Starhawk - Famous Witches - WitchcraftFamous Witches - Starhawk (1951 - )Starhawk, founder of the Reclaiming Collective and initiate of the Faery tradition (from )Starhawk is an American writer, feminist, anarchist, peace activist and self-described and witch. She co-founded the of in the late 1970s, and is considered a pioneer in the revival of earth-based spirituality and Goddess religion.
Starhawk Starhawk (Miriam Simos; born 1951) was a leading theoretician and practitioner of feminist Wicca (witchcraft) in the United States 1. Looking for books by Starhawk? See all books authored by Starhawk, including The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess,.
She is well known as a theorist of and is one of the foremost popular voices of ecofeminism.Born Miriam Simos on 17 June 1951 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA. Her parents were the children of Jewish immigrants from Russia, and her father died when she was just five. She studied film at UCLA, during which time she won the Samuel Goldwyn Award for her 1973 “A Weight of Gold”, a film about Venice, California, where she then lived. She also earned an M.A.
In Psychology and Feminist Therapy from Antioch University West in San Francisco. She married Edwin Rahsman in 1977.In the mid 1970s, she tought classes in witchcraft in San Francisco, was initiated into in the Faery tradition, and established her first coven, Compost. She became one of the foremost proponents and teachers of Reclaiming (originally known as Reclaiming Collective), an international community of women and men working to combine earth-based spirituality and political activism, which was formed amid the peace and anti-nuclear movements of the late 1970s and early 1980s in the San Francisco Bay Area. The movement blended the influences of Victor and Cora Anderson's of witchcraft, as taught by, and the feminist, anarchist, peace, and environmental movements.She worked as a psychotherapist in San Francisco from 1983 to 1986, and then taught at Antioch University West and other colleges in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Starhawk
Written and compiled by George Knowles
Starhawk is anAmerican social and political activist,a feminist Witch and the author of several books on Goddess spirituality,Witchcraft and Paganism.Her mostfamous book:The Spiral Dance:A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddesswas first published in1979, and has been credited with inspiring many people, particularly women, tojoin the craft and discover their own spirituality.
Starhawk was born Miriam Simos in St. Paul, Minnesota, onthe 17th June 1951.Herfather Jack Simos (a socialworker) died when she was just 5years old, while her mother Bertha Claire Goldfarb Simos was a professor ofsocial work at UCLA (University ofCalifornia - Los Angeles).Hergrandparents were immigrant Orthodox Jews from Russia, and so as a child she wasbrought up in that same religion.Lateras she became more aware of the bias shown against women in main-linereligions, she gravitated away from Judaism into Goddess spirituality, Witchcraft and Paganism.
Skacząca panda my talking panda. Educated in public schools, Starhawk proved to be a naturalleader, and while still in high school was involved in organizing Vietnam Warpeace/protest rallies, her first experience with social activism.This early experience ledto her life long association withpolitical activism within the feminist movement, and her active participation inland and environmental issues.Morerecently she is more involved with anti-Globalization issues and Permaculture (*seedefinition below).
After finishing high school in 1968, Starhawk moved to Venice,California and enrolled at the UCLA as a film student majoring in Art.She graduated from there witha B.A. degree (cum laude) in1972.A year later in 1973,she started a graduate course in Psychology and feminist therapy at Antioch WestUniversity, eventually earning a M.A. degree in 1982.
Los Angelesduring the late 1960’s had become one of America’s hot-spot breeding groundsfor the newly emerging feministand Neo-Pagan movements, and it was here that Starhawk became involved inGoddess worship.Throughout theearly 1970’s she studied magick and witchcraft with a number of prominentteachers, most notably with Victor H. Anderson (founder of the Faery tradition)and Zsuzsanna Budapest (founder of America’s first women’s only coven, the SusanB. Anthony Coven Number One).
ZsuzsannaBudapest-Victor H. Anderson
By the mid1970’s Starhawk was teaching her own classes on witchcraft at the Bay AreaCentre for Alternative Education in San Francisco, and while there founded herfirst coven Compost.Onthe 22nd January 1975she married her first husband Edwin Rahsman, a marriage that lasted until October1982(one source says he deceased,another that they divorced??).
Later in1975, her Compost coven became one of the original member covens that formed theCovenant of the Goddess (COG).Ayear later following on from Alison Harlow their first President, she waselected to the same high office for the term 1976-1977.She later founded another coven called Honeysuckle, a women’sonly coven, perhaps inspired by that of her earlier mentor Zsuzsanna Budapest,however the rituals used in both her covens were based on those of the Faerytradition taught to her by Victor Anderson.
AlisonHarlow
From 1978 to 1980 Starhawk worked as a freelance filmwriter on industrial training films, during which her first book was publishedin 1979:TheSpiral Dance:ARebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess.The Spiral Dance documents her early experiences working with ZsuzsannaBudapest, and her training in Faery Witchcraft with Victor and Cora Anderson.Following the launch of her book and while working with Diane Baker,together they founded a more politically active coven called Raving.This eventually became known as:Reclaiming:ACentre for Feminist Spirituality and Counseling.Based in Berkeley, California, coven Raving taught basic classes called:Elements of Magic, and was focused mainly on Goddessspirituality.
In 1982 after completing her Master’s degree at AntiochWest University, from 1983 to 1986 she worked as a psychotherapist specializing in feminist therapy in San Francisco.Shelater took up teaching positions at Antioch West and various other colleges inthe San Francisco Bay Area.As wellas teaching, Starhawk traveled extensively throughout the USA, and visited Europeand the Middle East giving lectures on various aspects Goddessspirituality and workshops on performing Craft Rituals.
During the late 1980’s Starhawk contributedto and was featured in a trio of filmdocumentaries directed by DonnaRead.Producedfor the National Film Board of Canada and known as the Women’s SpiritualitySeries, the first film Goddess Remembered was released in 1989 andexamines theories aboutGoddess worship in Old European cultures.It was followed by The Burning Times released in 1990, which givesa feminist view of the EarlyEuropean witchcraft trials.Thefinal film of the series FullCircle was released in1993, and focuses on Goddessspirituality and feminist Wicca in the 20th century.
On the 13thJune 1992, Starhawk marriedher second husband David Miller, a fellow activist teacher with the Reclaimingcollective and a self-styled guitar-playing singerfronting a band called the Honky Tonk Communists.Miller is also the author of an autobiography called:I Didn’t Know God Made Honky Tonk Communists (2001).In it he gives his own account of how onthe 15th October 1965 during a VietnamWar demonstration in Washington, he became the first person to publiclydestroy and burn his draft card in protest, an action that later caused him toserve 22 months in a Pennsylvania federal prison.
David Miller
After the releaseof the Full Circle film, Starhawk and Donna Read formed their ownfilm company called Belili Productions.Their first film production was called Signs Out of Time (2004).This is a documentary about the life of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, a Lithuanian-Americanscholar whose Neolithic and BronzeAge research revealed major discoveries about Goddess cultures in OldEurope (a term she coined herself).Starhawk and Donna are now working on a new series ofdocumentaries about Earth healing, Regenerative design and Permaculture.
Marija Gimbutas
As a political activist for more than 40 years, since herearly involvement in the Vietnam War peace protest rallies of the 1960s, andthrough the anti-nuclear demonstrations of the 1970/80’s, Starhawk hassupported and helped train and organize peace activists ready for non-violentaction in many area’s of the United States.She has also worked on countless land and environmental issues, and was a founder of the CazaderoHills Land Use Council in Western Sonoma County.Outside of the US, she has worked with Witness for Peacein Nicaragua and El Salvador in support of their sustainability programs, andmore recently has visited the Occupied Territories of Palestine working with theInternational Solidarity Movement (ISM) a Palestinian-led movement usingnon-violent, direct-action protest methods in their efforts to secure peaceon both sides of the Israeli conflict.
In 2001 Starhawk co-founded the Root Activists’Network of Trainers (RANT), who provide training, education and informationto local, national and international organizations working for global peace andjustice.She also co-teaches with agroup called Earth Activist Training (EAT), who provides intensivetraining seminars combining permaculture design, political organizing andearth-based spirituality.In morerecent times her focus has been on the anti-globalization movement.She took part in the 1999 anti-WTO (World Trade Organization) action inSeattle, and the 2002 anti-IMF (InternationalMonetary Fund) and World Bank demonstrations in Washington, D.C.
Today Starhawk continues to work with and support theReclaiming collective network fusing together activism with earth-basedspirituality and healing.She alsocontinues to travel both in the United States and internationally, giving lectures and workshops on the Goddessspirituality and activism.As wellas books, she writes a regular column for the Reclaiming Quarterly, andis a columnist on the Web for http://www.beliefnet.com/and http://www.znet.com/.She spends part of her time living in San Francisco sharing a collectivehouse with her husband and friends, and for the rest of her time, lives in aquiet secluded cabin located in the woods of western Sonoma County, California,practicing Permaculture.
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*Permaculture defined:
Permacultureis sustainable land use design. This is based on ecological and biologicalprinciples, often using patterns that occur in nature to maximize effect and minimizework. Permaculture aims to create stable, productive systems thatprovide for human needs, harmoniously integrating the land with its inhabitants.The ecological processes of plants, animals, their nutrient cycles, climaticfactors and weather cycles are all part of the picture. Inhabitants’ needs areprovided for using proven technologies for food, energy, shelter andinfrastructure. Elements in a system are viewed in relationship to otherelements, where the outputs of one element become the inputs of another. Withina Permaculture system, work is minimized, “wastes” become resources,productivity and yields increase, and environments are restored. Permacultureprinciples can be applied to any environment, at any scale from dense urbansettlements to individual homes, from farms to entire regions.
(Extractedfrom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture)
Bibliography:
The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion ofthe Great Goddess (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1979, 1989, and 1999editions).
Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex, and Politics.Boston, Beacon, 1982, 1988, 1997 editions.
Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority, andMystery. San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco,1988.
The Fifth Sacred Thing. New York, Bantam, 1993.
Walking to Mercury. New York, Bantam, 1997.
The Pagan Book of Living and Dying, co-writtenwith M. Macha NightMare and the Reclaiming Collective. San Francisco,HarperSanFrancisco, 1997.
Circle Round: Raising Children in the Goddess Tradition. Co-written with Anne Hill and Diane Baker. Illustrated by Sara CeresBoore. New York, Bantam, 1998.
The Twelve Wild Swans: A Journey to the Realm of Magic,Healing, and Action, co-written with Hilary Valentine. San Francisco,HarperSanFrancisco, 2000.
Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising.Victoria, Canada; New Society Publishers, 2002.
The Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms ofNature. San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2004
The Last Wild Witch. Portland, Oregon: MotherTongue Ink. 2009.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starhawk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reclaiming_(Neopaganism)
Plus toomany more to mention.
