicier ones.

Anne Newkirk Niven has a great interview with Starhawk. The whole thing is worth a read. Here are some excerpts:

For me, being a Witch is about understanding that the earth is sacred and that every human being is an embodiment of Goddess. If you really get that and [then] you look around and see that every life support system on the planet is under assault, then you can't just sit back and let that unfold, you have to do something to change it.

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A verse [that] I wrote for a Spiral Dance ritual expresses the kind of energy [that] I feel we need:

I am the change, I am the tide that's turning,
Your love and your rage,
Passion for justice burning.
And when you take a stand,
I'm the courage that guides you,
I'm in the streets, I take your hand,
I'm marching beside you.

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[T]he core belief is that this earth is a living being, and we are part of life. Furthermore, that every living being participates in this larger Being and that this Being has a consciousness. Gain theorists, that is, the scientists, say [that] the earth functions like an organism. They won't go so far as to say that She is conscious. But that is the advantage of being a Witch: you don't have to be respectable; you can say whatever damn thing you want.

Do you like the "W" word? Are you glad [that]we used it? Are you still happy with it?

I think it's important that we use it and I still do. Whenever people take a word [like "Witch"] and use it to say "here are these areas that your are not allowed to think about and not allowed to identify with," then, to me, that says [that] it's important to USE that word, because if you use that word, you take away their power to control you with it. With the word "Witch" what they are saying is "don't identify with this whole constellation: everything from magic and the power of the mind and the power of intention, to the whole idea of women being strong and being empowered in our own right." They are saying, "stay in your place, don't be uppity!" By using the word "Witch" for the last twenty or thirty years, we have helped to take away some of its power to control us."

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Describing a political action in Cancun, Mexico against the World Trade Organization:

[W]e dressed up as tourists.

In what, Hawaiian shirts?

Yeah, Hawaiian shirts or just tacky clothes, with cameras or whatever it took to look harmless. We went out in small groups infiltrating throughout the day. . . . But at the end of the day, we all converged and took over the street right in front of the conference center. We blockaded the street and shit it down for two or three hours, and we did a Spiral Dance out there right under the conference center. Our Green Block friends came in carrying tres in poets and put them in the center of the spiral. I asked one, "how did you get those trees in there?" He replied, "Security doesn't expect you to be carrying trees."