Starhawk Quotes

The process of cultural change is a long and difficult one.

We worked hard, we were just making it — then they raised the interest rates, or closed the schools, or changed the laws....

Rather than a simple, bipolar universe, we might do better to conserve of a web of forces and energies holding the cosmos in dynamic tension.

"War teaches us to need an enemy to conquer and overcome and to see those who are different as lesser, dangerous, inhuman ["Feminist Earth-based Spirituality and Ecofeminism," Healing the Wounds: The Promise of Ecofeminism]."

In covens as in families, we tend to play different roles and manifest each other’s fears.

Both trance and fiction can bring through insights and spark personal growth and change. But they are always colored by subjectivity.

An initiation creates a strong bond and a karmic tie, so they should be people within your community you feel close to, not strangers or figures you admire from a distance.

We need images that move us beyond language, law, and custom; that hurl us beyond the boundaries of our lives to the space between worlds, where we can see clear.

I think of the Spiral Dance as a metaphor for community. We are all linked, and each person’s mention affects everyone down the line.

Clarity of intention is the key to creating a powerful skill or ritual.

Try writing your own myth, for your own area.

It’s hard to remember now just how mind-altering the very concept of a Goddess was in an era when there were no women priests, no women rabbis, few women ministers, and scarcely any models of women’s spiritual power and leadership

I honor my ancestors who were stolen from Africa to slave on this continent.” “I honor the ancestors of this land, enslaved by the Spanish.” “I honor my ancestors who died in the concentration camps of the Nazis.” “I honor my ancestors who died in the Palestinian relocation camps.” “I honor my ancestors who died at the hands of the Stewards in our struggle for freedom.” “I honor those who will die in the struggles to come.” A silence fell on the table, broken by the sweet soprano voice of a young woman who sang a blessing in Hebrew. They drank the first cup of wine.

The truth is nobody ever really got it right, including myself. What we learned over the years is that the energy has a form and shape of its own. When a group works together collectively, everyone seems to intuitively follow the energy and to know when it has begun to fail.

Experimenting with trance possession is one of the few truly dangerous things you can do in ritual and I don’t recommend it.