Jone Salomonsen in a Recent Essay Feminist Theologian Catherine Keller

WITCHES’ INITIATION—A FEMINIST CULTURAL THERAPEUTIC?*

Jone Salomonsen

In a recent essay feminist theologian Catherine Keller argues that deconstructions of foundational thinking and the critique of prevalent notions of Nature as changeless and heterosexist is not enough for eco- feminist politics to evolve and make a difference. Democratic politics needs a ground that is elemental and universally real, yet not perceived as unshakable foundation, thus suggesting earth itself and its planetary context as this ground. According to Keller, theology, feminism and democratic politics need to recognize “that vastly nonverbal matrix of creaturely existence in which we live move and have our texts”.1 She also honours the Catholic theologian Rosemary R. Ruether, for being one of the fi rst to have named this immense project “conversion of thought to the earth”, and thanks her for having constructed an elemental symbolism for a new Divine Matrix as ground: the elemental partnership of Gaia and God. This is a nice gesture towards Ruether, although it also contributes to silence the large debt of eco-feminist politics to religious feminists of a Pagan, not only a Christian bent. For example, since her fi rst publication in 1979, the Jewish-feminist, political activist and witch Starhawk has argued that feminist ecological politics needs a new macro- ecumenical ground, a new measure. In 1990 she suggested a rewriting of the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” into a “Universal Declaration of the Four Sacred Things”, including earth, air, fi re and water. According to Starhawk, these four elements are already valued as sacred by most traditions in the world and as that which nothing can live without. In fact, they are nature named as ground, an inter- elemental ground that sustains all life-forms blindly. To recognise and

* Parts of this chapter have been derived from Jone Salomonsen, Enchanted Feminism. Ritual, Gender and Divinity among the Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco (Chapter 8), 2002, Routledge, London. 1 Catherine Keller, “Talking Dirty: Ground is not Foundation”, Ecospirit, 2007: 67 364 jone salomonsen protect them as a universal human and non-human right is therefore a prerequisite for love, spirit and relationship even to be possible.2 However, Starhawk is not only concerned with measuring the real for eco-feminist politics or with symbolizing the elementarity and practical- ity of the Earth and her fi fth, the Atmosphere, as Goddess and God. She asks: how can new symbols ground anything if they are not embod- ied in people through new practices that may conjure and incarnate new forms of identity and sociability? How may a new Divine Matrix defi ne new contexts for human becoming and permit the becoming of freeborn human subjectivities if not through ritualizing? Although the new Pagans have contributed to a new recognition of the four elements they never invented them. The elements are part of a pre-literate, pre-historic Western cultural memory and have become foundational to contemporary Pagan thinking during the last four decennials. This cultural memory, including the image of Goddess as an imaginary ritual broomstick, enables practitioners to experience and refl ect upon the elements and the spirit that “go between” as ground, as Divine Matrix. In Starhawk’s own community, Reclaiming, it is common to open a ritual with this saying: “Holy Mother, in whom we move, live and have our being. From you all things proceed, and unto you all things return. Bless this circle.”3 Then the four elements, the four sacred things, may be invoked and breathed into the collective body. This elementary circle is the performative frame for Reclaiming’s ritualizing, in which and with which they try to evolve a new sociability sensitive to relations, practicing with body movements, sound and touch, what it means to be dust and spirit between starry heaven and dirty earth. In fact, the Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco is known for trying to build a new sociability, a new community, which is not the same as building a new society. Society is built on legal, political and economic institutions that are dependent on a certain legitimate consen- sus. Sociability, however, is profoundly performative. Our sociability and entanglement with people and the world happen daily through various forms of ritualizing of which the feast may be said to be superior. As pointed out by the Danish anthropologist and ritual studies scholar Inger Sjørslev, there can be continuity in society and at the same time

2 Starhawk, Reclaiming Newsletter 38, 1990. 3 Salomonsen 2002: 195. My study is based on data from the 1990’ies. (contemporary Reclaiming practices are becoming more diversiﬁ ed and more stratiﬁ ed)