Barbara Ardinger

[bunnyjadwiga]

Last Monday night, Juergen and I attended a lecture at Drew by Barbara Ardinger (http://barbaraardinger.com/), author of A Woman's Book of Rituals & Celebrations, which I reviewed a couple of years ago. Her topic was Goddess Spirituality and its history (or should that be herstory).

I thoroughly enjoyed the lecture, and I think Juergen did too (in a sort of Lutheran-Religious-Argument way). Ardinger is an interesting and personable speaker, though some of her feminist jokes may have grated on some guys' sensibilities. What I liked best is how she talked with refreshing candor and matter-of-factness about the foundational myths of modern neopaganism/Wicca, and that she peppered her discussion with book and author recommendations. Her use of the term 'oval' as opposed to 'seminal' for books that are part of the inspirational background of modern goddess worship mirrors my own feelings about it. Though she still relied on some of the old canards about the witchcraft trials, her information was still more 'fair and balanced' (in other words, she understood that the whole witchcraft thing was more complicated than merely the persecution of women village healers for herbal cures and being a woman...)

I rather liked her visual aid-- 27 or more sheets of 8.5x11" paper taped end-to-end, with human history marked on it in 1" = 100 year intervals, back to 50,000 BCE. She pointed out that Goddess cult figurines appear to have traveled with early humans out of Africa 50,000 years ago, while the earliest of the modern male monotheistic religions, Judaism, apparently started 1900 BCE when Abraham claimed to have talked to God. Juergen found this irritating, I gather because he feels that it is an attempt to argue the validity of Goddess worship based on the alleged age of the religion ("My religion's older than yours, nyah nyah!")

Ardinger sped through the early Rosicrucian movement (Juergen points out to me that the book on which the Rosicrucians based their material was a relatively modern forgery), the New Dawn, The Golden Bough, Graves' The White Goddess, Gerald Gardener, Mitchell, and Maria Gimbutas; then to Z. Budapest and the founding of Dianic Wicca, as well as the outgrowths of feminist Wicca and the modern neopagan movement. She pointed out that the modern feminist Goddess movement is about 'restoring balance' and that Dianics ban men from their rituals for two reasons: 1, because they (and she) believe that men and women have different 'energies' and 2, most importantly, for women to have a space for their sacred that men cannot try to take over. I have to admit I'm a bit doubtful of the idea that no man can be in a mixed group without trying to take over, but then I'm a pushy broad. Ardinger did definitely emphasis the diversity of pagan/wiccan/goddess practice and how the majority of 'witches' self-identify as eclectic.

Then there was what Juergen refers to as the "Arch-Nemesis Moment." Ardinger had mentioned The Goddess Unmasked by Philip Davis, and Cynthia Eller's The myth of matriarchal prehistory : why an invented past won't give women a future as books generally considered to be anti-Goddess religion. She also said that many feminist pagans took Eller's work as a sort of betrayal because her previous book, Living in the Lap of the Goddess was so pro-pagan.

During the question-and-answer period at the end, a tall woman who had been knitting a really interesting multi-textured piece all through the lecture stood up and said (more or less), "I just wanted to say I'm Cynthia Eller, and I'm sorry if anyone has gotten the impression from my book that I have a problem with Goddess religion; because I don't. I'm very pro-Goddess; I just have a problem when it gets into false science." (or words to that effect). Ardinger said, "I'm really glad to hear that." As Juergen complained, there went an opportunity for a good cat-fight! Ardinger and Eller talked very companionable after the presentation and had their pictures taken together.

I picked up the newest incaration of the Woman's book of Rituals and Celebrations, Practicing the Presence of the Goddess and hope to work through it and some other related works and post reviews.

Oh, and here are (some of) the 13 recommended 'oval' works:

1. The goddesses and gods of Old Europe, 6500-3500 BC, myths and cult images / Marija Gimbutas.
2. When god was a woman / Merlin Stone.
2a. [ Sarah the priestess : the first matriarch of Genesis / Savina J. Teubal.
3. Gyn/ecology : the metaethics of radical feminism : with a new intergalactic introduction by the author / Mary Daly.
4. The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries, Z. Budapest
5. The spiral dance : a rebirth of the ancient religion of the great goddess / Starhawk.
6. Drawing down the moon : witches, Druids, goddess-worshippers, and other pagans in America today / Margot Adler.
7. The book of goddesses and heroines / Patricia Monaghan.
8. The Politics of women's spirituality : essays on the rise of spiritual power within the feminist movement / edited by Charlene Spretnak.
9. The woman's encyclopedia of myths and secrets / Barbara G. Walker.
10. The Great Cosmic Mother : rediscovering the religion of the earth / Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor.
11. The chalice and the blade : our history, our future / Riane Eisler.
13. Ariadne's Thread: A workbook of Goddess Magic, Shekhinah Mountainwater;
Also:
The myth of matriarchal prehistory : why an invented past won't give women a future / Cynthia Eller.
Living in the lap of the Goddess : the feminist spirituality movement in America / Cynthia Eller.
Goddess unmasked : the rise of neopagan feminist spirituality / Philip G. Davis.

Comments

[prelley.livejournal.com]

I will really try to get through this list... It would be nice to read more on my chosen religion =) Thank you