Starhawk

This article is about the pagan author and activist. For other uses, see Starhawk (disambiguation).

Starhawk (born Miriam Simos on June 17, 1951) is an American writer and activist. She is well known as a theorist of Paganism, and is one of the foremost popular voices of ecofeminism. She is a columnist for Beliefnet.com and On Faith, the Newsweek/Washington Post online forum on religion. Starhawk's book The Spiral Dance (1979) was one of the main inspirations behind the Neopagan movement. Starhawk was listed in the Watkins' Mind Body Spirit magazine as one of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People in 2012.

Projects

Starhawk lives in San Francisco, where she works with Reclaiming, a tradition of Witchcraft that she co-founded in the late 1970s.

Starhawk in a Sicilian workshop

She was influential in the decision by the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations to include earth-centered traditions in the UUA sources of faith. She led numerous workshops for, and was an active member of CUUPS, The Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, Inc. (CUUPS) is an Interest Group of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) honoring goddess-based, earth-centered, tribal and pagan spiritual paths.

She is currently working with United for Peace and Justice, the RANT trainers' collective, Earth Activist Training, and other groups.

Works

Starhawk has written a number of books, and has also contributed works in other media.

Non-fiction

• The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (1979, 1989, 1999)
• Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex, and Politics (1982, 1988, 1997)
• Truth or Dare (1988)
• Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising (2003)
• The Earth Path (2004)
• The Empowerment Manual: A Guide for Collaborative Groups (2011)

As coauthor

• With M. Macha Nightmare and Reclaiming Collective, The Pagan Book of Living and Dying (1997)
• With Anne Hill and Diane Baker, Circle Round: Raising Children in the Goddess Tradition (1998)
• With Hilary Valentine, The Twelve Wild Swans: A Journey Into Magic, Healing and Action (2000)

Fiction

• The Fifth Sacred Thing (1993)
• Walking to Mercury (1997)

Other media

Starhawk has contributed to the films Signs Out of Time: The Story of Archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, Goddess Remembered, The Burning Times, and Full Circle. She participated in the Reclaiming CDs Chants: Ritual Music, and recorded the guided meditation Way to the Well. On Youtube: Starhawk speaks on spirituality and activism at UUA. She also wrote the call to action for the women's peace organization Code Pink.

Personal life

Starhawk was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Her father, Jack Simos, died when she was 5. Her mother, Bertha Claire Goldfarb Simos, was a professor of social work at UCLA. Both her parents were the children of Jewish immigrants from Russia. In 1973, while she was a film student at UCLA, Starhawk won the Samuel Goldwyn Award for her novel, A Weight of Gold, a story about Venice, California, where she then lived. Starhawk married Edwin Rahsman in 1977. She is currently married to David Miller.

References

• Salomonsen, Jone (2002). Enchanted Feminism: The Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-22392-X
• Vale, V. and John Sulak (2001). Modern Pagans. (Interview with Starhawk). San Francisco: Re/Search Publications. ISBN 1-889307-10-6

External links

• Starhawk

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