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But regardless of criticism, Starhawk continues to base the weight of her discussion about the importance of magic and ritual on the existence of a pre-historic matrifocal society, and on what she sees as a dire need to incorporate a new spiritual vision (explicitly a revival of the pre-historic, matrifocal beliefs) in order to create a fundamental change in the way the world works. For Starhawk, returning to a sort of feminist Eden is preferable to imagining that such a thing never existed. In The Spiral Dance, Starhawk created an alternative for women who wanted to worship the goddess in a way that engendered feminism in a more explicit way than the Wicca created by Gerald Gardner in the 1950s, and at the same time launched a spiritual political worldview that advocated a return to simpler times, itself a revival of Romantic-period notions that characterized the beginnings of the Western neo-pagan movement.

She fully embraces the term "witch," as well, acknowledging the controversy in that choice:

The word "Witch" carries so many negative connotations that many people wonder why we use this word at all. Yet to reclaim the word "Witch" is to reclaim our right, as women, to be powerful; as men, to know the feminine within as divine.[17]

This interpretation of the word "witch" would prove to be revolutionary to thousands of women over the years, including myself. Using the word "witch" to describe myself felt deeply spiritual, but also political, for with every use, I claim my place in history as a powerful woman, as a member of an oppressed class, and as a weaver of magic - meaning, the ability to make choices that shape my reality, and thus the world around me.

Menstruation in and of itself is a taboo subject in Western society. For girls, it is a frightening initiation into womanhood. As their bodies develop, they are often ridiculed for the natural processes of maturation. Celu Amberson says in her introduction to a collection of women's personal stories on menstruation:

Unfortunately, for all too many women, the menarche is an initiation into confusion, humiliation, and fear. Around the world an atmosphere of ignorance and fear surrounds menstruation in general, and the menarche in particular… It has been the fate of many young girls to have been beaten, mutilated, locked in cages or darkened rooms, or accused of demonic possession at the time of their first Blood.[18]

Amberson and others turn to witchcraft as a form of feminist spirituality that helps them to embrace their bodies, including and especially menstruation. In fact, menstruation is an integral part of a modern witch's power, particularly because of its connection to the phases of the moon, a sacred object of veneration in the tradition. The moon is venerated precisely because of its connection to the body, in its ability to affect menstrual cycles, and menstrual cycles are, in turn, venerated because of their connection to the moon, which is also seen as the goddess.

A woman can utilize the energy that comes with the moon's maximum illumination to fulfill her wishes and to accomplish what she initiated at the new moon. At the full moon, ovulation occurs and the egg is released.[19]

The image of fertility and fullness, and thus of the full, white moon, is associated with "light" goddesses, whereas the new moon and shedding of blood through menstruation is linked with death and "dark" goddesses. The cultural fears that surround sex and death in the West are powerful ones, and translate themselves into unconsciously negative interpretations of goddesses such as Kālī. Indeed, the image of Kālī brandishing a sword and drinking the blood of a severed head inspires fear in Western eyes, the same subconscious fear inspired by death, menstruation and independent female sexuality. Witches today are beginning to mindfully evoke these images, but Tantra has been doing so for hundreds of years, according to Ajit Mookerjee in Kālī: The Feminine Force (1988).

The feminine power has been given expression in a multitude of female figures, both in sculpture and in painting, in which the emphasized forms of breasts, belly, hips, yoni and thighs seem an incarnation of the rhythms of the universe. From the Medieval period, tantra's bold depictions of the themes of sexual union, menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth restored to sacred art essential symbolic figurations virtually suppressed by taboo.[20]

Next Page | Menstrual blood has been important to Tantric practice for hundreds of years...
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[17] Starhawk, The Spiral Dance, 7

[18] Celu Amberson, Blessings of the Blood (Victoria, B.C.: 1991), 12

[19] Demetra George, Mysteries of the Dark Moon: The Healing Power of the Dark Goddess (San Francisco: 1992), 205. George, like other spiritual feminists, connects the natural cycle of menstruation with the different kinds of magic available to women.

[20] Mookerjee, Kali, 41