A Pagan Response to Katrina
By Starhawk
As Pagans, as worshippers of nature, how do we
respond to an event like
Hurricane Katrina, one of the most destructive
natural disasters in the
history of the United States? What does it mean to
‘worship’ something
that, with one breath, can wipe out a major city?
Do we see this as
punishment, retribution for some Pagan sin? As an
object lesson in the
reality of climate change and global warming? As an
overheated Goddess
batting away some of the oil rigs contributing to
her fever?
Of course, no one can speak for all
Pagans. There is no overall
Council of Pagan Thealogy to hand down an official
dogma. But here is my
own answer, as a priestess, teacher, writer,
activist and thealogian.
Pagan religions are not punishment systems. We don’t
worship Gods of
retribution, but a Goddess—or Gods and Goddesses--
of mystery, in many
aspects. The Goddess has immense power, both
creative and destructive: the
power that pushes a root out from a tiny seed and
sends its shoot reaching
for the sky, the power of the earthquake and the
volcano, the rain that
feeds the crops and the hurricane. We respond to
that power with awe,
wonder , amazement and gratitude, not fear.
The great powers of nature have an intelligence, a
consciousness, albeit
different in magnitude and kind from our own.
Everything in nature is alive
and speaking: the deep, crystalline intelligence of
the rock heart of the
planet, the fungal threads that link the roots of
trees into the nerve-net
of the forests, the chattering birds and the
biochemistry of plants and
mushrooms are all communicating. Our spiritual
practice, the practice of
magic, is about opening our eyes, ears and hearts to
be able to hear,
understand, and communicate back. And those powers
want us to communicate
with them. The Goddess is not omnipotent—she is
co-creative with human
beings. She needs human help to create fertility
and regeneration. The
elements, the ancestors, the spirit beings that
surround us want to work
with us to protect and heal the earth, but they need
our invitation.
Nature is also human nature. Our human
intelligence, our particular,
sharp-pointed ability to analyze, think, draw
conclusions and act, our
esthetic/emotional capacity to thrill at a beautiful
sunset, our deep bonds
with those we love and our empathy and compassion
for others, are all
aspects of the Goddess Herself. Indeed, she evolved
us complicated,
contradictory big-brained creatures precisely to
experience some of those
aspects. Or to put it simply, she gave us brains
and she expects us to use
them.
As a Witch, as a priestess of the Goddess, I make
daily time to meditate and
listen, ideally in some place where I have direct
contact with nature. I
rarely use an indoor altar any more—instead I sit in
the woods, or at least,
in my garden, quiet my thoughts, open my eyes, look
and listen. And what
I’ve been hearing lately, in company with every
other person I know who is
in tune with the deep powers of the earth, is
anguish, distress, deep rage,
and dire warnings. The processes of environmental
destruction, in
particular, the overheating of the earth’s climate,
are already underway. A
few weeks ago, when we were preparing for the Free
Activist Witch Camp that
Reclaiming, our network of Witches, offered in
Southern Oregon, I asked, “Is
there any way to avert massive death and
destruction.” The answer I got was
an unequivocal ‘no’.
“The process has gone too far,” was the answer. The
image that came to me
was river rafting and shooting the rapids.. There
was a point where we as a
species could have chosen a different river, or a
different boat, or a
different channel. But now we’re in the chute. We
can’t turn back. We
can’t stop.
There’s a command in river rafting, used in extreme
situations: “Paddle or
die.” If you paddle, you have some power—not enough
to change the flow of
the river, but enough to steer a course and avoid
crashing on the rocks. If
you give up, the river will most likely flip your
boat, and you will drown.
When we emerged from the woods, a little-reported
item in the news media,
hidden away on the back pages, informed us that vast
stretches of the tundra
were melting in Siberia. If we were collectively
using even a minimum of
our human intelligence, this news should have been
trumpeted on the front
page with all the alarm of a terrorist attack, for
it is far more dangerous.
Global warming increases the intensity of storms.
Turn up the fire under a
pot of water, and the bubbles will be bigger, faster
and stronger.
Hurricanes draw their energy from the heat in
seawater. The Gulf of Mexico
is abnormally warm—and hurricanes have doubled in
average intensity in the
last decade and a half. Hurricane Katrina was a
natural phenomenon, but
Katrina’s progression from a Category Two up to a
Category Five as she
crossed the gulf was a human-caused phenomenon, a
function of our choices
and decisions, our failure to steer a different
course.
The forms and names we put on Goddesses, Gods, and
Powers help translate
those forces into terms our human minds can grasp.
And so the Yoruba based
traditions that originate in West Africa have given
the name ‘Oya’ to the
whirlwind, the hurricane, to those great powers of
sudden change and
destruction. Santeria, candomble, lucumi, voudoun,
all include Oya in some
form as a major orisha, a Great Power. Offerings
are made to her,
ceremonies done in her behalf, priestesses dance
themselves into trance
possession so that she can communicate with directly
with the human
community.
No city in the U.S. has more practitioners of these
traditions than New
Orleans. On the night the hurricane was due to hit,
I made a ritual with a
small group of friends to support the spiritual
efforts that I knew were
being made by priestesses of Oya all over the
country. We were in Crawford,
Texas, at Camp Casey, where Gold Star mother Cindy
Sheehan, whose son was
killed in Itaq, camped near Bush’s ranch to confront
Bush with the painful
reality of the deaths his policies have caused.
Many of the supporters
there were from New Orleans, worried about their
homes, their friends and
families. The overall culture of the camp was very
Christian—we found no
natural opening for public Pagan ritual, although a
number of people did
indicate to me quietly that they were ‘one of us.’
But our little group
gathered by the roadside, cast a circle, chanted and
prayed.
We prayed, speaking personally in the way humans do:
“ Please, Mama, we know
what a mess we’ve made, but if there is any way to
mitigate the death and
the destruction, to lessen it slightly, please do.”
That same night
Christians were praying and Orisha priestesses were
‘working’ Oya, and the
hurricane did shift its course, slightly, and
lessened its force, down to a
Category Four.
And New Orleans survived. Not without loss, and
death, but without the
massive flooding and destruction that was feared.,
We all breathed a sigh
of relief.
And a day later, the levees failed, and the floods
came. They failed not
from an Act of Goddess, but from a lack of
resources. The Bush
Administration had systematically cut funding for
flood control and for
repairing and increasing the strength of the levees.
The money went to Iraq.
Much of the Louisiana National Guard was also in
Iraq. FEMA, the Federal
Agency responsible for responding to natural
disasters, had been gutted,
defunded, refocused on terrorism, and its
directorship given to a Bush
political crony with no experience in disaster
response.
Now, weeks later, New Orleans remains under martial
law. Official efforts
at relief have ranged from inept to brutal, and the
lack of planning and
concern for human life, the punitive quality of the
official response, seem
deeply linked to prejudice and racism which devalues
the lives of the poor,
especially if they’re black.
But ordinary people of all faiths have responded
to this disaster with
caring and compassion, with massive donations and
relief efforts, and with
shock and rage at a government which so completely
fails to embody the
values of human decency and respect for life that it
claims to represent.
The Goddess does not punish us, but she also doesn’t
shield us from the
logical consequences of our actions. Katrina’s
destructive power was a
consequence of a human course that is contemptuous
of nature. A Native
American proverb says, “If we don’t change our
direction, we’re going to
wind up where we’re headed.” Katrina shows us a
glimpse of that awful
destination.
And she also shows us hope. We can change, and if
we truly awaken to the
need, maybe we will, before it is too late. The
outpouring of concern and
efforts to help, the hope, determination and vision
of some of the citizens
of New Orleans who remain, the grief we feel for the
dead and the losses and
the compassion that a huge tragedy evokes are the
tools we need to set a
different course, one that honors nature and human
life, that uses our human
intelligence to restore and regenerate the natural
world, awakens our
compassion, and kindles our passion for justice.
When we set a new course,
all the powers of life and growth and regeneration
will be flowing with us.
And when we ally with those powers, miracles can
happen.
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