Twelfth Conference on
Current Pagan Studies at Claremont
Graduate University in Claremont, California.
Longtime pal Anna Korn and I shared the long drive to the
Los Angeles area for this annual event that feeds my soul. I’ve attended several times since I was
invited to be a keynote speaker in 2009.
Last year was the first time Anna went now that she’s retired.
I find that this precious little conference (about 50
people) strikes a good balance between the American
Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, which draws thousands of participants
from all over the world and of which Pagan Studies and related sections
(Religion & the Environment, Goddess Studies, New Religious Movements,
Ritual Studies, et al.) are only a small part, and PantheaCon, which draws a general
Pagan public, features a small number of scholarly presentations, and often
tends to elicit fractiousness about one or another issue each year.
Each year presenters explore a theme. This year's theme was Social Justice.
Saturday, January 24
Armando Marini, “Murtagh An Doile,” a co-founder of the Pagan History Project gave an appropriately
historical talk on “Elitism and Identity
Formation in American Craft and Paganism: A Historical Perspective” in
which spoke knowledgeably about the underpinnings of contemporary American
expressions of Pagan thought and practice found in Freemasonry, fraternal
orders, early folkloric studies, as well as the spiritualist movement in 19th
century America and the “goddess movement” of the 1970s. Always fascinating to me, and always
too brief.
Kellen Smith followed with a presentation of her doctoral study
on “Feminist Spirituality: From
Counterculture Revolution to the Feminist Movement.” Listening to her talk
was like hearing one’s personal political history. Among her visuals were images of key, dare I say “ovarial,”
books such as Merlin Stone’s When God Was
a Woman (1976, when I received it as a birthday gift and it turned my
thinking around), Simone de Beauvoir’s The
Second Sex (1949), and Elizabeth Gould Davis’ The First Sex (1971), along with photos of the actions of W.I.T.C.H.
(Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell), among whose NY members
was Robin Morgan, editor of another germinal anthology, Sisterhood Is Powerful (1970).
Kellen had difficulty locating feminist periodicals from
those years. I mentioned that I
had sent lots of old issues of WomanSpirit,
Women of Power, Calyx, Lady-Unique-Inclination-of-the-Night,
Chrysalis, Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics, and others
whose names escape my senior mind at the moment, plus a few more contemporary
ones like Bitch and off our backs, to the New Alexandrian Library in
Delaware.
As it happens, after my early months meeting with a consciousness
raising group – that’s what we called those intimate women-only weekly
gatherings where we shared aspects of our lives not normally discussed, offered
sympathy and support, and analyzed how we saw our experiences in society – I
joined with others to form the San Francisco Women’s Studies Collective. Out of that group, three of us (Sandra
Butler, Carolyn Shaffer, and myself) created a resources list of feminist books
and other publications and resources.
There wasn’t a very long list then, maybe six double-sided typewritten
pages. We sold photocopies of it
for cost (something like 25 or 50 cents).
Marie Cartier, Preview
of The
Homofiles, a documentary co-produced with Kimberly Esslinger. We viewed the trailer which had
fascinating interviews of Lesbians both in and out of the closet. Marie has presented papers at past
Claremont gatherings I’ve attended and I’ve always enjoyed them, and more
importantly, I’ve learned things I otherwise wouldn’t have.
Keynote: Gus DiZerega, “Rethinking Social Justice in Accordance with Pagan Values” Gus
spoke enthusiastically about Aristotle, James Madison and the Federalist
Papers, specifically Federalist
Paper #10, and John Locke as forefathers who wrote about issues of justice. I didn’t take notes because I haven’t
yet regained the ability to write legible handwriting since my stroke in
July. However, I did manage to
write down an African proverb he cited that I think is worth quoting here: “I am because we are.” As someone with a ‘relational’ personality
and worldview, this proverb resonates strongly in me.
Wendy Griffin,
‘The New Telling”: Last year Wendy gave a presentation on
Paganism and the state of our home Earth that elicited tears from everyone
listening. This year she had
reworked some of that data into a story. She began with a framework of the Triple Goddess, saying that
the Maiden asks, “What about me?”
The Mother asks, “What about the children?” And the Crone asks, “What about the planet?” She also cited The Journey of the
Universe, by Thomas Berry, and works on eco-consciousness, specifically a film,
by Yale professor Mary Evelyn Tucker.
Mary Evelyn and her husband, John Grim, founded the Emerging Earth Community. (Small world: Way back in 1998, John
and I were both participants in the Biodiversity Project Spirituality Working
Group, a small gathering of religious and environmental leaders, in Madison,
WI; our work informed the publication of Building Partnerships with the
Faith Community: A Resource Guide for Environmental Groups. Unfortunately, the Biodiversity Project
is no longer, nor is the guide available.
The current webpage of The Biodiversity Project is a different entity.)
Flora |
Annie Brigit
Waters followed Wendy with “Sustainability
Must Embrace the Sacred.” Annie is an active member of the Grange in
Willits, California, way up in rural Mendocino County. Mendocino County, center of Ecotopia, is a far cry from
the cornfields of Iowa and the fields of the Midwest where the Grange (National Grange of the Order of Patrons of
Husbandry (formed as a national organization with a local focus in 1867
right after the dreadful American Civil War) movement had its earliest chapters.
Ceres |
Annie explained that the notions of Unity, Liberty, and
Charity are its underlying values.
Although women have been equal members since the inception of the Grange,
the founders were seven men. They
chose three Latin goddesses to symbolize their values, or as I would see it, as
the matrons of the organization: Flora, Ceres, and Pomona.
Pomona |
Grange halls around the country contain art and decorative
architectural embellishments featuring imagery of sheaves of grain, baskets of
apples, cornucopia, and Romantic images of these goddesses.
I’m given to understand that the founders of the Grange wrote
a series of rituals that in some way incorporated these goddesses. I haven’t been able to find any
online. Regardless, however, what
especially thrills me about Annie’s work with the Grange is her creation and
performance of rituals devoted to these three goddesses. These rituals can bring participants
and viewers into new relationships, new understandings, new reverence for the
gifts to humans that Flora, Ceres, Pomona embody.
[To be continued.]
3 comments:
I don't see the goddess as a feminist or as a feminist concept. She is the Mother of All That Is. The feminist movement strove to get women to avoid motherhood and still does.
Anonymous, your post reveals quite a lot about the undesirability of American men to women of any nationality.
While the Grange (Patrons of Husbandry) has its rituals private, it is general knowledge (at least out here where the Grange has strong influence in agricultural legislation), that the 7th Degree is the Eleusinian Degree, or at least that's how other IOOF Lodge members refer to it. The local Grangers are pushing "Best Practices" standards for all farms, big and small. They really are on the cutting edge of sustainable practices in application. Worth getting involved, in my opinion.
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