On the right: Front cover of "Goddessing" magazine with pictures of the sprayed stencil art created in nighttime.

Earth Action, Bristol, England:

We have formed a new group in Bristol, England, which provision­ally is called "Women for Earth." It includes women from Ama Mawu, a political women's spirituality group I belong to, and women from the now defunct Ecofeminist group Rowantree clan. We are in­spired by Starhawk and others in the Reclaiming Collective with the way they use ritual and magic to support and empower action and their demonstrations such as the ones in Seattle, Washington, during the end of 1999.

The name "Women for Earth" is inspired by the movement, "Women for Life on Earth," which occurred alongside the Greenham Common women's peace encampments in the 1980s.

Our group did a 1999 Spring Equinox ritual outside the gates of the Long Ashton University Research station near Bristol where fields of genetically engineered or "modified" wheat and other plants were be­ing grown and tested. (See Goddessing issue 1)

Then in December at the time of the Millennium, some of us made a Labyrinth using sticks and ribbons on the Green in front of the coun­cil house and cathedral in Bristol. We walked the Labyrinth, which had a Sun Goddess in its heart/womb center, meditated, called in the Directions, prayed for the end of Patriarchy, and sang. We were only nine women but it felt very powerful and moving.

On Sunday, November 19, 2000 our "Women and Earth" group made a manifestation with banners saying "Protect the Earth" at the large Broadmead shopping center while the Conference on Climate Change was being held at The Hague in Holland where many activists trav­eled to protest. As expected, the United States refused to come to any agreement at the Climate Conference about cutting down on polluting emissions. In fact, they are refusing to do anything at all that might cost their corporations any money or that might in any way limit the way Americans consume so much of the world's oil and other re­sources. It is the most polluting nation in the world.

Banner at "Protect the Earth" Rally.

The Ancient Taiga Forest

At an international conference held near Moscow, Russia, in Sep­tember of 2000, 1 heard that the United States has plans to plant genetically modified trees on vast areas of land in Third World" countries, thus displacing and disempowering even more already poverty-stricken people. Theoretically the genetically modified tree " plantations would act as carbon sinks; the idea is that the U.S. will then be able to carry on polluting and consuming as it has. It appears " that the U.S. and other Western nations are trading with poor non-industrial countries and buying up their quotas of permissible car­bon emissions.

To me this sounds insane and is the ultimate Patriarchy gone crazy. The irony is that at the same time the ancient forests, whether the California redwoods, the Canadian cedars and Douglas firs  some of the oldest and most giant beings on this Earth  and now the Sibe­rian primeval Taiga, the vast pine boreal forests, are being cut down, often clear cut with great devastation. Of course the ancient Amazon rainforests are dying fast already, along with the indigenous peoples who live there. The forests are dark, deeply mysterious, impenetra­ble, damp and female as they create boundless life and nourishment for animals and humans.

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