A review by aemy
The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess by Starhawk
3.0
I have very complicated feelings about this book. I have always been very interested in witchcraft and feminist spirituality, so this book has felt like a must read (both in terms of subject matter, but also its influence). There were parts I loved and reading them made me feel like I was an instrument harmonizing with a tuning fork. Her understanding of the connection between spirituality and politics, the nature of magic etc was wonderful. In many ways, I think she is deeply admirable in the spiritual and political work she has done.
Other parts made me feel very out of sync. There are parts that are very corny and of suspicious origin, in second-wave style it can be very gender essentiallist and regularly condemns pornography, sex work and strangely enough mental health care/psychology/psychiatry. It is also very limited in its perspective and that perspective is very white, middle class euro-american college education woman. Which like, hello, is also me. Starhawk tries to acknowledge and correct some, but not all, of these things in her 10th and 20th anniversary introductions and notes. However, perusal through her suggested reading was still kind of disappointing. Understandably dated (we're due for a 40th anniversary edition this year!) but not so understandably white.
I'm definitely left wondering if what I am looking for exists as works that are more recently published and ostensibly third/fourth wave feminist also leave me dissatisfied, just in different ways. (Hopefully "Jailbreaking the Goddess" will be what I'm looking for??)
I read the introductions and notes in a digital edition I check out from a library, but I read the body of this book in print, in the original 1979 printing (that I got from a thrift store for 99 cents the same day I actually committed myself to reading it! ~*~synchronicity~*~)
Other parts made me feel very out of sync. There are parts that are very corny and of suspicious origin, in second-wave style it can be very gender essentiallist and regularly condemns pornography, sex work and strangely enough mental health care/psychology/psychiatry. It is also very limited in its perspective and that perspective is very white, middle class euro-american college education woman. Which like, hello, is also me. Starhawk tries to acknowledge and correct some, but not all, of these things in her 10th and 20th anniversary introductions and notes. However, perusal through her suggested reading was still kind of disappointing. Understandably dated (we're due for a 40th anniversary edition this year!) but not so understandably white.
I'm definitely left wondering if what I am looking for exists as works that are more recently published and ostensibly third/fourth wave feminist also leave me dissatisfied, just in different ways. (Hopefully "Jailbreaking the Goddess" will be what I'm looking for??)
I read the introductions and notes in a digital edition I check out from a library, but I read the body of this book in print, in the original 1979 printing (that I got from a thrift store for 99 cents the same day I actually committed myself to reading it! ~*~synchronicity~*~)