StarhawkRecensioni

As the cover indicates, hokey at times, but solid post-apocalyptic fare. A little frightening that it was written in 1993 and seems very near to our future. The terror and ugliness was real and hopeless, but the novel finds a way through it which seems…possible if harrowing, and so all in all satisfying to read.

This is a dystopian versus utopian novel with a difference because it is not straight science fiction - at least, the story relies upon the use of alternative medicine and manipulation of ch'i/qi, the body's energy field, by people who have psychic abilities. But I decided to treat it as a blend of science fiction and fantasy and just accept it. There is a very serious polemical intent behind this book: it is quite prophetic in its warning - published in the early 1990s it shows a California beset by drought as well as pollution and disease and uses the term 'climate change' in at least one place. But it is also a character driven story.

The story is set in 2048. Twenty years previously the United States of America collapsed and a political regime was set up in the southern part, run by the Stewards, a military tyranny backed by an extreme religious cult, the Millenialists, who teach that at the second coming of Christ, Jesus decided humanity was too sinful to redeem and went away again. They have used this as a justification for an appalling reign of repression and murder in which large numbers of the population are declared souless and are used as breeding animals for racing, sex slaves and war, and the rest are kept in line by rationed access to water and to drugs which are essential to survival against deliberately engineered viruses, though at a cost to the subjects. The regime is white supremacist and misogynistic.

Meanwhile, in San Franscisco and the bay area, an alternative society was created after the people rose up twenty years before and did not allow the Stewards to impose their rule. This has thrived, powered by collective hard work, and has preserved the scarce water and other natural resources, while seeking to develop techniques to clean up the toxins in the environment. The mantra they have developed is that there are five sacred things: earth, air, water, fire and spirit, none of which can be owned by anyone.

Their society is unashamedly utopian in its collectivism, lack of racism/sexism/ageism and other prejudice, and its complete religious tolerance and in fact mingling of religions. There is also not even any serious jealousy arising from a fairly free and easy attitude towards sex with multiple partners of all genders, and apart from a few incorrigibles who are banned to the outskirts to live off wild pigs, everyone is happy to work in return for a share in the food, water and other resources. The arising of psychic powers has also resulted in 'Witches' as they are known: people who can cure by laying on of hands, or who can manipulate electrical devices - even the computers, which are used for specialist tasks, are based on a crystal technology worked by the mind. But everything is not well in 'utopia' for plagues have reduced the population and the suspicion is that these are artificially engineered and originate from the south.

Naturally the Stewards, living in an area baked by heat and lacking in resources - most of the population there has to work for water and drugs to protect them from the same engineered viruses that have been sent north - and feeling the need to assert their authority over 'Witches' and 'devil worshippers' - decides to invade the north. The story therefore is split between the community in the north and the repression in the south, with the south seen first through the eyes of Bird, a San Fransican who was captured and spent ten years in a prison, and then his lover Madrone, a psychic healer who eventually travels there to try to help the meagre resistence movements. Eventually the enemy makes its move, which results in a harrowing portrayal of the attempts by the San Fransicans to resist non violently against murderous tyranny.

The story does become a bit heavy handed at times in the polemic and also the need for one character to explain to another, and hence the reader, what is going on. There is quite a lot of internal dialogue and scenes do feature head hopping between characters. Some readers probably would find the paganism and ecofeminism a bit over emphasised or the same with the group sex and other sexual scenes. There is also quite a bit of violence. But I found it an interesting story even if the characters were sometimes a bit irritating, or the issue of how the north eradicated racism and sexism etc rather glossed over. A solid 4 star read.

I'm really not sure where I got this book from, but when I picked it out of my book case I thought I would be getting a feminist sci-fi along the lines of The Handmaid's Tale. Instead I very quickly discovered I'd committed to reading a (gasp) literary novel.

I am not a spiritual person. At all. It's just not in my nature. So I found it really difficult to identify with Maya's struggle - she's lost her spiritual mojo and she's walking through Nepal with her mother's ashes in the hopes of finding it again.

As she moped through the mountains I found myself getting increasingly annoyed with her. You're in one of the most beautiful places in the world and you want something more? Just exist in the world. That is what there is. That is enough.

I wavered on the edge of giving this book three stars until the very end, where Maya finally faces the tangled relationships of her past and begins to put things right. This is where this book really wins. The relationships it depicts are raw and real and powerful, and I have to admit I spent much of the conclusion in tears.

A deeply flawed book that grapples with a lot of interesting questions. Read it with someone who has a different perspective on nonviolence.

A beautiful, surprising, and challenging book; a book where it is difficult to remember whilst reading that magic isn't real and events depicted withing couldn't happen. A book that also shows a glipse of a beautiful future that could be possible!

"The Earth Path" is such a well researched and in depth book and reference for pagans/spiritualists, but I must admit my young adolescent mind could not finish it. I wish I owned it to reference it further into my daily practice. Full of real-world examples, journal entries, scientific and personal experiences. How to help mother earth, Gaia, with a lot or little. I think it is essential in practice to acknowledge we cannot change the world. We must all do our part, no matter how big or small, to give back. I will definitely revisit this book in the future and add a personal copy to my library when I have the chance. Crazy how this was published in the early 2000s and still resonates with modern time 2020. A must-read for those looking for guidance and a little more information shows reality, not the fantasy of being a PWW.

rating: 4/5

First of all, I think this book fills a void. As [b:Grieving: A Beginner's Guide|3597143|Grieving A Beginner's Guide|Jerusha Hull McCormack|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31T1NETdufL._SL75_.jpg|3639828] points out, our culture is really anti-death to the point where even talking about death or dealing with the grieving is really unexplored territory. And I enjoyed this book and found it comforting, but at the same time ended up feeling like paganism is "warm" when it comes to my personal spirituality, but I'm not quite there. But I don't think any "off-the-shelf" religion is going to do it for me, and it really is an excellent book.

Incredible!

This is the story of a journey, its authors movement from a place of despair to one of action. It is meant to start the reader on a similar path from the numbness and hopelessness often felt in the face of racist and sexist violence, poverty and unemployment, chemical spills, and the threat of nuclear annihilation to an internal sense of strength and knowledge. It is ultimately a message of hope and optimism, for Starhawk shares not only of vision but tools for personal empowerment, building a community, and the transformation of culture.

A good book should make you think, laugh and cry. This book did all of those things for me. It is in no way perfect. However for the first time a while I was invested in character of a story and not just the plot. There were moments where I didn't like the main characters and that brought depth to the relationship I had with this book. It's 1:30 in the morning so I will not go deep but I think this book is very good but the switching of sexual partners was annoying at the beginning of the book. For a book so back loaded with depth I just didn't feel the sexualization of every character was needed.
I will update this review later with more.

It's good enough to lose sleep over. How about that?

Conseillé par isabelle Delannoy

There is much that I admire in this tale of a community that seeks a non-violent defense against an agressor who has set loose a manufactured virus epidemic in preparation for an invasion.
Set in California after a social upheaval, Madrone's egalitarian hometown is threatened by a militaristic-hierarchical-fundamentalist-racist community to the south. Chapters alternate between her point of view, that of her grandmother Maya, one of the original activists from the 1990's, and that of her friend Bird who is imprisoned in the south. Starhawk gives a good overview of how the utopian society works, alternative healing, their consensus decision-making, their creed of the 4 sacred things (air, earth, fire, water) that all are committed to protecting.
There are some internal inconsistencies that need to be ignored (such as how come the rest of the world doesn't have a presence), and moments when the characters get a bit preachy. Overall, tho, this is just the book I wanted to read during the "pandemic" about which our media & politicos are trying to frighten us.

I read this again and again. It informed my own practices.

I love her insights into community and power.

Great beginner's book to help get you off your feet LOL. Easy to read and rituals are easy to follow. I'd definitely recommend this to anyone new to the craft.

there is such love in this book that at times it's a bit overwhelming. what a grand scope and idea. it took me a little while to get into it, and then a long time to read it (like at least twice as long as i feel like it should have taken) but i really did like what she was doing and i liked the story, the writing, the book itself. it wasn't written entirely in alternating chapters of viewpoints, but it was close, and i was glad to be with bird when we were with him, and with madrone when we were with her.

the utopia she creates is, well, just that, and it's a nice break from the dystopia that is in so many books, and in reality right now. but she doesn't just create a utopia, she fights for it and argues for it, and i appreciate that. she makes a world where sexuality, gender, and race all exist but don't matter. class is mostly erased. nonviolence is one of the only rules, and she doesn't allow it to go untested. so it's not just a story about this magical, wonderful place that feels like both heaven and an impossibility. she shows us how they got there and almost how to build it (except there is witchery and magic, probably because it's impossible to create this otherwise) and at least in part how to sustain it and fight for it.

i really wish the cover had an obviously brown woman on it, though. madrone is not white and there is no reason to misrepresent her this way. i hate that in my head, i kept picturing white people, even when i knew the characters weren't white. (this is not the book's fault; i understand that it is mine.) but it would have been nice if the cover of the book didn't reinforce my bias.

there are many good ideas here, and interesting philosophical discussions. i also thought it was an interesting choice to put it in the future but the very near future, not even a few generations away. i'm glad i read this.

from her dedication, after mentioning specific children: "...and to all the new ones who must live in the future that we create or destroy with our choices today."

"It was beautiful and fierce and fragile, like a lot of things."

"'War is the great waster, as much in the preparations for it as in the waging of it.'"

"'The ends don't justify the means,' Maya said. 'That was what I learned from Vietnam, from the war and the protests against it. The means shape the ends. You become what you do.'"

"'What good is it all if we can't defend it? And how do we defend it without becoming what we're defending against?'"

"'...peace can't grow out of violence.'"

but she doesn't just throw these platitudes out. she allows her characters to know the contradiction in living those values and their lives, and in meeting violence. i am glad that she takes this book where she does, that she doesn't avoid the hard stuff, even in this utopia. i really appreciated what she did here.

I found this book very inspiring and loved the practicality of it. A powerful book by a powerful woman.

How would an eco-spiritual community defend itself against an imperialist invasion? Starhawk's novel is set in California around 2048... hmmm, we're now, in 2016, about halfway there from the time of the writing of the novel in the 1980s! Global industrial civilization has collapsed. San Francisco is an idyllic eco-spiritual community while Los Angeles is run as a police state.

To what extent does our present industrial approach to military power drive our level of environment destruction?

This was a very good novel - the plot kept me turning the pages. It switches back and forth between two characters, a man and a woman. They each spend some time in San Francisco and some time in Los Angeles.

I read this on a long train ride - perfect!

Early ecological movement in the sixties!

Provides us with well-tested tools for trying to change our reality. Starhawk's example serves to show us that we are NOT powerless.

THE book to read if you want to find out about paganism, and how to change reality through magic (yes, it really does exist). No hocus pocus here - just a primer on ritual and how it can transform your life. If you want to get the whole story on modern day witchcraft, you should contact the folks in Reclaiming or see your local Druid/Priestess. Central message in a nutshell: You create your own reality. Star is still becoming and we can transform ourselves too. Crunchy but tasty morsels of wonder - a personal favorite on many levels.

Phenomenal. Extremely intense and violent. Don't be fooled: there's nothing utopian in this book. Realistic. An important book to read if you're alive during these times.

Starhawk's Spiral Dance was one of the things that set me on the path to becoming a Witch many years ago. The connections between magic and politics are the best parts of Webs of Power. I am very interested in how earth-based spirituality is linked to conservation efforts. The use of ritual and even Tarot in Starhawk's political actions was fascinating.

The utopia (very pagan/wiccan)is threatened by an almost foreseeable dystopia in which human values are gone and corporations are the new dictatorship. Freaked me out, as each year more and more aspects of the dystopia seem possible.