Third Wave Witch: Feminist Spirituality, Spiritual Feminism

Third Wave Witchcraft explores the intersection of feminism, Witchcraft, Goddess Spirituality, and feminist activism. A place to explore how to make our spirituality more feminist, our feminism more spiritual, and our world more just.

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Susan Harper

Susan Harper

Susan Harper is an eclectic solitary Feminist Witch from Irving, Texas. She is a professor of Anthropology, Sociology, and Women's Studies, with a focus on gender, religion, and sexuality. She is also an activist, community educator, and writer. When she's not making magick or fomenting social change, Susan is the head soapmaker, herbalist, and aromatherapist for Dreaming Priestess Creations. She shares her life with her partner, Stephanie, five cats, and two guinea pigs.

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
Priestess is a Verb

This post is mirrored from my other blog space, Priestessing the Dream

It's been almost a year since I chose the word "Priestess" as my power word for the year -- or rather, since it chose me. And over the last turn of the Wheel the work -- because above all, being a priestess is work -- has found me in the most unexpected places. For a long time I resisted applying the word priestess to myself, at least when I wasn't actively in a circle and leading a ritual, because it seemed too loaded, too pretentious. As a Goddess woman who is completely self-taught -- or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say, whose training has been completely self-directed, as I have had wonderful mentors -- rather than having been trained up through a formal coven system, I have balked at using the term for myself in any but the most basic of senses.

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
Pagans Must #StandWithStandingRock

I've been following the events on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, where hundreds (if not thousands) have gathered to protest the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL for short) for the better part of two months, though I've been dimly aware of the issue since last spring. As a native South Dakotan transplanted to Texas, I still follow news outlets from my beloved prairies, including several independent Native news agencies. When I started sharing posts about the growing camps of protectors -- community members prefer this term to protestors -- I was shocked and amazed when friends told me that my Facebook feed was the only place they were hearing about the situation. (The 1,172 mile pipeline, which will carry oil from North Dakota's Bakkan region, crosses the Missouri River in a number of places, threatening the only source of drinking water for many indigenous communities. Construction also threatens burial grounds and other culturally important sites for the Standing Rock Sioux. For a quick primer on the situation, go here and here.)

I've been heartened to see that the Pagan community has spoken out about the DAPL and has offered support to the protectors at Standing Rock. While I understand that many Pagans "don't like to be political," there is no question in my mind that we have a duty to stand with indigenous peoples everywhere, and in particular with Native American/First Nations peoples. For Pagans in the United States and Canada (and elsewhere in the Americas), the very land on which we stand and which we purport to venerate is the same land (and water, and air) threatened by the DAPL and projects like it. The environmental stakes alone should give us reason to stand up and say #NoDAPL and to support those seeking to prevent the "black snake" from being built across the nation's prairie heartland, from North Dakota all the way to Illinois. As earth-venerating people, I believe that it is incumbent upon us to stand up against environmental degradation -- as Al Gore famously said in Earth in the Balance, Paganism is the spiritual arm of the environmental movement. 

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  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    I know about a pipeline being built here in Virginia, there have been a lot of newspaper articles on it. It looks like the state

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
The Work Will Find You

"That Priestess work will find you."

So said my circle-sister when I told her that I had been asked to consult on an upcoming art installation which, based on my suggestion, will feature a labyrinth. 

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
Gathering In the First Harvest

What will you give up to the Goddess's sickle?

This has been the question running through my head as we approach Lammas, the First Harvest. Though most of my Pagan friends celebrate Lammas on August 1, I have always celebrated it on August 5, for reasons I can't really articulate. So this week, as my Lammas celebrations -- both private and with my circle -- approach, I've thought a great deal about what First Fruits I'll be gathering, and what I am willing to give up to the Goddess's sickle.

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This is not the blog entry I intended to write

This isn't the blog entry I intended to write this week.

The blog entry I intended to write was going to talk about the article featuring me that appeared in my local alt-weekly, the Dallas Observer. It was going to talk about the reception of the article in the Pagan community, which was surprising in ways both pleasant and not. It was going to talk about the way that I've seen coverage of Paganism change in the Dallas press over the last 20 years. 

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  • Lizann Bassham
    Lizann Bassham says #
    Blessings on you dear one, blessings on your city, blessings your work

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
All Acts of Love and Pleasure Radio

Did you know I co-host a radio show

Every first and third Wednesday, and occasional fifth Wednesdays, my cohost Michael Greywolf and I host All Acts of Love and Pleasure on Pagans Tonight Radio Network. We talk about it all on the show -- love, sex, sexuality, gender, relationships, and whatever else we come up with, all from a Pagan perspective! We go live at 7pm CDT.

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Nice profile of me by the Dallas Observer today, for their Counterculture Dallas issue.

 

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