Drawing Down the Moon (31 page)

In 1974, Kelly received copies of some Book of Shadows materials written by Gerald Gardner. These were owned by Carl Weschcke of Llewellyn Publications, and were sent to him by Isaac Bonewits, who first recognized their importance. Kelly also visited Ripley's in Toronto in 1975. It was there where he first saw the manuscript entitled “Ye Bok of Ye Art Magical,” and deduced that it was the prototype of Gardner's Book of Shadows. He wrote a manuscript, “The Rebirth of Witchcraft,” for Llewellyn. Kelly says it was too scholarly for Llewellyn's market and Carl Weschcke declined to publish it. Kelly used it to satisfy some requirements in his doctoral program, which he completed in 1980.

In 1976 Aidan realized that he had a serious personal problem and began seeking ways to deal with it. At the time the Pagan movement was not a mature enough movement to have its own resources for counseling, or twelve step programs, although some of these programs exist today. Unable to see how to use Craft methods to help him, in 1978 he rejoined the Catholic Church in order to cope with his problem. Aidan's memoir,
Hippie Commie Beatnik Witches,
covers the period of his life from 1953 to 1977. In 1978 he wrote me:

For a time, Aidan believed that the Goddess movement was simply a radically dissenting type of Christian sect, and that it was not Mary who was a pale reflection of the Great Goddess, but the Goddess who was a “de-Christianized and backdated version of Mary.”

But in 1988, along with a second marriage, he returned to the Craft, joining a Gardnerian coven. His book
Crafting the Art of Magick
was published in 1991, and his
Religious Holidays and Calendars
in 1993. After that marriage ended and another began, Kelly and his present wife began to work in a 1734 tradition coven. (See “Traditions” in Chapter 5). Now living in Tacoma, Washington, and married, with a number of children, Kelly has made his living teaching at various colleges and high schools, as well as working in the computer industry. He has still been beset with a number of psychological problems, although he has conquered the problems that plagued him in earlier years. And perhaps, showing that things do come full circle at times, he and his current wife, Melinda Taylor-Kelly, founded Witch Grass Coven in 2000. It is a NROOGD-based coven with 1734 influence.

Note to the 2006 Edition: I have very complex emotions about this chapter. The passion and power is so striking. But today it reads as an amazing piece of history, and one that seems to have taken place a very long time ago. It was written in 1975, before President Ronald Reagan entered the White House and before Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. There was an incredible optimism about changing society and ending patriarchal oppression; from the perspective of twenty-first century America, there was perhaps a certain naïveté. But the power and spontaneity that came from the second wave of feminism and led directly from the consciousness-raising group to many feminist spirituality groups and covens changed the lives of countless women. I have decided to leave the chapter pretty much as is, with a few minor corrections, and address the question of feminist spirituality today at the end.

—I SAMUEL, 15:23

 

 

 

THERE ARE FEW moments in life, for most of us, when one feels as if one has stepped into a Minoan fresco or into the life of a wall painting from an Etruscan tomb. But on a full-moon summery night, in the unlikely borough of Staten Island, I entered such a moment.

Nineteen women, including a visiting Italian feminist and a well-known writer, sat nude in a circle in a darkened room. Molded candles of yellow hung by thongs from a loft bed. The small, bright flames cast a pattern of light and shadow. The room seemed powered by the muted oranges and reds of the bed coverings, and by the sweet scent of damiana mixed with marijuana, and by the pungent incenses that permeated the air, incenses with names like Vesta and Priestess.

A bathtub was filled with cool water, scented with musk and flower petals. A flutist played soft music while the women, one by one, entered the water, bathed, and were towel-dried by the others. There was laughter and a sense of ease.

After a short ritual a goblet was filled to the brim with wine and passed sunwise around the circle. The most powerful moment was yet to come: the pouring of libations to the goddesses and heroines of old. Each woman took a sip, then dipped her fingers into the wine and sprinkled a few drops into the air and onto the floor. As she did so, she invoked a particular goddess, gave thanks, or expressed a personal or collective desire. The well-known writer asked for the inspiration of Sappho to aid her in the work on her new book. The Roman Goddess Flora was thanked for the coming of spring and summer. Laverna—Roman goddess of thieves—was invoked to help a woman gain acquittal in a court case. Laverna was invoked again by a woman who had been caught using “slugs” instead of tokens in the New York subways.
²
Demeter, Isis, Hecate, Diana—the names continued. The goblet passed to each woman three times and the requests became more and more collective. Concerns were expressed for the coven as a whole, for women in struggle everywhere, for women in prison and in mental wards, for the feminist movement. And great hopes for the future were expressed by all. The ritual ended with the music of drums and flutes.

Fruit was brought out and shared—a large bowl carved from a watermelon, filled with blueberries and pieces of honeydew and cantaloupe. There were plates filled with olives and dates. There was a foamy strawberry drink and a huge block of ice cream covered with berries, and one large spoon. It was easy to feel transported to another age, some great festival, perhaps, an ancient college of priestesses on a remote island somewhere in the Aegean. . . .

This meeting was not unique. Such rituals have been taking place in many parts of the country. Feminist covens are springing up all over the United States, some of them showing more creativity, more energy, and more spontaneity than many of the more “traditional” groups that have been in existence for years. I have had personal contact with nine of these covens, located in Texas, California, New York, Oregon, Florida, and Massachusetts. There are others in Missouri, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and, almost certainly, many other states.

The presence of the feminist movement as a force that connects with Neo-Paganism and modern Witchcraft has had many ramifications. Links have been forged between these groups and new strains have been created. Many men (and some women) in the more mainstream Craft groups are upset by the growth of feminist covens, since many feminist Witches have purposely rejected some principles, norms, and structures of the modern Craft. Moreover, a number of feminists have stated that women are Witches by right of fact that they are women, that nothing else is needed, and feminist Witch Z Budapest has at times declared the Craft to be “Wimmins Religion,” a religion not open to men. In addition, feminist Witches have stated that Witchcraft is not incompatible with politics, and further that the Craft is a religion historically conceived in rebellion and can therefore be true to its nature only when it continues its ancient fight against oppression.

In most of what we still may call the “counterculture,” the split between the political and the spiritual seems to be widening. In contrast, portions of the feminist movement seem to be combining political and spiritual concerns as if they were two streams of a single river. In the early '70s there were a number of feminist conferences on questions of spirituality; several attracted more than a thousand participants. On the same agenda with discussions of Witchcraft, matriarchies, and amazons and workshops on the psychic arts, such as tarot, astrology, massage, psychic healing, and meditation, were discussions and workshops on the relationship between political, economic, and spiritual concerns.
³
It became clear at these conferences that many women regarded political struggles and spiritual development as interdependent, and felt that both were needed to create a society and culture that would be meaningful to them.

Linking feminist politics with spirituality and, in particular, with Witchcraft is not a new idea; the connection, which may be very ancient, was noticed in 1968 by the founders of WITCH, a group of women who engaged in political and surrealist protest actions. In its first manifesto WITCH stated that the link between women, Witchcraft, and politics is very old:

The organization came into existence on All Hallows Eve 1968. The original name of the group was Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell, a name that certainly ruffled the feathers of conservative members of the Craft. But actually, only the letters were fixed; the name kept changing to suit particular needs. At a demonstration against the policies of Bell Telephone the group emerged as Women Incensed at Telephone Company Harassment. This kind of change happened a number of times.

At the time WITCH was founded it was considered a fringe phenomenon by the women's movement. Today its sentiments would be accepted by a much larger number of feminists, albeit still a minority.

Up to now we have seen the Neo-Pagan revival as a movement of men and women attempting to live a way of life and uphold values that have been a minority vision in Western culture. In general, Neo-Pagans embrace the values of spontaneity, nonauthoritarianism, anarchism, pluralism, polytheism, animism, sensuality, passion, a belief in the goodness of pleasure, in religious ecstasy, and in the goodness of
this
world, as well as the possibility of many others. They have abandoned the “single vision” for a view that upholds the richness of myth and symbol, and that brings nourishment to repressed spiritual needs as well as repressed sensual needs. “Neo-Pagans,” one priestess told me, “may differ in regard to tradition, concept of deity, and ritual forms. But all view the earth as the Great Mother who has been raped, pillaged, and plundered, who must once again be exalted and celebrated if we are to survive.”

Most women and men who have entered Neo-Paganism have done so because the basic tenets or the actual practices of one or another Neo-Pagan group came close to feelings and beliefs they already held. It “felt like home.” It provided a spiritual and religious framework for celebration, for psychic and magical exploration, and for ecological concern and love of nature.

But some women have taken a very different path to Neo-Paganism. These feminists have a history of political action. They view all human concerns as both spiritual and political, and they regard the separation between the two as a false idea born of “patriarchy,” an idea unknown before classical times and one that has produced much bitter fruit—the splitting of human beings into “minds” and “bodies.” In this country, as we shall see, the writings of Native Americans often make this same point: that there is a relationship between the political and the spiritual. What is the nature of this understanding? How have feminists come to it? And how has this led to an identification with Witches and Witchcraft?

The two women who edited the
New Woman's Survival Sourcebook
⁵
describe what they found on a cross-country journey:

Susan Rennie and Kirsten Grimstad said that they began to feel that their early impressions stemmed from a conditioning that had led them to suspect and ridicule anything that could not be “scientifically validated” and that they had always associated things spiritual with reactionary politics. They soon changed their view. As they traveled, they came to feel that women were becoming sensitized to “the psychic potential inherent in human nature,” that women are “the repository of powers and capabilities that have been suppressed, that have been casualties of Western
man's
drive to technological control over nature.” They put forth the idea that women have an even deeper source of alienation than that which comes from the imposition of sex roles; that, in fact, patriarchy has created the erroneous idea of a split between mind and body and that women's exploration of spirituality is “in effect striving for a total integration and wholeness,” an act that takes the feminist struggle into an entirely new dimension. “It amounts,” they said, “to a redefinition of reality,” a reality that challenges mechanistic views of science and religion as well as masculine politics.