God the Mother
Worship of the Goddess is surging past alternative culture into mainstream
By Theresa WatanabeLos Angeles Times
In the womb of the Great Mother Earth, enveloped by the towering redwoods of the Santa Cruz mountains near La Honda, Calif., a bare-breasted Hawaiian beauty and a stately crone prepare to receive ordination. A purifying bonfire illuminates the black night as five women slowly circle with incense, a candle, a bell and bowls of water and earth.
"Tonight we welcome ourselves into the lap of the Goddess," elder priestess Ruth Barrett calls out, "We acknowledge, honor and celebrate . . . the resurgence of the Goddess."
The two women are smudged with the smoke of burning sage, anointed with sacred oil and given the ceremonial accouterments of the Dianic tradition of witchcraft: a necklace symbolizing rebirth, a scepter of leadership, and a crown of honor. Now high priestesses, they pledge to help women everywhere find "strength, courage and beauty."
The circle of women erupts into a delirium of dance, some prostrating themselves to the Great Mother and others sensually swaying like snakes. Some may snicker, but this ritual represents one expression of a phenomenon that is sweeping not only alternative culture but mainstream religion as well: a surging desire, even demand, for recognition of the feminine face of God - and of women as sacred sources of moral authority.
"Throughout history, women as a group have not had their experiences influence, develop, and further the understanding of religion," says Susan Maloney, director of the feminist spirituality program at Immaculate Heart College Center in Los Angeles, which offers the nation's only master's degree in the field.
Pondering whether feminist spirituality represents the next "intellectual revolution," Cullen Murphy - the managing editor of Atlantic Monthly magazine - writes that the "assessment may seem overblown, but in all likelihood it is not." "Feminism engages doctrine, liturgy, ministry, and leadership, and it engages them all at once, says Murphy, author of a survey of feminist biblical scholarship, "The Word According to Eve." Feminist spirituality is a hodgepodge of theologies, movements and motives, much of it sharply controversial and practiced both in and out of mainstream faiths. But the various strands are bound by a conviction that women are as godly as men and must regain their rightful place of respect and leadership in the world's spiritual communities.
Assertions of God's maleness -- the father, lord and master -- and biblical decrees for women to be silent and subordinate to men have propped up centuries of patriarchal practices, feminists argue. Recognition of a "divine feminine" -- or at least an all-embracing God that did not endow man with dominion over women -- would remove an enduring justification for sexist oppression, they say.
Embracing the feminine aspect of God would also free women and men alike to tap their creative, life-giving powers fully -- and counteract violence war and ecological destruction, says Episcopal priest and theologian Matthew Fox, whose Oakland-based University of Creation Spirituality teaches about the Goddess and other feminine wisdom traditions.
Among the myriad expressions of feminist spirituality, some people are choosing Mother Nature as their metaphor for God, or reviving the ancient worship of female deities -- Diana of Rome, Isis of Egypt, Kali of India.
Some subscribe to a controversial archeological theory that Neolithic cultures once worshipped a life-giving Goddess and, as a result, were models of peace, harmony and female leadership until they were invaded by warmongers who smashed the goddess faith and installed a patriarchal god. Others accept as articles of faith that Christianity ripped off some of their symbols and celebrations: the sacred trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, they believe, was lifted from the pagan female trinity of maiden, mother and crone used to symbolize the cycle of life.
For many of the women involved, however, the grand debates over competing religious visions are less immediate than the personal impact feminist spirituality has had on their lives.
Goddess followers say their experience of God the Mother is connected to the cycles of life and rhythms of nature and is powerfully healing. Aging women are honored as wise crones; overweight women find ancient Goddess figures abundant; women surrounded by male authority find inspiration in the power and beauty of such goddesses as Diana, the Roman huntress and protectress of living creatures.
San Francisco resident Melusina Del Mar is organizing a theater to retell myths with a feminist twist "Wake Up, Sleeping Beauty" -- and hopes to launch a line of comic books -- featuring goddesses and superheroines. Catherine Wright left 20 years of life as a Catholic nun and now works in Los Angeles to raise the image of Mary Magdalene from a redeemed prostitute to a powerful leader of the early church.
Paula Vigneault of Santa Barbara came to embrace her own feminine nature, which she said she devalued for years while pursuing a competitive career in the sciences among the preferred company of men.
"I viewed females or even women I knew as weak, wishy-washy, ineffective, boring. They would sit around at work and talk about the great sale on toilet paper," said Vigneault, who proceeded to chuck a career in medicine and now runs a, metaphysical bookstore and organizes annual Goddess conferences.
The "Goddess movement" has also spawned a busy conference circuit replete with events like the recent La Honda "Goddess 2000" festival, which drew about 200 women for workshops featuring American Indian pipe rituals, Hawaiian altar making, drumming, sacred dance and the like. Some spiritual feminists are tackling the grueling academic discipline of biblical scholarship. These scholars, masters of ancient languages and extraordinarily arcane analytical techniques, are reinterpreting traditional scripture and drawing on alternative documents to challenge what they see as sexism's theological grounding: the diminished role women have played in the Bible and the largely male interpretations of Scripture, such as blaming Eve for humankind's downfall in the Garden of Eden.
"The ways the Bible can be interpreted have opened up, and there is a growing bibliography of women's perspectives," said Phyllis Trible, a renowned biblical scholar at Wake Forest University who broke ground more than 20 years ago with the first feminist reinterpretation of the Adam and Eve story. "But this has not melted down into the Sunday schools or churches yet."
Still others aim to reform mainstream faiths from within. They are flocking to theological schools and rabbinical institutes, taking on careers as ministers and rabbis, demanding that masculine references to God in Scripture hymnals and prayer books be neutralized.
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