Contemporary Feminist Rituals

Comprehend, we sweat out our rituals together. We change them, we're all the time changing them! But they body our sense of good! ~ Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time

The body is the image relator. In ritual, we embody and activate images of the archetypal, the eternal feminine, the Goddess. Images of power, of transformation, of harmony, and of duality. One woman empowering another. The crucial exchange of gifts. I cross the circle to give you something; you cross the circle to give her something. And so on until we have all changed places. Power is held powerless; power given is power for all. In feminist ritual we maintain a center of which we are all aware. It is our collective heart which beats there. We hold together, our center endures. Even the most painful separation, the dispersal which is feared but necessary, cannot disconnect us from the ritual circle. Once the circle is created and affirmed, chaos is subdued. We survive. We thrive.

From Contemporary Feminist Rituals by Kay Turner in The Politics of Women's Spirituality edited by Spretnak