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[from http://www.oakgrove.org/GreenPages/bos/0600.txt ] 600 Subject: DIANISM IN A NUIT-SHELL Recently, I got back in touch with my teacher after nearly t wo years and dropped a couple of bombshells on her: I had changed gend er identity and had come together with two other women to form a Dian ic coven. When the initial shock wore off, Rita sent me a complete run of Protean Synthesis and a solicitation for this article. Several years ago I subscribed to several stereotypes regardi ng "those peculiar Dianics". They were thealogically unbalanced, th ey hated men, they denied that men had souls, they were all lesbians, th ey couldn't spell (in the orthographic sense; no one has yet accus ed Dianics of inability to work magick), etc. etc. When I came togeth er with my covensisters, I realized that these notions were at mo st partially true and some cases were patently false. I believe there are only three valid generalizations that can be made about Dianics: 1) We are all feminists. 2) We all look to t he Goddess(es) far more than to the God(s). 3) We are all eclectic s. Note well that there are plenty of non-Dianic feminist Witche s, non-Dianic eclectics, and non-Dianics who are primari ly Goddess-oriented. There are also doubtless a good many feminis t, Goddess-oriented eclectics who do not choose to call themselves Dianic. In my own case I use the "If it quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck" argument, as well as the fact that my HPS learn ed the Craft as a Dianic and runs Dianic rituals. Some of the stereotypical generalizations I can dismiss out of hand. I don't know of a single Dianic who denies that men have soul s. Even Z Budapest doesn't believe that piece of tripe anymore! It is true that Dianism is particularly attractive to separatists, and ma ny separatists actually hate men. Many Dianics are lesbians. So me misspell words like "woman", women", "egalitarian", and "holistic" on purpose. Not all fit these, however, and I think that Z Budapest in her younger, or spiritual bomb-throwing, days represents an extreme a nd a small minority. There are a number of males involved in Dianism, a nd some of those are men [NB: I use the terms "man" and "woman" to indicate gender identity, that is, how one's heart, min d, and/or soul are configured. I use "male" and "female" to indica te physical sex, that is, how one's plumbing is configured. I hope th is dispels confusion.]. Thealogical and magickal imbalance is not so easily dismisseda nd needs to be addressed further, as that is the most valid objection th at thoughtful Witches have to Dianism. The apparent imbalance comes fr om the Dianic emphasis on Goddess-worship, often to the complete exclusi on of God-worship. This upsets many Witches' sense of polarity balanc e. The resolution of this apparent imbalance lies in the consideration of other polarities than sexual and/or gender as the primary polarit y. There are indeed many other polarities to consider: true-fals e, life-death, dark-light, rational-mystical, creation-destructio n, order-chaos, and good-evil, to name but a few. One problem with the masculine-feminine polarity is that there is a strong tendency to express all other polarities in terms of it. T he Chinese were particularly fond of this, and mapped everything th ey liked into the yang side, and everything they disliked or feared in to the yin side, the patriarchal no-accounts! 6 01 One thing I have discovered is that if you look hard enough, y ou can find goddesses to fit both ends of most polarities. Some ev en occupy both ends simultaneously. Inanna, my matron goddess, is a go od case in point. She is the Sumerian goddess of love, war, wisdom (whi ch she won in a drinking bout!), adventure, the heavens, the earth, a nd even of death (in the guise of her dark aspect, Ereshkigal). A ve ry busy lady indeed is Inanna. At this point it becomes largely a matter of personal preference rather than of polarity, whether one chooses a god or a goddess to occupy a particul ar place in a ritual. No Dianic I know of denies the existence of the God. Indeed, He gets mentioned as the consort of the Goddess with some frequency in Z Budapest's HOLY BOOK OF WOMEN'S MYSTERIES, which is close a thing as there is to a Dianic version of the Gardnerian Book of Shadows. He is there, and sometimes we will invoke Him, when it is appropriate. He makes His own path, and we follow our own, and when they cro ss naturally we honor Him and do not avoid Him. We also do not force t he paths to cross simply to lend an artificial balance to a ritual whe re none is really needed. Now that I have spilled agood deal of ink over what Dianism is not, I should now say a few words about what it is: a movement of feminist, eclectic, Goddess-oriented Witches. Feminism: This covers avast multitude of virtues and sins. I do not think the stereotypical radical lesbian separatist is as common as is believed. Moderate to liberal feminism is probably far more commo n, even among Dianics. Certainly my own coven contains no separatist s! There are too many nice men out there, even though surveys have sho wn that 70% or more of all men are potential rapists. The nice ones a re found among those who are not in that repulsive majority; you just ha ve to look to find them. One of the places you might find such nice m en is in Dianic covens! Some are mixed groups, at least some of those of the branch founded by Morgan McFarland. My own is something of a mixed up group, I suppose. While we do n ot currently have any men in the coven, two of the three of us were bo rn male and still have original-equipment plumbing. The Goddess and o ur HPS accept us unreservedly as women. Eclecticism: If there is one dictum of Z Budapest's that bea rs repeating to everyone in the Craft, and which gets followed by many, it is "When in doubt, invent." Dianics tend toward creative ritua l, drawing from any and all possible sources. I have yet to see a Dian ic equivalent of the Gardnerian Book of Shadows, nor do I ever hope to s ee one. 6 02 Goddess Orientation: I've discussed this at some length whi le talking about polarity. There are some wags who have said that Diani cs are nothing but matriarchal monotheists. I tell you three times: T he Dianic Goddess is NOT Jehovah in drag! The Dianic Goddess is N OT Jehovah in drag! The Dianic Goddess is NOT Jehovah in drag! A mu ch closer analogy would be that Dianics have taken the Classical panthe on and reclaimed most of the roles. This, too, is oversimplifying, but it is not nearly as wide of the mark as the usual criticism. At some point I may write up a long exegesis on the Dian ic Goddess, but not here. My own personal involvement with Her comes fr om a great feeling of comfort I do not find elsewhere. She feels righ t. I have a great deal of difficulty accepting known rapists (most of t he Olympian males are this, especially Zeus, Hades, and Pan!) into my personal pantheon. I also feel a personal vocation from the Mother; it is rather incongruous to me to embrace a male deity wholeheartedly wh en the Goddess comes to me and calls me Her daughter. This goes double d, redoubled, in pentacles, and vulnerable for lovers of women. I hope this little discussion of Dianism-in-a-Nutshell has prov ed enlightening to you. It is not a path for everyone, but it is a val id path for some, and in considering it I hope that you can now ignore t he garbage that has been put forth in the past as "data" regarding it. Inanna Seastar Birdsnest Coven
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