by Ivy Lynn

Many of the women of Earthaven attended the Second Annual Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference held during the Fall Equinox, sponsored by Red Moon Herbs. Starhawk’s presence as this year’s keynote speaker was particularly significant for Earthaveners.

Starhawk is well known as the author of eleven books, including The Spiral Path and The Fifth Sacred Thing. However, it’s her more recent books that specifically and eloquently explain the fundamental values that are at the core of Earthaven’s existence. Webs of Power covers much of the political action spectrum, including the importance of bioregional economic self-sufficiency and its relationship to strategies of political power. The significance of understanding and working with Nature is made abundantly clear in her other recent book, Earth Path.

Starhawk’s focus at the conference was very much about the material in Earth Path. She led the intensive through a series of awareness exercises. The exercises enhance sense awareness, allowing participants to be more receptive to information from Nature. This information is always available to us, if we only give ourselves access to the natural world. A guided meditation followed the exercises. The beauty of guided meditation is that it allows us to screen out ego filters accumulated in the rough-and-tumble world, where abuse and failure can block our vision and limit our options. Then the information we glean from Nature can help us see the steps needed to care for our world and ourselves more skillfully.

Starhawk addressed the feelings of helplessness that come so often to people who are daunted by the enormous tasks before us, of changing consumer culture and cleaning up so much pollution. Hearing from her about advances in the use of bacteria and fungi to clean up pollution were very inspiring. She pointed out that we are part of nature and that nature can use humans to cure the distructiveness of other human actions.

If you would like to learn more about Starhawk’s work, the books mentioned above are a captivating and easy-to-understand resource. You may buy these books at your local bookstore, or through Red Moon Herbs.