About
Starhawk
Starhawk's Bio
Starhawk
is one of the most respected voices in modern earth-based spirituality.
She is also well-known as a global justice activist and organizer, whose
work and writings have inspired many to action. She is the author or coauthor
of eleven books, including The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient
Religion of the Great Goddess, long considered the essential text
for the Neo-Pagan movement, and the now-classic ecotopian novel The
Fifth Sacred Thing. Starhawk's newest book is a picture book for
children, The Last Wild Witch.
Her works have been translated into Spanish, French, German, Danish, Dutch,
Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Greek, Japanese, and Burmese. Her essays
are reprinted across the world, and have been included in numerous anthologies.
Starhawk's writing is influential and has been quoted by hundreds of other
authors, turning up in magazines, trade and academic press, and even inspirational
calendars. Her books are often found in college curriculums. The Spiral
Dance has been continuously in-print for thirty years and revised
twice; in 1999 HarperSanFrancisco published the Twentieth Anniversary
Edition. Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority, and Mystery
won the Media Alliance Meritorious Achievement Award for nonfiction in
1988. Starhawk's first novel, The Fifth Sacred Thing, won the
Lambda award for best Gay and Lesbian Science Fiction in 1994. Many
of Starhawk's best political essays--credited with helping the global
justice movement find and define itself--were collected into her book
Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising. At the Book Expo
America, Webs of Power won a 2003 Nautilus Award from the trade
association NAPRA.
Starhawk is perhaps best known as an articulate pioneer in the revival
of earth-based spirituality and Goddess religion. She is a cofounder of
Reclaiming, an activist branch of modern Pagan religion, and continues
to work closely with the Reclaiming community (www.reclaiming.org).
Her archives are maintained at the Graduate Theological Union library
in Berkeley, California. She is a panelist for the Newsweek/Washington
Post website on religion, "On Faith," and also contributes to
Beliefnet and ZNet, as well as maintaining her own blog, "Dirt Worship"
(www.starhawksblog.org)
She consulted on and contributed to the popular trio of films known as
the Women's Spirituality series, directed by Donna Read for the National
Film Board of Canada: Goddess Remembered, The Burning Times, and Full
Circle. Starhawk and Donna Read recently formed their own film company,
Belili Productions (www.belili.org).
Their first release is Signs Out of Time (2004), a documentary
on the life of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, the scholar made major discoveries
about the Goddess cultures of Old Europe. Starhawk and Donna are at work
on their next film, an introduction to permaculture. Starhawk has also
made several short documentaries which can be found on YouTube: "The
Spiral Dance Ritual"; "Reclaiming’s Spiral Dance—Three
Decades of Magic", "Permaculture in the City" and "Permaculture
Principles at Work."
Starhawk is a veteran of progressive movements, from anti-war to anti-nukes,
and is deeply committed to bringing the techniques and creative power
of spirituality to political activism. Together with Penny Livingston-Stark
and Erik Ohlsen, she coteaches EAT, Earth Activist Trainings, intensive
seminars that combine permaculture design, political organizing, and earth-based
spirituality (www.earthactivisttraining.org).
Starhawk has also recorded several tapes and CDs; most recently "Wicca
for Beginners" (2002), "Wiccan Rituals and Blessings" (2003),
and a four-CD set "Earth Magic" (2006), all produced by Sounds
True. A songwriter on occasion, quite a few of her songs and chants turn
up in rituals across the globe; they are included in songbooks and hymnals,
covered by other artists, and recorded by the Reclaiming musical community.
Starhawk travels internationally teaching magic, the tools of ritual,
and the skills of activism. She lives part-time San Francisco, in a collective
house with her partner and friends, and part-time in a little hut in the
woods in western Sonoma County, California, where she practices permaculture
in her extensive gardens, and writes.
Starhawk was born on June 17, 1951 and holds a B. A. in Fine Arts from
UCLA and an M.A. in Psychology from Antioch West University.
Her web
site is www.starhawk.org
Her blog, Dirt Worship, is found at www.starhawksblog.org
Bibliography: Starhawk's Books and Novels:
- The Spiral
Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess.
San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1979, 1989, and 1999 editions.
German, Danish, Portuguese, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, and Greek editions.
- Dreaming the
Dark: Magic, Sex, and Politics. Boston, Beacon, 1982, 1988, 1997
editions. French and German editions.
- Truth or Dare:
Encounters with Power, Authority, and Mystery. San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco.,1988.
German edition.
- The Fifth
Sacred Thing. New York, Bantam, 1993. German, Italian, Polish, and
Portuguese editions.
- Walking to Mercury. New York, Bantam, 1997.
- Walking to Mercury. New York, Bantam, 1997.
- The Pagan
Book of Living and Dying,
cowritten with M. Macha NightMare and the Reclaiming Collective. San
Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1997.
- Circle Round:
Raising Children in the Goddess Tradition. Cowritten with
Anne Hill and Diane Baker. Illustrated by Sara Ceres Boore. New
York, Bantam, 1998.
- The Twelve
Wild Swans: A Journey to the Realm of Magic, Healing, and Action,
cowritten with Hilary Valentine. San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco,
2000. Dutch, Spanish, and German editions.
- Webs of Power:
Notes from the Global Uprising. Victoria, Canada; New Society Publishers,
2002. Essays translated into Burmese, French, and Italian.
- The Earth
Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature. San Francisco,
HarperSanFrancisco, 2004
- The Last Wild Witch. Portland, Oregon: Mother Tongue Ink. 2009.
