Grandmothers of a Movement: 13th House Mystery School in Her 4th Decade
Starhawk is one of the spiritual Grandmothers of the (Canada-based) 13th House Mystery School Tradition and collective. She mentored me on my first public workshop, titled, ‘Non-Hierarchical Leadership for Groups,’ presented under the aegis of the wonderful NY-based activist art organization, Artist’s Call, with which I’d made contact through award-winning photographer, Dona Ann McAdams, and her continually enrolling me in various actions around NY and Washington DC. Starhawk met with me in her office at S.F. university, and later, very generously, sent me as yet unpublished chapters of her upcoming book on Eco-Feminist activism and ethical process, ‘Truth or Dare.’
I co-presented the workshop with the renowned feminist artist and activist, Mary Beth Edelson, at the recommendation of the famed feminist critic, activist and author, Lucy Lippard, in NYC, in 1985. Mary Beth already had these concepts, processes, and ethical organization precepts well under her belt, from her work with the incipient Green Movement, Women’s Spirituality, Goddess Movement, and the burgeoning discipline and methodology of Feminist Critique. She had been there with the early Eco-Feminist artists, authors, scientists and activists in the Bay Area/San Francisco in the early to mid-seventies, including Charlene Spretnak, Z Budapest, Starhawk, Marija Gimbutas, and others, and she supplied me with the Ten Founding Principles of the Green Movement, otherwise known as ‘The Original Values Statement.’
All this rich heritage informs the philosophical, ethical, spiritual and ideological roots of 13th House, which — as a Tradition, a collective, and Mystery School centred around the Tree of Life Initiation, is nearing its 30th year of life. The Tradition has been nurtured and sustained through decades of dedicated care and feeding by Daniella Sorrentino, Alison Skelton, Ariel O’Sullivan, Jessica North O’Connell and others of the original nine co-Founders, and the ongoing works of subsequent generations of teaching, initiating and administrating priestesses, priestx and priests of 13th House Mystery School.
Thank you Grandmothers, spiritual and temporal, in both this and the Otherworld.
