March 28, 1994, Monday, Home Edition

SECTION: Calendar; Part F; Page 10; Column 1; Entertainment Desk

LENGTH: 544 words

HEADLINE: TV REVIEW;
PBS' 'WOMEN' DOESN'T DEFINE SPIRITUAL MOVEMENT

BYLINE: By ROBERT KOEHLER, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

BODY:
Canadian filmmaker Donna Read admits late in her three-part, three-hour film study "Women and Spirituality" that she and her crew at first felt uncomfortable shooting the ritual ceremonies practiced by feminist spiritualists, paganists and witches in North America and England. They got over it, she explains, understanding the purpose of the rituals as an act of reverence for the Earth -- the heart and soul of eco-spiritualism.

Alas, to the casual viewer of Read's massive and beautiful film, whatever understanding Read gleaned to bridge that river of discomfort is never fully articulated. Against her obvious desires, the image of the ritualists on the screen suggests a bunch of white people going native.

It is only partly Read's problem. The movement itself has yet to describe its full meaning and foundation, despite a growing library of books on the subject by, among others, Charlene Spretnak, Susan Griffin and Starhawk -- all of whom the film prominently features. Especially in the first section ("Goddess Remembered") and the third ("Full Circle"), the religion's value -- "Do as you will, harm none" -- and its dominant terminology of "reverence" for the Earth, of a striving for "balance" and
"wholeness," is so conceptually vague as to mean almost anything.

Much clearer is the middle section ("The Burning Times"), in which Read turns to history and such historians as Barbara Roberts and Irving Smith to tell the gruesome account of early Christian Europe's persecution of women, some of whom held to ancient pagan customs, as witches...

"Women and Spirituality," produced from 1989 to 1992 by the National Film Board of Canada, is, on one level, a gorgeous travelogue taking us to Avebury, Chaco Canyon, Palenque and other primeval sites. On a deeper level, though, it demonstrates how eco-spirituality is firmer about the history of such pre-Christian goddess-based societies as the Minoans, Celts and Urubans and the subsequent era of persecution than about its own content. Read's inquiry is spelled out in personal terms in the final hour, but what's heard is the voice of mystification.

Yet the voice can't hide the contradictions. The values, for instance, of "the personal is the political" and "nature" were also shared by the Nazis, and the movement's equation of peace and nonviolence with nature -- which is seldom peaceful and endlessly violent -- will not square.

* "Women and Spirituality" airs in three parts on KCET-TV Channel 28, tonight through
Wednesday at 10 p.m.
 

LOAD-DATE: March 29, 1994
 
 

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               NOVEMBER 18, 1990, SUNDAY, SUNDAY EDITION

SECTION: SUNDAY DATEBOOK; Pg. 25

LENGTH: 1012 words

HEADLINE: Goddess Movement Balancing Sexes' Power
'The Burning Times'

BYLINE: CALVIN AHLGREN, CHRONICLE STAFF WRITER

BODY:
FILM MAKER Donna Read acknowledges that primitive instincts play a large part in today's feminism. A common yeast of nurturing, whether it addresses ecological, spiritual or cultural hunger, is perceived to be growing from ancient roots that lead back to goddesses in the lores of many lands. But archaic or not, she points out, the subject is popping up everywhere in the contemporary world, via books, radio, television, films and even fashion. .  .

Read's own fires were lit by the goddess flame in the early '80s, when she came across a 1979 book by Bay Area author Starhawk (nee Miriam Simos), ''The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Goddess.'' Although goddess-directed writings by the late mythologist Joseph Campbell, and other works such as poet Robert Graves' ''The White Goddess,'' have been well-known for decades, Starhawk's books have touched a contemporary nerve, especially among
women. .  .

''Goddess Remembered,'' released last year, took as its central viewpoint a feminine perspective in sketching the history of goddess-oriented civilizations. The second, ''The Burning Times,'' opened October 1 across Canada, and premieres at the Roxie Cinema on Friday.

It examines persecution of women as witches in medieval Europe and evaluates from a historical and cultural point of view the damage done to social and family arrangements that had developed over thousands of years.

Read, who had just returned home from a month's travels across Canada in behalf of her film, was glad to be back and was flustered at the same time. Not only did her family claim her attention, but she was still assimilating the rigors of the road. ''Now I know how rock stars feel, going from the airplane to the (concert) hall to the car,'' she said, laughing. ''You never see anything but the inside of  places.''

''The Burning Times'' marshals a handful of on-camera historians, writers, psychologists and even a Jesuit priest, to light historical, political, spiritual, family and cultural signposts along the way of its central thesis: that circumstances combined to shift European society from its age-old, woman-centered focus on spirituality, that grew naturally in a rural, agricultural people, to one of  patriarchal, institutional control imposed by the Christian Church. After the Romans left Europe, the
film states, ''women continued traditions of ancient religions, the thousand small ceremonies in their daily lives; they were leaders, counselors, visionaries and healers. In Europe, their villages knew them as wise women. The Christian church and state branded them witches, and condemned them as worshipers of the devil. Their history, once lost, is being reclaimed by a new generation of  women.''

THE history, the film points out, is not a happy one. Feminist author and broadcaster Thea Jensen refers to ''a women's holocaust'' -- the violent and persecutory deaths of as many as 9 million women over ''three or four hundred years,'' starting with the ''witch craze'' of the Renaissance. Women, especially older ones, the film posits, were the scapegoat of a society wracked by fear and confusion via war, disease, political and religious foment.

As Starhawk and others take pains to state, women still are subject to vilification in many places in the world today. The evidence is even closer at hand, not only in patriarchal countries such as Iraq, whose information minister recently branded British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher a ''hag,'' but in parts of the states as well.

The film's focus is that of setting the record straight and stating a hopeful precis of the aim of  present-day witches. The term ''witch'' derives from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning to bend or  shape -- interpreted by Starhawk and others as referring to energy. Meditation, ritual and chanting are the means of achieving such bending and shaping of attitude, mind, intent, according to Starhawk. It all goes in the service of reconnecting to ancient female perspective, in a time when the
Earth is seen as being in danger of destruction at the hands of its current human stewards.

Read's film looks to demythologize the negative overwash on the term witch. According to the film maker, the goddess movement, also loosely called the Neo Pagan, doesn't aim to dethrone male power, but rather to balance it with female rationale. Even that overstates the potentially confrontational nature of the case, she said.

''What this whole thing, to me, is all about is individuals' taking responsibility for their own spiritual  path -- you can go to Buddhism, go Christian, whatever you want -- but you're it! It's very hard to look and say, 'No no, what's sacred is right now, you're responsible for your own spiritual growth, you're the goddess, the god.' It's ancient, before Christianity.''

GRAPHIC: PHOTO,Film maker Donna Read

                   February 14, 1994, Monday, FINAL EDITION

SECTION: WOMAN NEWS; BROADSHEET: ITEMS IN THE NEWS; Pg. C3

LENGTH: 165 words

HEADLINE: A view of spirituality

BODY:
 

Donna Read has always fancied herself a film editor. But in addition to her editing accomplishments since the late '60s, Read has managed to gain international recognition as a director for her series titled Women and Spirituality Trilogy. The first film, Goddess Remembered, which looks at prehistoric goddess-worshipping societies, won the Special Jury Prize at the Toronto Film Festival in 1989. The second film, The Burning Times, an examination of the religious and political persecutions that fuelled the witch hunts from the 13th to the 17th centuries, won as best international documentary in Los Angeles in 1990. The third film in the trilogy, Adam's World, looks at how power politics can give way to ideas that can honor creation, women and the earth.

Tomorrow, Read will speak on Environment and Spirituality at Concordia University's Hall Building Auditorium, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W., at 4 p.m. There will also be a screening of Full Circle and Adam's World.

LOAD-DATE: February 15, 1994