ellen@ucla-cs.UUCP (11/09/84)
[this bug's for you]
More quotes from:
"The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the
Great Goddess - Rituals, Invocations, Exercises, Magic"
by Starhawk, 1979,
New York, San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers.
Chapter One, pp.8-10.
"Since the decline of the Goddess religions, women have lacked
religious models and spiritual systems that speak to female needs and
experiences. Male images of divinity characterize both western and eastern
Religions. Regardless of how abstract the underlying concept of God may
be, the symbols, avatars, preachers, prophets, gurus, and Buddhas are
overwhelmingly male. Women are not encouraged to explore their own strengths
and realizations; they are taught to submit to male authority, to identify
masculine perceptions as their spiritual ideals, to deny their bodies and
sexuality, to fit their insights into a male mold.
"Mary Daly, author of ``Beyond God the Father,'' points out that the
models of the universe in which a male God rules the cosmos from outside
serves to legitimize male control of social institutions...The unconscious
model continues to shape the perceptions even of those who have consciously
rejected religious teachings...A new dogma, a parallel structure, replaces
the old. For example, many people have rejected the "revealed truth" of
Christianity without ever questioning the underlying concept that truth is
a set of beliefs revealed through the agency of a "Great Man," possessed of
powers or intelligence beyond the ordinary human scope. Christ, as the
"Great Man," may be replaced by Buddha, Freud, Marx, Jung, Werner Erhard,
or the Maharaj Ji in their theology, but truth is always seen as coming from
someone else, as only knowable secondhand..."
[the previous quotations which i posted came next in the book:
how the Goddess does not rule the world, how She is manifest in each of us
(male and female), how She does not serve to legitimize anyone as an authority
over others, that each of us must reveal our own truth.]
"The importance of the Goddess symbol for women cannot be overstressed.
The image of the Goddess inspires women to see ourselves as divine, our bodies
as sacred, the changing phases of our lives as holy, our aggression as healthy,
our anger as purifying, and our power to nurture and create, but also to limit
and destroy when necessary, as the very force that sustains all life. Through
the Goddess, we can discover our strength, enlighten our minds, own our bodies,
and celebrate our emotions. We can move beyond narrow, constricting roles
and become whole.
"The Goddess is also important for men. The oppression of men in
Father God-ruled patriarchy is perhaps less obvious but no less tragic than
that of women. Men are encouraged to identify with a model that no human
being can successfully emulate: to be mini-rulers of narrow universes.
They are internally split, into a "spiritual" self that is supposed to
conquer their baser animal and emotional natures. They are at war with
themselves: in the West, to "conquer" sin; in the East, to "conquer"
desire or ego. Few escape from these wars undamaged. Men lose touch
with their feelings and their bodies, becoming the "successful male zombies"
described by Herb Goldberg in ``The Hazards of Being Male'': "Oppressed
by the cultural pressures that have denied him his feelings, by the
mythology of the woman and the distorted and self-destructive way he
sees and relates to her, by the urgency for him to "act like a man,"
which blocks his ability to respond to his inner promptings both
emotionally and physiologically, and by a generalized self-hate that
causes him to feel comfortable only when he is functioning well in
harness, not when he lives for joy and personal growth." [p.4]
"Because women give birth to males, nurture them at the breast, and
in our culture are primarily responsible for their care as children, "every
male brought up in a traditional home develops an intense early identification
with his mother and therefore carries within him a strong feminine imprint."
[Goldberg, p.39] The symbol of the Goddess allows men to experience and
integrate the feminine side of their nature, which is often felt to be
the deepest and most sensitive aspect of self. The Goddess does not
exclude the male; She contains him, as a pregnant woman contains a male
child. Her own male aspect embodies both the solar light of the intellect
and wild, untamed animal energy."tim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Tim Maroney) (11/13/84)
Equilibrium is vital. To replace a patriarchal religion with a matriarchal religion is to make just the error Starhawk warns of, that of failing to examine the underlying assumptions. In this case, the assumption is that there must be a single being of a single gender conceived of as the ultimate truth of the cosmos. One gains nothing but more sexism by calling the feminine conception of deity inherently superior to the masculine. The reason that matriarchal forms of religion are experiencing a resurgence is that the usual reaction to the release from an oppressive Restriction is to swing to the other extreme. The validity of feminine conceptions of deity has been suppressed by Christians (although the Catholics wisely attempted to counteract this) for centuries; now that you will not be thrown in jail for non-patriarchal religious views, the pendulum has swung to matriarchy. It is difficult for many to separate the idea of a masculine deity from the corrupt institutions of patriarchal religion, and indeed many do not even make the effort. Fortunately, most Wiccan groups, and all Thelemites, recognize the validity of masculine as well as feminine conceptions of deity, although even those Wiccans who recognize Cernunnos, Pan, and so on, usually over-emphasize the Great Mother under whatever name. This is due to the reaction to the release from Restriction, and may be expected to equilibrate itself given time. There are also some Wiccan groups that recognize only the feminine, or claim that the masculine is merely an inferior subset thereof; to my mind these are no better than the patriarchalists they abhor. Buddhists and Hindus also have a rich store of equilibrated masculine and feminine symbols to choose from in their religions. Unfortunately, patriarchal Buddhist and Hindu societies have often emphasized the masculine over the feminine; but it is easy enough to restore them to their proper balance. The true aspirant strives, through invocation of an equilibrated set of deities, chosen with particular reference to the aspirant's imbalances, to incorporate all virtues appropriate to both sexes. One must incorporate both maternity and paternity, creation and destruction, nurturing and attack, reception and action, fertility and virility, and all other pairs of opposites usually considered "feminine" or "masculine", in order to know and do the Will, to follow one's own "true orbit". -- Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University Computation Center ARPA: Tim.Maroney@CMU-CS-K uucp: Try sending through a gateway such as DECWRL, UCB-VAX, SEISMO, or HARVARD -- mailer conventions differ on syntax "Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains." Liber AL, II:9.
aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) (11/20/84)
ucla-cs!ellen, quoting "The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion
of the Great Goddess - Rituals, Invocations, Exercises, Magic", expressed
(in a lengthy passage I won't clutter /usr/spool with a repetition of) the
idea that a patriarchal religion encourages men "to be mini-rulers of narrow
universes", and discourages them from dealing with the sensitive, emotional
side of themselves. This is, alas, true of many manifestations of Christianity
-- but not all. Even a superficial reading of the Gospels will show the
"feminine" qualities of Jesus, whom Christians are encouraged to emulate. In
fact a good bit of the stuff exhorted in the Sermon on the Mount would not be
considered "masculine" at all. My experience with Christ has helped me to
better accept my feelings, both positive and negative; to be healed of past
wounds thereto; and to begin to grow into a fully human person, incorporating
both "masculine" and "feminine" aspects. (For a long time I didn't really
have either; I was just a nerd. Now I think I have more of the "feminine"
than the "masculine", actually, and it's taken me most of my 20's to get
this far. Maybe by the time I'm through my 30's, in 1995, I'll really be
a man....)
But anyway, my point is that even a religion that depicts God as a Father
can help a man to become something other than macho.
--
-- Jeff Sargent
{decvax|harpo|ihnp4|inuxc|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq
"I'm not asking for anyone's bleeding charity."
"Then do. At once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity."