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I needs to spend some time learning more or understanding more. Thanks for excellent information I was looking for this information for my mission. Waiting to be somebody Waiting to get married Waiting for my wedding day Waiting for my wedding night Waiting for the end of the day Waiting for sleep. Eve caused the fall by asserting her will over and against the command of God, while Mary began the new age with her response to God's initiative, "Let it be done to me according to thy word" Luke 1: Even for men, patriarchal religions value the passive will.

The classical doctrines of sin and grace view sin as the prideful assertion of will and grace as the obedient subordiatnion of human will female or male to the divine initiative or order. Although this view of will might be questioned from a human perspective, Valerie Saiving Goldstein has argued that it has particularly deleterious consequences for women in Western culture. According to Goldstein, secular Western culture encourages males in the assertion The thousand hands of the Goddess Kwannon. Toshodai-ji Temple, Nara, Japan.

But since culture discourages fe- males in the assertion of will, the traditional doctrines of sin and grace encourage women to remain in their form of sin, which is self-negation or insufficient assertion of will. In a Goddess-centered context, in contrast, the will is valued. A woman is encouraged to know her will, to be- lieve that her will is valid and to believe that her will can be achieved in the world— three sources of strength and motivation to take direct action, sources traditionally denied to her in patriarchy. In a Goddess-centered frame- work a woman's will is not subordinated to the Lord God as King and Ruler, nor to men as His representatives.

Thus a woman is not reduced to waiting for and acquiescing to the will of others as she is in patriarchy. But neither does she adopt the egocentric form of will that pursues self- interest without regard for the interests of others. The Coddess-centered context provides a different un- derstanding of will than that available in the traditional patriarchal religious framework. In the Goddess frame- work, will can be achieved only when it is exercised in harmony with the energies and wills of other beings. Wise women, for example, raise a cone of healing energy at the full moon or solstice when the lunar or solar energies are at their high points with respect to the earth.

This dis- cipline encourages them to recognize that not all times are propitious for the achieving of every will. Similarly they know that spring is a time for new beginnings in work and love; summer, a time for producing external man- ifestations of inner potentialities; and fall or winter, times for stripping down to the inner core and for extending roots. Such awareness of waxing and waning processes in the universe discourages the arbitrary ego-centered asser- tion of will, while at the same time encouraging the as- sertion of individual will in cooperation with natural energies and the energies created by the wills of others.

Wise women also have a traditional belief that whatever is sent out will be returned, and this reminds them to assert their wills in cooperative and healing ways rather than in egocentric and destructive ones. This view of will allows women to begin to recognize, claim and assert their wills without adopting the undesirable characteristics of the patriarchal understanding and use of will. This is not, however, to imply that women invariably exercise their wills for good.

Women have as much of a capacity for positive and negative thoughts and actions as men do. All I am saying is that in the Goddess-centered context, the will of women is not devalued per se as it is in the Biblical and theological traditions discussed above. In the Goddess-centered framework the mood is one of positive affirmation of personal will in the context of the energies of other wills or beings. The motivation is for women to know and to assert their wills in cooperation with other wills and energies.

The fourth and final aspect of the symbol of Goddess is the significance of the Goddess for a revaluation of mother-daughter relations and women's heritage. Accord- ing to Virginia Woolf, a sentence such as "Chloe liked Olivia," which describes a woman's relationship to an- other woman, rarely occurs in stories written by men be- cause men write of women only in their relationship to a man or men.

Christianity celebrates the father's relation to the son and the mother's relation to the son but the story of the mother and daughter is missing. In patriarchal literature and psychology, the relation- ship between mothers and daughters is seldom considered or even mentioned.

As de Beauvoir has noted, the mother- daughter relationship is, distorted in our male-defined culture because the mother perhaps subconsciously be- lieves her role is to prepare her daughter to enter into that male-controlled culture in which women are viewed as inferior. The bond of woman to woman is beginning to be cele- brated in the new women's culture.

Holly Near has written several songs that celebrate the woman bond and wom- en's heritage. In one of her finest songs she writes of an "old time woman" who is "waiting to die. This story was told, possibly enacted, in con- nection with the religious rites of the Thesmophoria, which were for women only, and the Eleusinian Mysteries of Greece. In this story Persephone is abducted by the God of the Underworld and forced to live in the Under- world as his wife. Unwilling to accept this state of affairs, Mother Demeter, in her rage, withholds the rain and thus prevents the growth of all food until her daughter is re- turned to her.

What is important for women in this an- cient religious story is that the mother fights for her daughter and for her relationship to her daughter. This is a completely different view of the mother's relationship to her daughter from that which exists in a patriarchal cul- ture. The mood created by the story of Demeter and Per- sephone is one of sacred celebration of the mother- daughter bond and the motivation is for mothers and daughters to affirm the heritage passed on from mother to daughter and to reject the patriarchal pattern in which 12 mother and daughter betray each other for the sake of men.

The symbol of the goddess has much to offer women who are struggling to be rid of the "powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations" of the devalua- tion of female power, denigration of the female body, dis- trust of female will and denial of the mother-daughter bond and women's heritage that have been engendered by patriarchal religions.

As women struggle to create a new culture in which women's power, bodies, will and bonds are celebrated, the symbol of the Goddess naturally reemerges and speaks to the deep mind, expressing our new vision of the beauty, strength and power of women. Starhawk, "Witchcraft and Women's Culture" unpublished manuscript, p. Lessa and Vogt New York: Beacon Press, , p. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. Monique Wittig, Les Cuerilleres, trans. David LeVay New York: Avon Books, , p. A term coined by Naomi Goldenberg to refer to reflection on the meaning of the symbol "Goddess.

New Earth New York: Dover, , p.

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Doubleday, , plate 4. Bantam Books, , chap. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, McGraw-Hill, , p. Barbry MyOwn, "Ursa Maior: Starhawk, "Witchcraft and Women's Culture," p. In Judy Chicago, pp. Goldstein, "The Human Situation: A Feminine View," journal of Religion vol. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, , p. A Live Album Redwood Records, About the Goddess Kali, for Pamela Oline. Oiled and bleached willow, cherry, black locust, maple and fir. Plaster casting for bronze mold. This dogma functions to preserve patriarchal institutions and to prevent the establishment of equal rights and opportunities for women in the United States and other countries throughout the world.

Far from becoming more tolerant as time passes, fundamentalist sects are ever more rigid in their efforts to maintain the subjugation of women. Ironically, religious faiths, which supposedly provide the moral and ethical basis of culture, are stubbornly and irrationally opposed to the develop- ment of a truly just, humane, equitable society. My personal religious beliefs underwent a cataclysmic change during adolescence, when overnight I emerged from an intensely religious period into what has remained a questioning, agnostic search for a satisfactory philos- ophy to sustain me through life.

During my childhood and adolescence, I deeply experienced the damage done by the prevalent attitudes towards females. Perhaps for this reason, I finally found a possible answer in feminism. Of all my experiences, the most fulfilling sense of unity and of purpose and belief, within myself and within rela- tionships, has come from reading feminist literature, meeting, working, demonstrating, agonizing, organizing and occasionally celebrating with my sisters. Neverthe- less, I still felt a lack, a sense of something missing. When my reading progressed to a number of books, which have appeared in recent years, describing the matriarchal cul- tures and religions that existed in prehistoric times, I began to understand why.

I tried to imagine what it must have been like to live in a society where people worshipped a female deity and where women held positions of power and responsibility. What would it feel like to pray to God the Mother? To sing paeans of praise to Her glory? As I experimented, in spite of my essential agnosticism, I found myself feeling a great sense of peace in the mere act of praying to a loving, female God. The experience was light-years away from the nightmares I had suffered as a child of being con- signed to hell by a punitive male god.

I also felt deep anguish to know that such religions had existed thousands of years ago, only to have been ruthlessly destroyed by barbaric patriarchal invaders. When I discussed these ideas with feminists from other parts of the world, at the International Women's Year Tribune in Mexico City, at the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women in Brussels and with women I met during other travels, they were as enthusiastic as. Mormons, Baptists and various fundamentalist religious groups were there in force, joined with the American Nazi Party, John Birch Society and Ku Klux Klan to try to subvert the conference.

When they began singing hymns, I sang along but with one major difference: I changed the hymns to Hers. When they sang, "He's got the whole world in his hands," I happily warbled, "She's got the whole world Isis loves me, this I know Mother Cod has told me so. She is strong and so are we Fighting for equality. In preparation for this conference I began to think through some of the ideas that had been taking form in my mind. The sum total of my experiences led me to realize that lack of faith in an organized religion had left a hole in my life which no amount of rational, philosophical specula- tions about the meaning of it all can fill.

The fact is I enjoy the rituals, symbols, songs, processions, ceremonies — the full panoply of organized religion. I like to wear clothing and jewelry that express my commitment to and faith in my beliefs. I enjoy singing along with people, joining hands, performing rites and acts that physically demonstrate and symbolize my emotional, spiritual and philosophical self — my deepest being. But I also realize that I am quite incapable of participating in such rituals while being totally opposed to the doctrines they rep- resent.

There is no way I can take part in a religion that preaches the subjugation of women. The answer to this dilemma then became so obvious that I am shocked not to have found it sooner. I believe the answer is to reinstate a feminist religion that can fulfill the human need for religious rituals at the same time that it celebrates our feminist faith in the ultimate good of 16 being female and invokes the Mother-God-given right of every woman to enjoy full freedom and equal opportunity in all aspects of life.

Such a religion would provide opportunities for women to meet together to take part in ceremonies and to reaf- firm our faith in our feminist beliefs. This spiritual and emotional renewal would strengthen the bonds among us. Besides providing spiritual sustenance, the feminist religion could be a powerful tool in our fight for equal rights.

In spite of the supposed Constitutional separation of church and state, the fact is that our legal codes are based on patriarchal religious dogmas and customs. The frequency with which opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment and other feminist issues quote the Bible to justify their opposition is evidence enough of the use of religion for political purposes.

The doctrine of an or- ganized religion that propounds feminist values as the direct reflection of Divine Intention is the ultimate answer to those who argue that a male god has decreed other- wise. Fighting fire with fire, our rites could help us win our rights. The NOW conference workshop offered the opportu- nity to explain these feelings and experiences to other women and to propose that we establish our own feminist religion. I also offered a few specific suggestions that seemed positive. First, that the religion be as undogmatic and non-authoritarian as possible to best serve as a ve- hicle for expressing the thoughts, feelings, needs and desires of all of us.

Second, that care must be exercised to avoid forming the usual hierarchy of clergy as separate from congregation and to assure maximum participation of everyone concerned in formulating and carrying out the doctrines and rituals of a feminist religion. I do, however, believe that a formal women's religious organization would be economically advantageous in that it would enable us to have access to the tax benefits allowed to other religious groups.

These benefits could help to cover the cost of clinics, publications, learning centers and many other aspects of the women's move- ment. In addition to these considerations, there is one fun- damental principle that I feel must be basic to our religion if it is to express feminist beliefs.

This is the divine right of every child to be born to a mother who wants it, which in turn would assure every woman the right to control her own body and to bear children only when and if she wholeheartedly wants to do so. I feel that the act of exercising this control, whether by means of birth control, abortion or abstention, should be considered to be in total accord with our belief in "divine intention. Since the aura of guilt and disgust surrounding female physiology promulgated by a misogynistic patriarchy is so destructive and damag- ing to women's emotional and physical well-being, I would like to see this attitude replaced by feelings of joy and self-affirmation in the inherent good of being female.

Generally, I would like our feminist religion to be positive, joyous and free of fear. Rather than teaching the dogma of original sin, we could proclaim the fact of original good. I would prefer a list of "Thou shalts" rather than "Thou shalt nots" and a philosophy of rewards for doing good rather than punishments for doing wrong. I would like our religion to affirm the intrinsic good of all expressions of love between humans, regardless of sex or of other artificial restrictions imposed by a patriarchal autocracy. Along with the suggestions that have been mentioned, we would welcome a wide diversity of other ideas, ac- cording to people's needs and desires.

These might come from Wicca, Zen or any other source that we feel has something valuable to offer us. In summary, I would like to mention that the enthusi- astic response of those who took part in the NOW work- shop convinced me that many women feel the need for a religion of our own and I suggest that the time is ripe for establishing it now.

Its members are now in the process of applying for tax exempt status. In order to protect the principle of separation of church and state, I think that there should be no tax exemptions for religions, but since there are, it is essential that we share the advantage.

If interested, write to: The Mother Church, P. Box , Satellite Beach, Florida Horned Ishtar, "Lady of the Hand. Hathor, The Horned One. We change them, we're all the time changing them! But they body our sense of good! Images of power, of trans- formation, of harmony and of duality. One woman empowering another. The crucial exchange of gifts.

I cross the cir- cle to give you something; you cross the circle to give her something. And so on until we have all changed places. Power held is powerless; power given is power for all. In feminist ritual we main- tain 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 sep- aration, the dispersal which is feared but necessary, cannot disconnect us from that ritual circle. Once that circle is created and affirmed, chaos is sub- dued.

Although some theoretical attention has been given to the recent spiritual awakening within the women's move- ment, very little writing has been direct- ed toward analysis of the use of ritual by women. What do these ritual acts mean to contemporary U. And what is their significance in terms of the women's movement? Feminists are primarily at work re- vising the male-biased ideological bases of culture; some are now en- gaged in the creation of rituals to pro- mote and sanction this serious turning away from the old to the new.

As in traditional societies, feminist ritual provides an emotional, descriptive, intensified and sanctifying version of emergent ideological systems.

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Femi- nist ritual offers an imagistic revitali- zation for women, participation in the concrete, bodily expressive creation of new images of the feminine which will help alleviate the stress of a liminality. The evaluation of culture by Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo in her theoretical overview for Woman, Culture and Soci- ety serves as useful background mate- rial for answering why women have cre- ated rituals as an expression of the need for revitalization and as an im- petus for political action.

She states that "an asymmetry in the cultural evaluations of male and fe- male, in the importance assigned to women and men, appears to be uni- versal. Everywhere, from those societies we might want to call most egalitarian to those in which sexual stratification is most marked, men are the locus of cultural value. Only men define, possess and confer power or authority, and power is the necessary ingredient for the creation of culture.

Women are therefore con- signed to live on the fringes of culture, locked in domestic zones which are rarely defined as part of the cultural territory. Rosaldo elaborates this point by using Mary Douglas's notion of "the anomalous. Douglas has called this sort of thing "anomalous," The idea of "order" depends, logically, on "disorder" as its opposite, yet society tries to set such things aside.

Where men 'are classified in terms of ranked, institution- al positions, women are simply women and their activities, interests and dif- ferences receive only idiosyncratic note. Female power is almost without excep- tion displayed covertly under the rubric of influence or association with the right man. But Rosaldo makes a unique claim for the possible use women may make of their anomalous or liminal po- sitions.

Even though women's status is lowest in those societies where there is the greatest distinction between the public and domestic realms and where women are isolated from each other, "their position is raised when they can challenge those claims of male author- ity, either by taking on men's roles or by establishing social ties, by creating a sense of rank, order, and value in a world in which women prevail.

In other words, by giving special atten- tion to their anomalous status, women have been able "to take on powers uniquely their own. Men have tenaciously held the rights to ritual use since the suppression of the ancient priestesses of the goddess. In fact the participation in ritual by men has been their most profound display of cultural authority and their most direct access to it. The performance of ritual in most societies, "primitive" and "civilized," is a simultaneous ack- nowledgment of men's warrant to create.

Here we see a further distinction be- tween the sacred and the profane based on the asymmetry of male-fe- male relationships. As Mircea Eliade has shown, sacred space is "manifested space," it is cre- ated as sacred by men and in most so- cieties women have little or no access to it. Of course men live in the profane world too in fact we all live there most of the time , but when they choose to do so or when the "gods" command them to do so they may enter another world, a world of the sacred, and through ritual practice they may take part in ordering that world and themselves.

The sacred realm is that of being and becoming, a realm saturated with power and critical- ly "off-limits" to the female half of the human species. That women in the United-States and elsewhere have begun to claim sacred space for themselves, to create rituals which emphasize their loyalty to each other and finally name the powers which men have found "anomalous" i. Asserting the right to ritual means as a source of power, vision and solidarity is the sym- bolic corollary of equal pay, choice of abortion, domestic freedom, the estab- lishment of women's businesses, etc.

Successful and enduring change in the status of women will come only through the parallel transformation of symbols and realities. Feminist ritual practice is currently the most important model for symbolic and, therefore, psychic and spiritual change in women. Here I would like to describe briefly a number of feminist rituals which characterize the kind and variety of ex- pression this form has taken.

At the bottom of these wells she leaves personal and found objects wrapped in animal skins. Next to these bundles Pinto makes a pritnitive fireplace with shards and cooking utensils. She constructs a lad- der and leaves it down the side of the well as an invitation for others to come in. Henes defines web-making as the "most basic female instinct" and has made a personal ritu- al of web-making over the past three years. I often notice that the mirror reflects an image which makes me question myself, feel critical or dissatisfied with my ap- pearance. I don't ignore it as trivial, because I recognize that the mirror is infested with a very common political poison, virus hollywoodius or television- iensis, subtle pressure to measure up to a pattern designed to enslave.

Just to free myself of that pressure isn't a magical operation. But hundreds of other women will use that mirror. I pour suggestive energy into the mirror, encouraging anyone who might look in it to see herself in her true beauty. I rein- force the suggestion with all the power of my will and call on the Coddess of Beauty Herself, blessed Aphrodite, to banish that which would deny Her, as She exists in all of us. Let a circle form and each one place her article in front of her, and next to it a fruit, seed or cone. Join hands and chant in unison the names of all present — several times till the energy is high.

Then pause and chant the months of the year from the Winter Solstice to the Autumn Equinox. Now let each one in turn hold her article while she tells her friends of her accom- plishment and something she has learned from it. When all have spoken all shall pick up the fruit, seed or cone in front of them and picture inwardly the process of its change from seed to plant to flower to seed. Again let each woman speak in turn of what her accomplishment has meant to her growth and how she thinks it may be useful to her self and others.

At this time if she feels grateful, let her give thanks. If she wants to dance, let her move. When all have expressed their feeling, with closed eyes ask yourself "What is the next stage in the process of my growth? After the joy of harvest After the work of the day After the time of fulfillment Comes the time of rest. After the seed is planted Nature takes care of the rest" On the streets of downtown Boston a woman wearing a high feather head- dress makes a circle of cornmeal, places three ears of corn in the center of the circle and begins a rhythmic chant naming the goddesses of the Americas before the conquest Tonant- zin, Chicomecoaltl, Blue Corn Girl, IxChel, etc.

After the chant is finished, she calls on women passing by, invites them into the circle and blesses them by saying in litany form an ancient Az- tec poem from the Poesia Nahautl: Now o friends Listen to the words of a dream Each spring brings us new life The golden corn refreshes us And the pink corn makes us a necklace At least this we know: The hearts of our friends are true While the women alternate in speaking the lines of the poem to each other, they hold an ear of corn between them and tear the sheaves down exposing the fresh corn.

This ritual has been per- formed from coast to coast with at least women receiving the blessing since it was first done in Painting the red quarter moon on their foreheads as a symbol of their special condition, they use the time spent in the hut for experi- encing and affirming the culmination of cyclic process.

It is a time for medi- tation and separation, but separation without the patriarchal connotations of impurity, defilement and unworthiness. The' menstrual flow is equated with the particular power of the feminine and time spent apart in the hut is for per- sonally determining the course of that power. The following ritual was recounted in Sundance, a journal devoted to the study and sharing of dreams. In a past issue of Womansptrit there is an article by Halite Mountainwing describ- ing an overnight wilderness event attend- ed by twelve women.

The purpose of the venture was to share dreams, "be- come deeper friends and explore the meaning to each of them of being wom- en. To prepare for dreaming together, the twelve women arranged their sleep- ing bags into a "wheel" surrounding a central pole. In addition, each woman had two strands of ribbon attached to her sleeping bag which were then at- tached to the pole, making a "dream net.

As an ap- proximation to a contemporary experi- ment in revelation, a twelve-person "dream wheel" inspires continued ex- ploration. A form of this ritual is still performed today but the following account was recorded in by Basauri and trans- lated by J. A hollow is made in a level place and filled with water.

This hollow should be of sufficient size so that a woman may take a bath in it. The woman, who hopes to benefit from the ceremony is placed in it completely naked. Once she is in and the liquid reaches to the height of her breasts, they [other women who par- ticipate in the ceremony] cover the sur- face with flowers. Several women, friends of the one to be benefited, the number of which may vary, but never falls below five, take hands and dance around the bather, some singing and others saying a prayer in Maya.

The dance lasts an hour, and during that time the dancers take flowers which they have already pre- pared, stoop down to moisten them in the water in which the principal bathes, and throw them on the breast of the woman making the ceremony la sol i- citante. During the dance it is the cus- tom to make nine turns in one direction, stop a moment to moisten the flowers, and then repeat the same number of turns in the opposite direction.

When the ceremony is ended, the dancers retire, the woman remains alone in the water, and, on coming out, she takes a quantity of it, which she carries with her to em- ploy in the preparation of her husband's or lover's food. The overt goal of the ritual is not the only reason for performing it; something significant is taking place in the act of performance too. An in- dividual woman is uplifted and sac- ralized by her sisters, her comadres, herC-R group, her kind.

The above presentation of wom- an's rituals is by no means exhaustive. In fact the range of expressive mate- rial in current feminist ritual sets is so diverse, multivocal and widespread that one of the major tasks of the his- torical branch of the women's move- ment must be to document the growth of ritual events. The Women's revolution is not merely about equality within a patriarchal soci- ety a contradiction in terms. It is about power and redefining power. Within patriarchy, power is generally under- stood as power over people, the environ- ment, things. In the rising consciousness of women, power is experienced as power of presence to ourselves and to each other, as we affirm our own being against and beyond the alienated iden- tity bestowed upon us within the patri- archy.

This is experienced as power of absence by those who would objectify women as 'the other,' as magnifying mirrors. None of the rituals mentioned above would be considered effective if a transfer of power had not resulted. Yet it is of critical importance to note that power is rarely considered an object of possession which the group or individu- al may get hold of during ritual activity. What is stressed through ritual is the dynamic quality of power, the continu- al exchange of gifts which heightens the affirmative identity of all who par- ticipate.

Power emanates from within as it is simultaneously received from without. For women in revolution it is imperative to create an entirely new value system, the heart of which will be a dramatic reassessment of the use of power. Ritual serves as a primary way of affirming commitment to that re- assessment. The ritual setting provides a place for knowing the easy, direct exchange and sharing of power. Cer- tainly ritual is an idealized microcos- mic experience, but it may be an en- durably important means of invoking a new order of things in the macrocosm.

At the very least it has been a useful 22 mode for envisioning what a different world for women might feel like. The word "feeling" deserves special mention in connection with women's rituals. In fact it is a word we must never neglect in talking about any ritu- al. Evon Vogt once asked a ritual par- ticipant, "Why do you go through the ceremonies?

Why do you do what you do? Perhaps most im- portant is the way in which ritual up- holds and celebrates the validity of feeling as a mode of revelation, com- munication and transvaluation. In some of the rituals described above the flow of feelings, change in feelings or sharing of feelings with others is a high- ly desirable goal in performing the ritual. In discussing the reasons underlying the performance of ritual acts in the feminist community, we must under- score the importance of ritual as a formalized consecration of female bonding.

The ritual concretization of the idea reflected in the popular fem- inist slogan "Sisterhood is Powerful" is extremely important in demonstrating the cohesiveness and commitment of the feminist community. A primary function of ritual is to connect the in- dividual with the group — dramatically, indissoluably. In ritual the desire is to achieve shared meanings, shared reso- lutions, shared emotion, not to pro- mote private images or dreams. The specific rites which comprise many feminist rituals reaffirm relationship, belonging and identity.

Ritual acts maintain a symbolic center of which all the participants are aware. This center is a place to which one can return for support and comfort long after the ceremony has ended. A relational or ideological bond cemented formally through ritual procedure is nothing if not enduring.

Being capable of membership in a group and finding ways of expressing that membership and acting it out are necessary for the success of any polit- ical revolution. Let us not forget that less than ten years ago Lionel Tiger told us "women do not bond"' 8 and in so saying implied women are incapable of creating significant political institu- tions. It is already evident that women have effected widespread social change to enumerate the accomplish- ments to date would fill pages since the formal resumption of the feminist movement in Ritual participation will no doubt stimulate further and deeper political change for there is, in- deed, a continuum between ritual and everyday life for feminists.

The female bonds established in ritual lend in- centive to the female bonds that in- spire social change. The use of ritual is significant as a source for the re- newal of commitment to evolving and transforming society as a whole. Many feminists in fact consider the ritual setting and experience to serve as a visionary mode. In feminist rituals which utilize peyote, a good portion of the night-long ceremony is given over to envisioning the future of the self, the group and the world. In authentic ritual experience something, an ability to break through the present, is avail- able which can lead to discovery and creativity.

Ritual is a potent source of invention because the participants feel the extreme intensity, sometimes the ecstasy, of openness to possibility and revelation. This sense of extreme open- ness and creativity is rare for women who have been traditionally circum- scribed by severe limitation, con- strained by custom, with no hope for a changed future.

Another important consideration is the way feminist ritual purposefully im- parts information of a special kind, information which has been unavail- able to women and actually suppressed for hundreds of years. I refer specif- ically to the ritual communication of feminine images, primarily the commu- nication of images of the goddesses. The suppression of the goddess in our culture has meant the loss of images which identify personal and collective power in women.

The odas spirit-being has power to protect the owner's health, in return for which she must be giv- en a dance and new clothes every spring. It is much more crucial for feminists, for all women, to uncover and recover their imagistic heritage as represented in the powers and tales of the goddesses and to create new im- ages which represent women's recent emergence as many women in the plastic and performing arts are now doing than it is to prove the absolute historical existence of a widespread matriarchy.

I have no doubt that some matriarchies did exist. The important consideration, however, is not the fact that women ruled over men but that they "ruled" themselves and that they had culturally approved or at least culturally active models for distin- guishing their powers from others. In many ancient civilizations the fem- inine world was not as "anomalous" as it currently is. Women had access to powerful images and used them to order and maintain their particular spheres of life. One of the most important shrines in the pre-Conquest Mayan world was located on Cozumel Island twenty miles off the coast of the Yucatan.

It was dedicated to IxChel, the pre- eminent goddess of the moon, water, childbirth, weaving and love, who was equal in status to the great father god, Itzamma. Her shrine was visited by women from all over the Mayan world, some traveling hundreds of miles from Guatemala and El Salvador. Inside the shrine a giant image of the goddess served as an oracle for these women pilgrims. The statue was hollowed out in back; a priestess would stand in that pro- found cavity and impersonate the god- dess, become a speaking image of the goddess and in fact imagine herself the goddess.

To imagine is to make an image or become an image; impersona- tion of this sort was an achievement of relation with the goddess and a means of absorbing her powers. Images are sources of identification; they tell us who we most profoundly, most arche- typally are. The Mayan women who vis- ited the shrine at Cozumel were seek- ing affirmation of their own powers primarily the power to give birth, to be fruitful and they received it through the pilgrimage itself the association with peers , idol worship intense iden- tification with an image through the blessing bestowed by the personified goddess, the priestess.

Much the same identification is sought and achieved in feminist rituals. Ritual is a special vehicle of commu- nication for feminists; ritual speaks a visceral language of restoration of sym- bols and provides an opportunity to utilize them personally. Sherry Ortner says that "Efforts directed solely at changing the social institutions cannot have far-reaching effects if cultural language and imagery continue to pur- vey a relatively devalued view of wom- en. If, as Vogt maintains, "Ritual perpetuates knowledge essential to the survival of the culture," 20 women are just now learning how important it is to their survival to store and transmit fem- inine knowledge through ritual means.

Much of the available data on wom- en's rituals reveal the prominence of one individual as instigator or leader of the ritual. This is not always the case as many rituals are performed without a leader, including rituals which follow a format and are repeated the same way every time, rituals which rely on group spontaneity, group meditation or chanting, etc. Nevertheless, a number of women in the feminist community have emerged as ritualists, the counter- part to the shaman in traditional soci- eties.

Most women involved in intro- ducing ritual performance, however, do not call themselves shamans or think of themselves as such; they are most widely known simply as ritualists or practitioners or witches if they ad- here solely to the witchcraft tradition. The comparison between shamans and feminist ritualists is instructive only in demonstrating that their goals in per- formance are similar and, to a certain extent, their conception of self is anal- ogous. If the ultimate goal of ritual experi-.

A procedure must be decided upon in traditional soci- eties, custom determines procedure and followed correctly to lead the par- ticipants from one state of feeling to another. Both the shaman and feminist ritualist make preparations and later facilitate the group's progress in the actual ritual; both are capable of help- ing transformation to take place if the participants will trust them.

I am stress- ing here the fact that both shaman and feminist ritualist express a powerful sense of capability, that they can serve as links, as surrogates, that they can connect different realms of reality and facilitate change by embodying change. Both roles are played by individuals who have changed and are concerned with enabling the change of others. Eliade says of the shaman: She who is now cured of the tyranny of oppression offers that new sense of well- being to others. A traditional shaman may become a "professional transformer" practicing his art as oc- cupation whereas a feminist ritualist may rise to the occasion of transforma- tion only once in her lifetime although many ritualists practice somewhat reg- ularly.

Still, the necessity of their in- dividual acceptance of their power to change is crucial to the ultimate effect of the ritual. An obvious similarity between the traditional shaman and the feminist ritualist is that both do their work through performing singing, dancing, displaying, holding, hugging and, moreover, the performance is quite often geared to awakening and stim- ulating the participant's body. For both 24 ritualist and shaman see the body, not the mind, as the locus of transforma- tion.

The body is our first and last out- ward reality; it defines and conditions our life experience and gives us per- sonal identity and continuity. Both shaman and ritualist take the body to be the clearest, purest expression of self. And it is that aspect of self which mustfeel change before the intellectual or soul self can change. A chant I used in a ritual performance called Seeing the Voice expresses the bodily concerns of the transformer: My hands Open the curtains of your being Clothe you in a further nudity Uncover the bodies of your body My hands Inventanother body for yourbody " The body is also recognized by both, especially by the ritualist as the means for making conscious interconnections and unions that were unconscious or suppressed.

Ritual, through those who perform it, creates a new body, one body made of many, through which can be understood and realized the extremes of fear and love, the truly political dimensions of humanness. Finally, the relation between the shaman and his participant community and the parallel relation between the feminist ritualist and her participant community bears notation. Richard Schechner maintains that "the deep structure of shamanistic performance is a protagonist-antagonist conflict by means of which the secret wishes of the community are exposed and redis- tributed.

The Shaman is the vessel through which all that is powerful chooses to express itself. And these powers are inherent in community itself, are the community. The work of both the shaman and the ritualist is to make available, clarify and intensify powers that are the essence of community. Transformation is useless in isolation. A different comparison might be drawn between the artist and the ritu- alist. Here two items seem important: I said earlier that a primary objective of ritual is to achieve shared meanings and a sense of shared goals, not to pro- mote private images or dreams.

This is the crucial difference between the rit- ualist and the artist. The artist takes herself, her content and ability to ex- press that content as commendable to the world of meaning and aesthetics. She is a source of new meaning, novel- ty acting as a basis for determining ac- complishment. The ritualist is constant- ly at work to leave the self, to become a channel for transcendent experience. Gathering the group members, nourish- ing their need for each other and them- selves through the manipulation of dramatic forms — these are her aims.

As Donna Henes once told me in a per- sonal communication, "Making art locks me in myself, making rituals sets me free. I don't want to make art anymore. She is the exemplary mediatrix, simultaneously the weaver and the process of weaving. A quote from Octavio Paz, though not written with the ritualist in mind, helps to define the sense she has of herself: I am the other when I am myself, my acts are more my own when they are every- body's.

Because to be myself I must be other, go out of myself, seek myself among others, those others who are not if I do not exist. The ritualist defines her sense of powerfulness by her capacity to share it with others while the artist is concerned with obtaining power through manipulation of media and maintaining it for others to observe or partake of vicariously.

In stressing the communal nature of the ritual experience, it may appear that the concept of the self and its nur- turance are served by some means other than ritual. As the examples given earlier indicate, some feminist rituals are performed solely for the purpose of self-revelation. From its inception the women's movement has insisted on the importance of realizing the way in which political change comes out of re- interpretation and reinvention of the personal dimension the personal is political. All women have suffered the loss of affirmative, positive self-images as a direct result of their second-class status and consequent objectification in the male-dominant society, it is pain- ful to consider the countless lives wast- ed, the talents atrophied and the sick- ness suffered by women who were never allowed, least of all encouraged, to know themselves and take strength and happiness in that knowledge.

Sure- ly one of the most highly regarded uses of ritual in traditional societies is the curing of "soul loss" of one form or an- other. Twentieth-century, postindustri- al, special-privileged American women are engaged in ritual practice for much the same reason, metaphorically speak- ing. For women, the ritual setting is often a place for naming individual powers and sharing the affirmation of those powers with the group or simply inter- nalizing them through private ritual procedure.

Ritual provides a mode for getting in touch with the self and stay- ing in touch. Also, by definition, the ritual space and activity are sacred in the sense of representing the possibility of self-transformation. Part of the power and the fear experienced in ritual is the realization that one may change, become ultimately different, as a result of the experience or that the experience may suddenly make recognizable change that has been slowly rising from the depths of personality and ideology. Victor Turner states that "When a ritual does work A lost self is recovered, nurtured and allowed to emerge fully named.

Ritual facilitates transition for the participant in specific ways. As Turner 25 clearly states, "Practically all rituals of any length and complexity represent a passage from one position, constella- tion, or domain of structure to an- other. Before women can enter new roles they must leave old roles behind, roles that once provided the comforts of self-definition and reality structure.

Ritual participation can ease transition by rendering it in dramatic, metaphor- ical terms and providing a support group to encourage and enable the necessary catharsis to take place. The transfer of values from one framework to another leaves a woman just as vulnerable, suspended between two life styles. It is a dangerous time for the individual, one which requires the support of the feminist community and the use of ritual to promote ease in the transfer.

Women are realizing that this is a responsibility and a desire: We have all been guarded and we must all become guardians. The ritual setting allows women to know the power of guarding and the comfort of being guarded in a space that does not demand immediate resolution of the passage crisis. The crisis period may continue through many phases of recognition, adjustment and readjust- ment, the assimilation of which will fall primarily on the individual.

But the community has developed ritual means by which that transformation may be asserted and its painful aspects some- what absorbed by a formal claim made on the individual— a claim that she is new, that she is one of many, that she is welcome. For feminists, as for other practition- ers of ritual, doing the ritual is more im- portant than knowing the ritual.

The eficacy of ritual is always in the acting of it, in becoming bodily involved with the elements, not in understanding the text of belief or ideology which may underlie it. The essence of ritual is in physical relationship, one woman to another or one woman to herself in the circle they have created for each other. This article only begins the necessary process of defining and evaluating the emergence of ritual as an important component of the greater liberation movement.

To my knowledge, only Lucy Lippard's article in Chrysalis specifically deals with the meaning of ritual for feminists. No other theoretical material is available although move- ment media sources such as Woman- spirit, Lady-Unique-lnclination-of-t he- Night and Quest have been document- ing ritual practices among women since My sense of the importance of ritual for the feminist community comes out of an understanding of its historical importance for humanity. Ritual marks the ultimate ideal of rela- tionship between self and community, the fusion of two distinct realities rather than separation.

Mircea Eliade, Shamanism Princeton: Princeton University Press, 8. Lucy Lippard, "Quite Contrary: Also personal commu- nication. Observed at the Conference "Through the Looking Class: A Gynergenetic Ex- perience," Boston, Mass. Ruth Mountaingrove and Emily Culpep- per, "Menstruation: Cited in Lady-Unique-lnclination- ot-the-Night Cycle 1 , p.

Evon Vogt, Tortillas for the Gods Cam- bridge: Harvard University Press, Hawthorne Books, , pp. Cornell University Press, , p. One white feather and one black feather are crossed in the middle of the circle. Proceeding to the left around the circle, each is given a black feather; the black feather is held in the left hand, upward. Proceeding to the right around the circle, each is given a white feather; the white feather is held in the right hand, downward. Maintaining this mudra of duality, the friends close their eyes in meditation and reverie.

She is our mother whose face is a dark mask. The white feather is death. Go out and bury it; name some portion of your death a memory, a disappointment, a regret, an ill-feeling and send it down into the ground. Point the top of the feather westward, for the West is known as the "Looks- Within-Place, the house of birth, the region of sanctified women" in Frank Waters, Book of the Hopi, p.