Starhawk

Starhawk is the public name of Wiccan priestess Miriam Simos. She is an international spokesperson for neo-paganism, feminist concerns, and social activism. Through the 1970s she studied magic and witchcraft with a succession of prominent teachers, including Sara Cunningham of the Temple of Tiperath, Victor H. Anderson (founder of the Faery tradition), and Zsuzsanna E. Budapest.

In the mid-1970s she founded the Compost Coven and was one of the original signers of the Covenant of the Goddess (COG), serving as COG's first officer in 1976-77. She cofounded Reclaiming: A Center for Feminist Spirituality and Counseling in Berkeley, California, for which she served as a director, teacher, and counselor.

In 1979 Starhawk wrote the first of her three books, The Spiral Dance, a textbook on witchcraft that became one of the most popular introductions to Wicca in the 1980s. In the wake of the book's success, Starhawk lectured extensively in both America and Europe. She followed it with Dreaming in the Dark (1982) and Truth or Dare (1987). During the late 1980s Starhawk figured in the conflict between Catholic priest Matthew Fox and the Roman Catholic Church. Among many complaints, church officials objected to Fox using Starhawk as a faculty member at his Institute in Culture and Creation Spirituality at Holy Names College in Oakland, California. Most recently Fox has left the Roman Catholic Church.

Sources:

Starhawk. Dreaming in the Dark. Boston: Beacon Press, 1982.

——. The Spiral Dance. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979.

——. Truth or Dare: Encounters of Power, Authority, Mystery. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987.