April 1, 2004
Witchcraft as sign of resistance
by Maria G. Di Rienzo
Generally, and certainly in the main monotheistic religions, divinity incarnates in a body that's not ours; at most, we are allowed to be the connection for its embodiment. Our female body, from Aristotle on (which spoke of the body as "brute inactive material") was denigrated by philosophers of various schools, and from priests, popes and patriarchs of every cult. Many of us, knowing this, simply gave up religion, but the lack of sacred images of being a woman, the deprivation of cultural and symbolic feedback of a feminine divine, creates a power vacuum in women, a "psychic" vacuum, for we haven't a divine female genealogy to sustain and legitimize us, one which would nurture us with the strength and the wisdom of women of the past, and would recognize our creativity, which has been smothered by a cultural climate in which the desirable characteristics, for both sexes, are those attributed to the male. Women's empowerment is of course a matter of social justice (political and economical freedom, freedom to dispose of our bodies) but also of self esteem: the Dianic Witches know this well.
A Witch, in a few words, is a close friend of the Earth, a person that desires to live in it in a light and balanced way; one who believes that women and men and children and their bodies are expressions of the sacred. A Witch is a person who celebrates her/his individuality, connects to positive energies of her/his ancestors, works for what she/he needs and meets the others needs without harming herself/himself or any other person. A Witch banishes what's not spiritually sane from her/his life, moves with the seasons, seeks harmony, cares for herself/himself and cares for the world she/he lives in.
Teaching women to love themselves and to love each other, and then to reciprocate listening and worth, Witches do a meritorious work as women who work in social and political collectives, because spirituality is a woman's right too. Spirituality is a concept not easy, for me, to define. If you put it in a cage, it will fly between the bars. If you put it under a microscope you won't see it. It has its own rhythms as the tide, but moves in the direction you put it.
Witches' spirituality isn't defined in opposition to other spiritual paths: if we do this, our path will not lead us so far, because we will depend on others for our definitions and our solutions. The Goddess' Path, as it is followed in Wiccan circles isn't univocal, nor can it be fixed in dogmas or liturgies: women who walk in this path define it as a daily living connection with their holiness, incarnated in the Goddess who has a thousand names and shows multiple aspects, all the faces of womanhood.
The Goddess can be honored as Gaia, the Earth; as the Mayan Ix Chel, the Moon; as the Celtic Arianrhod, the starry sky; as the Egyptian Nut, who gives birth to the world and as Kali the destroyer; as Oya who brings the tempests and even as the Christian Mary, who soothes them. Goddess is generally worshipped in her three aspects of Maid, Mother and Crone, recalling the lunar phases. The original female trinity survives often in myths, even when the patriarchal order places itself above it; the track of something more ancient, of something different, emerges too in the divine women who are shown to us as segments, i.e. the goddess of love, the goddess of harvest, etc.
Witches carry this knowledge in rituals. To create and participate in rituals is to give worth to the passages in our lives, physical or emotional ones. Through the feminine rites women connect themselves to their deepest sides and honor them, bringing the inner wisdom to consciousness, and supporting each other on the path of healing and celebration of life. The "recipes" for a ritual vary with the traditions, the inspiration and creativity of persons; generally a ritual has three main moments: the creation of a sacred space, a meditation or visualization to direct energies to the purpose, the feasting that celebrates the work done and the experience of being together.
The study groups and the covens may be mixed, only for women, only for men, only gay or lesbian. Covens in general count no more than twelve/thirteen members, while the groups may be wider. To create and recreate balance and harmony of powers, between differences, living beings, human social forms, etc. are synthetically the purposes of a circle of witches; to figure out "how" is the purpose of the study group. Every energy you own is good for circles or groups: nurturing, comfort, creativity, persuasion, innovation, dynamism.
If, for example, you want to honor fertility in yours and others' lives, it is not only the ability of giving birth to a new baby you can celebrate. The abilities of finding solutions and cooperation, the creativity and the "power within" are all forms of fertility. To walk the Goddess Path implies a deep personal responsibility. Do not think, if you will do it, that the other members of the group, or circle, or coven, are responsible for what you do and say, or that they can "blow" spirituality into you. It's not their work; it's yours. The most experienced ones, who defines herself/himself as Priestess or Priest, may give you counsel and suggest some guide lines, but the realization of what you want is in your hands. And it is in this world, not in another one. This is the point where spirituality and activism meet, in celebration of life, in respect of the Earth. What have they in common, you may ask, and why should they be united?
Starhawk, with her habitual humor, answers: "No sane person with a life really wants to be a political activist. When activism is exciting, it tends to involve the risk of bodily harm or incarceration, and when it's safe, it is often tedious, dry, and boring. Activism tends to put one into contact with extremely unpleasant people, whether they are media interviewers, riot cops, or at times, your fellow activists. Not only that, it generates enormous feelings of frustration and rage, makes your throat sore from shouting, and hurts your feet. Nonetheless, at this moment in history, we are called to act as if we truly believe that the Earth is a living, conscious being that we're part of, that human beings are interconnected and precious, and that liberty and justice for all is a desirable thing."
Reclaiming, the Wicca tradition founded by Starhawk and others twenty years ago wanted to bring together the spiritual and the political. As she wrote, "Or more accurately, some of us for whom the spiritual and the political were inseparable wanted to create a practice and community that reflected this integration."
The integration between the Witches' spirituality and political activism has many meanings: the spiral dance during the demonstration, to gather positive energies and dispel negative ones, or the invocation of Water as element if we are acting against the privatization of water resources. But the union of spirituality and politics means, above all, that spirituality is not separated from material world, but something deeply rooted in it. This is a vision that rejects the separation mind/body and spirit/matter.
Some think that the magical work, rituals etc., must be directed only to our personal "well being," to create a safe space, a kind of shelter where you can heal, regenerate, learn new things; these are all excellent things to do, but they aren't the ultimate meaning of spirituality. This form of spirituality also challenges us to go beyond limits, and to take risks. It requires that we must learn to see conflict as a normal and sane part of life. If you look at the Goddess only as the Maiden of Pure Joy, or the Compassionate Nurturing Mother, you do not see her complexity. Goddess is life, but is also death; rage and compassion, light and darkness. If you evade this complexity you limit your ability to grow, and your power.
A Witch knows how to be part of each living being, feels connection and relation with all creatures on Earth; I know to keep within me all the potential for cooperation and destruction, of love and hate, of greed and generosity: this doesn't relieve me of making choices. While I recognize the whole range of these impulses in me, this practice doesn't erase their differences: and if I do not resist a system that kills and degrades what is sacred for me, I will be its accomplice.
In the example of Water invocation and privatization of resources, the holiness of elements, as Witches live it, is not a a fantasy, or an abstract concept. It regards something real: the soil, the ground we walk upon, the Earth; the Fire that warms us and cooks our food; the Air we breathe, and the water we drink and use to wash ourselves, the rivers and the sea and their creatures, the Water that is the blood of the Goddess. Twenty years from now, two thirds of the world's peoples will not have the water they need: this concerns me, my spiritual practice and my political activism. To say the Four Elements are sacred is to say they have value, and that no one has the right to embezzle them, or to reduce them to something that can be bought and sold. Only justice may grant balance, Starhawk wrote in The Fifth Sacred Thing, and only ecological balance may sustain freedom; only in freedom may the fifth sacred thing, Spirit, flourish. To honor the Four Elements is to create the conditions for freedom and knowledge and beauty and love to develop.
Systems don't change easily: remodeling and balancing powers (the redistribution of wealth, access to resources) require a great change. To change the domination of patriarchal systems we need to shake them, we need to open and manage conflicts. Spirituality in action gives us transforming energy, and our rituals gives a more profound dimension to our activism: they are "spells" that not only grant us healing and regeneration, but speak of and to the real challenges we face in our lives. The magical work of modern Witches helps create this time of crucial transition, a time when the patriarchal model of power is challenged by movements toward cooperative systems. Women and men all over our planet are developing new models and theories of power, based on relational and balanced ways of life. To understand how the domination model shows itself in our very persons is the first and vital step to develop a new way of life. The non patriarchal ways of life must be lived on a daily basis by each person involved in the transforming process, because political, spiritual, economical and social conscience are interconnected. The living experiments of Witches offer great opportunities: sharing the process and the ideas, we teach each other what we need. To this work we commit our skills and our will, our courage and hope, our silence, yes, and our voices.
Maria G. di Rienzo is a member of the Standing Convention of Women Against War. She spoke about witches at the Convego Dopo la Dea in Bologna on February 21. This essay is her own translation of the main body of her talk.