Time to Apologize to Witches

"So yes, it's time for an apology.
The viability of all nature's life support systems
are threatened today by what our civilization has become.
What better time for the religions of the book to signal a new
respect for the religions of nature?"
Starhawk

With Halloween quickly approaching I just googled my favorite witch to see what she was up to. Starhawk is an American witch and the author of Dreaming the Dark, The Spiral Dance, and The Earth Path, books that inspired a generation of American women to cast off the patriarchy and return to the ancient Goddess to find spiritual fulfillment. She is now inspiring the next generation with her new children's book, The Last Wild Witch.

On Halloween night Starhawk will be part of an annual public celebration and spiral dance in San Francisco that honors the dead and celebrates renewal. She is also blogging for On Faith, a Newsweek and the Washington Post blog. That is where I found her post, Time to Apologize to Witches. I excerpt it here but go to the link to read the entire post.

And if apologies are being given out, Witches would like one. It's more than time that the Catholic and Protestant Churches both apologized for centuries of persecution of Witches, Pagans and those they deemed 'heretics' for believing something different than standard dogma. How about an apology for the Papal Bull of Pope Innocent the Eighth, in 1484, that made Witchcraft an heresy and unleashed the Inquisition against traditional healers, midwives, and any woman unpopular with her neighbors for being too uppity? It's high past time to apologize for the Malleus Maleficarum, a vicious document written by two Dominican priests in 1486 that created a whole mythology of Satan worship, attributed it mostly to women, and unleashed a wave of accusations, torture, and judicial murder that have haunted us ever since. An apology won't do much good, now, to those accused, tormented, and destroyed because someone coveted their property or needed a local scapegoat, nor to their children left motherless or fatherless centuries ago. But it might clear some air.

On Faith, Starhawk: Time to Apologize to Witches

Survival of the Nicest

Back to Darwin's theory... I'm not saying it shouldn't be examined or questioned. The Dalai Lama pointed out that it is not always the "survival of the fittest", or toughest but that often enough it is through cooperation and even altruism that a species will survive and thrive. Honey Bees for example survive though building cooperative communities.

Honey Bees