Starhawk

They're fantastic.

That's Starhawk's branch for those wondering.

So that's Spiral Dance.

One of the greatest.

If there's a single text, I will say every practicing witch should read.

It is the Spiral Dance by Starhawk.

The Spiral

Dance.

And then she led us through a ritual, a protective ritual.

And from that, I started to read Starhawk and I started to become affiliated with reclaiming, which is, uh, a witchcraft group based out of San Francisco.

Yeah.

Um, you know, not just witchcraft, but ecology and social justice and all that kind of stuff.

One of the subcommittees that I ended up on was determining the date for the International Day of Nuclear Disarmament the following year.

There were quite a few of us involved in this committee, and among them was my very dear heart sister, Starhawk.

Anyway, a very well-known activist and witch.

Self-proclaimed witch.

No, it should be United Nations Day.

No, it should be Earth Day.

and Starhawk and I were immediately thinking it had to be a holiday free of political connotations, free of cultural connotations, universal.

It had to be a holy day set by the Earth herself.

And over the years, I have, you know, been a big researcher, a big studier of different religions and different spiritualities to see what fit, what resonated with me.

I remember reading Starhawk's The Spiral Dance.

which was pagan language.

And that really resonated with me at the time.

We get two foundational books in 1979.

The first is The Spiral Dance by Starhawk.

The American mutation is a massive shift.

Starhawk drew heavily on feminist spirituality and West Coast counterculture.

Right.

And just a quick note for our listeners.

As we discuss Starhawk's work, we're outlining the very real impact this book had on the subculture.

Mm.

Maybe you can just become a witch by going to a well-stocked bookstore.

In the late 20th century, popular witchcraft writers like Scott Cunningham, Silver RavenWolf, Starhawk, and Raven Grimassi encouraged witches to take an eclectic approach to both Wicca and other forms of contemporary witchcraft.

They advised readers to experiment and be creative, build a personal practice that feels right for the individual witch.

I talk about this in my Intro to Wicca video, but the move toward eclectic, individualized practice highlights the two modes that we see in contemporary witchcraft, one trending more toward traditionalism and one toward eclecticism.