Cauldron of Changes: Feminist Spirituality in Contemporary American Women's Fiction

Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1994 Cauldron of Changes: Feminist Spirituality in Contemporary American Women's Fiction. Janice Celia Crosby Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Crosby, Janice Celia, "Cauldron of Changes: Feminist Spirituality in Contemporary American Women's Fiction." (1994). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 5864. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/5864 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced fromm icrofilm the master. 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Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 CAULDRON OF CHANGES: FEMINIST SPIRITUALITY IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN WOMEN’S FICTION A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Janice Celia Crosby B.A., Mercer University, 1984 M.A., Kent State University, 1987 December 1994 UMI Number: 9524443 Copyright 1994 by Crosby, Janice Celia All rights reserved. UMI Microform Edition 9524443 Copyright 1995, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 © Copyright 1994 Janice Celia Crosby All rights reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many persons have been instrumental in developing and shaping the vision manifested in this work. Among the many women who have helped me along the path of the Goddess, I would especially like to thank Starhawk, Selena Fox, and Luisah Teish for their teaching and encouragement. To Phyllis Le Feaux and Francis Dodick, wise women and healers, I offer my deepest gratitude for their light and love. Among the many friends who supported me, I am most indebted to Randi Gray Kristensen, who knows. And to all my Craft sisters and brothers, many thanks. I also wish to thank my colleagues at Southern University, Baton Rouge, for their continued support and encouragement. My thanks to all who served on my committee: Rosan Jordan, Robin Roberts, Carolyn Jones, Emily Toth, Veronica Makowsky, and Carl Freedman. In particular, I would like to credit Rosan for her patience, Carolyn for her role as “Devil’s Advocate,” and Veronica for her perceptive questions, which contributed greatly to the formation of this work. I also wish to acknowledge Robin Roberts, both for encouraging me to do this project, and for showing me the role of feminism in the academy. Finally, this work is dedicated to my mother, Dorothy Wood Crosby; my sister, Iris Crosby McQuain; and the Goddess and all who seek Her. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABSTRACT v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 Investigating the Past 15 The Evolution of Myth and Legend 22 Ritual and Worship 24 Womanspirit 38 This Study 41 Notes for Chapter One 46 2 REWRITING HISTORY AND LEGEND 49 Kim Chernin: The Transformative Word 56 Marion Zimmer Bradley: The Priestesses Speak 71 Notes for Chapter Two 102 3 FINDING AND DEFINING PERSONAL POWER 105 Mercedes Lackey: The Power of Women United 110 Patricia Kennealy: When a Woman Rules 130 Gael Baudino: From Victim to Judge 141 Notes for Chapter Three 153 4 THE QUEST FOR THE GODDESS 156 Marion Zimmer Bradley: Of Amazons and Goddesses 163 Lynn Abbey: The Warrior Who Heals 175 Joan Vinge: The Goddess in the Machine 192 Notes for Chapter Four 204 5 CONCLUSION 205 BIBLIOGRAPHY 211 VITA 221 iv ABSTRACT My dissertation, Cauldron of Changes: Feminist Spirituality in Contemporary American Women’s Fiction, combines feminist perspectives from literary and religious thinkers to inform a discussion of the overlooked aspects of contemporary European-American women’s speculative fiction. The introductory chapter provides an overview of the feminist spirituality movement as it incorporates Goddess-and earth-centered religious perspectives, and covers the themes common to both spiritual practice and fiction. “Rewriting History and Legend,” the second chapter, shows how the feminist spirituality movement has furthered the feminist project of rewriting myth, legend, and history, thus challenging the foundations of the cultural tradition of the West. In this chapter I analyze Kim Chernin’s and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s efforts to re-imagine and re-create narratives which have traditionally been androcentric. The next chapter, “Finding and Defining Personal Power,” focuses on a key issue in feminist spirituality: redefining power in a non-exploitative- fashion and claiming it for the female self. Authors discussed are Mercedes Lackey, Gael Baudino, and Patricia Kennealy. “Quest for the Goddess,” chapter four, continues exploring the concept of feminist power as manifested in the female heroic quest, which in the novels under discussion takes the form of a quest to find or serve a Goddess. Works by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Lynn Abbey, and Joan Vinge reveal the various concepts of the Goddess relevant to contemporary feminist explorations of the spiritual self. My study examines the logical progression v from individual women seeking a spiritual ground of being in their lives, to healing themselves and the community. Throughout Cauldron of Changes I examine the ways in which speculative fiction offers unique possibilities for the feminist exploration of spiritual issues. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION What is the American feminist spirituality movement? Joel Kovel broadly defines spirituality as “the desire for being” (133), but goes on to say that spirituality “requires a sense of sin" and that “the modern person typically has too much invested in the self to let it go in a spiritual quest” (134-35). While feminist spirituality demonstrates a desire to experience “being” in the sense of a deeply felt relationship to and union with the universe, spiritual feminists reject the concept of sinfulness, and would argue that life in patriarchal society has given women too little a sense of self, rather than too much. 1 In Living in the Lap of the Goddess, her recent ethnographic study of the beliefs and participants present in the feminist spirituality movement in America, Cynthia Eller notes that the term describes a wide variety of beliefs and practices, which despite their differences share an emphasis on empowerment as “both the goal and the reward of feminist spiritual practice” (3). Eller also observes a general interest in ritual, psychic skills, nature, and the validation of menstruation and childbirth. 2 |n describing areas of tension and debate within the movement, Eller lists concerns about biological essentialism, the role of men, visions of matriarchies and patriarchies, the role of traditional religions, the nature of the Goddess, and concepts of leadership. What Eller finds “most significant about these agreements and disagreements is that dissension is so easily tolerated, and the urge to create dogma so readily suppressed” (4). For this 1 2 reason, a concise definition of the feminist spirituality movement is difficult, and must be broad enough to include the variety indicated by the preceding description. I use the term to describe the religious beliefs and practices of women who have turned from mainstream American religious traditions and created a woman-centered spiritual orientation which concentrates on immanent deity, often in the form of a Goddess, and on practices to facilitate female empowerment. While I discuss the various projects of spiritual feminists later in this chapter, I first will comment on how the feminist spirituality movement begins and spreads, who its practitioners are, and who some of the leading women in the movement are. The contemporary American feminist spirituality movement has its roots in questioning begun a century ago. The

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