Deborah Lipp

There are two things you hear about feminism and goddess worship.

The first is that goddess worship distracts from the serious work of feminism. This is the sort of complaint that I’d like to dismiss out of hand, ’cause it’s stupid. There are hardcore atheists that will say that any religious life is problematic for political activists, but the argument holds no water. Religious people have been in the forefront of political action since forever. Mahatma Gandhi anyone?

Spirituality, like sex, is a basic human need. Most (but not all) people have it, and shutting people down for expressing it will go nowhere and accomplish nothing, except to drive people away. People do their best work when their needs are met. Period.

The second thing is that goddess worship is inherently feminist, or at least inherently good for women. I thought Marina Walker demolished that theory pretty effectively by looking at Mary worship, and demonstrating that Mary is worshiped most fervently in the most patriarchal enclaves of Catholic culture. But you can also look at India, home of Shakti worship and Kali worship and Lakshmi worship; it is also a hotbed of sexism and misogyny. How anyone can look at goddess worship as it exists in the world today and assume that worshiping goddesses makes you all warm and cuddly towards real-world women is beyond me.

So that leaves me and my relationship with goddess worship. And feminism. Definitely I came into Wicca through feminism, and in my mind, they were connected. But the relationship I have with various goddesses, and my experience in Wicca as a feminist, is more complex.

I have an affinity for dark goddesses. I am a chosen daughter of Kali.* This has not been an easy relationship, but it has been a precious and rewarding one. It has ripped me up, but it has also given me power, confidence, and fierce courage. When my Lady is in me, it is like I dance above the world—don’t fuck with me.

So I could be glib and say that a deep relationship with a powerful goddess is naturally going to be empowering. But I don’t know if that’s true. I was (a) a feminist before I came to this relationship, and (b) really damn desperately in need of the empowering force She gave me. I was always strong, yet I was also always all about getting kicked around, especially by men. So to feel my Lady’s power run through me like a current, to know that She was with me, it changed me. It made me know in a visceral way that it was not okay to disrespect me because that would disrespect the Goddess.

And no, I don’t live that way always. I have sad days, and days in which I doubt I could enunciate “self-confidence,” much less experience it. But goddesses also have laps, and on days like that, you can crawl on in. Maybe there are people who don’t need laps. I doubt it.

People have an astounding ability to compartmentalize. They can have a direct, personal experience of a goddess, the kind of thing that makes the hair on your arm stand up, and then pack it away into its Saturday night compartment and by Sunday afternoon be fully reinvested in their abusive marriage. Not take away anything that changes the status quo.

But you don’t have to live like that. A goddess relationship can be that which shifts you into a new awareness. If you choose.

I’ve seen people live in the compartment. Have the sacredness of their own womanhood mean nothing except as a guide to how to construct ritual. Hear the voice of the Goddess (or a goddess) and then listen more closely to the voice of the patriarchy. I think that happens because you don’t really hear the patriarchy; it’s under the skin. I think we become empowered when we realize there’s a voice there, something saying that women should do more and get less. Once you notice a voice, you notice it’s not “just the way it is.” And once you notice the voice, and you’ve also heard another voice, a Goddess voice, well, that’s gotta help.

Ultimately, my relationship with Kali and with the Wiccan Goddess is not about feminism. It’s about loving and being loved, about courage and the willingness to change, about comfort, and about compassion. But all of these are qualities I can and do bring to my feminism.

*To be clear: I am not a Hindu. I am a Wiccan with an additional, private devotional relationship with a Hindu goddess.