Ep. 3 - The Patriarchy Hex with Starhawk
TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Susan: Welcome, everyone. I'm so excited to bring you episode three of the Collaborative Hardball podcast, The Patriarchy Hex. The intent of both the book chapter of that name and this episode is to leave people with this understanding that humans have not always been violent, that in fact, the vast majority of human time on Earth, there is no evidence of organized warfare.
[00:00:30] War came in very recently and came in with the system of patriarchy, and humans have not always been patriarchal. Indeed, many, some societies are not patriarchal. The vast majority are, but some are not today, which suggests that we can live without it, that we can live beyond it. Prior to patriarchy, there was gender equality, and the hex in the title of both the episode and the book chapter that I'm referring to is that patriarchy has taught both women and men that women are secondary, but it's clear from the evidence that we are not in any way, and we need to understand that when we negotiate and advocate for what we want and need.
[00:01:18] So I'm really excited that Starhawk is joining me for this conversation. She is a perfect person to talk about this topic. She is a writer and activist, a permaculture designer and teacher, and a leading voice for eco-feminism and Earth-based spirituality. I will put her bio in the show notes. She is a very prolific, uh, person.
[00:01:43] I recommend you check out more about her. Uh, I wanted to talk to her for two reasons, her being a person who brought early on, at least in the US, awareness of Earth-centered spirituality, goddess religions, the impact of the witch persecutions and burnings on our collective consciousness, specifically on women when we negotiate, and more.
[00:02:08] And that she is just a very sane, articulate voice for what she calls now the movement we need. It really struck me that she focuses on meeting human needs in very much the way I focus on that in my negotiation models. So my basic question for her was, how did we get into this mess? And I meant the long view of this, starting with patriarchy when it took over 8,000 years ago or wherever you mark the starting point.
[00:02:39] And how do we get out of it? And she'll touch on many of these themes, how hard, specifically really emphasize how hard patriarchy has been on men as well as women, that we need to understand our history about things like the witch persecutions if we're going to heal and move forward. We can't be in denial about it.
[00:03:02] That permaculture, I really love the conversation about permaculture moving, you know, moving towards regenerativity, not just sustainability, that permaculture provides us with a great metaphor for how to move forward with land and with each other. So I'm delighted to bring you Starhawk. Thank you so much, Starhawk, for joining us.
[00:03:27] So, yeah. So, well, thank you. I had basically two questions for you. How did we get into this mess? Uh-huh. And how do we get out of it? You know, I mean, one of the things that I definitely want you to speak to is how we got into the mess. Mm-hmm. I, when I think about all of it, I think in some ways it's a perfect...
[00:03:45] We've pr- arrived at sort of the obvious place, given, you know, with Trump is such a manifestation of what I would- Mm-hmm ... consider the patriarchal world culture and- Mm-hmm ... but I think that not everybody realizes that we haven't always been like that, that we don't have to be like that, that maybe it's just a blip in terms of human life on Earth, because it kind of is.
[00:04:09] You know, I mean- Mm-hmm ... in terms of what I understand, you probably understand a lot of, more than th- I mean, you've written so much about it. Yeah, that's what I was hoping to do, is just start with that, unless you wanted to do anything. You know, and I might weave in some of my own understanding of where I'm sitting on this planet right now- Mm-hmm
[00:04:27] and how much, I don't know if you saw my note about the land that I'm sitting on and how much it embodies the whole story right here.
[00:04:35] Yeah.
[00:04:36] Susan: Yeah. Probably true for all of us, you know? Mm-hmm. And, but not everybody maybe has those glacial erratics. I have these two amazing- Sure ... boulders on either side of me that are- Wow
[00:04:45] yeah, that are kind of cool. They're left over. I don't know if you know this, 15,000 years ago, New York State, uh, what is now New York State, was under a mile high of ice.
[00:04:56] Starhawk: Wow.
[00:04:56] Susan: I know. It's incredible to think about.
[00:04:58] Starhawk: Yeah.
[00:04:59] Susan: And, uh, it wasn't until 12,000 years ago that human beings could live here. So, yeah, and then the story unfolds.
[00:05:07] Of course, the story unfolds- Mm-hmm ... of sort of the story that- I'll, I'll weave in, but I, I guess I wanted to give the space- Mm-hmm ... to you to talk. You know, you're so incredibly prolific. You've done such amazing work over the years, and yeah, I would just, I guess that was my question for you is how did we get into this mess?
[00:05:27] And I was hoping you could speak about what I'm calling in my... You know, the way this podcast series is, is I'm pulling on each chapter of the book. Sure. I'm a- asking a guest, inviting a guest to riff off of that chapter, and this chapter is, I called The Patriarchy Hex. Mm-hmm. I felt like I couldn't write a book about negotiation and conflict resolution without actually talking about this context, because it's so large.
[00:05:51] So I, hoping to just start with what stands out to you. If you're able to look at, you know, what stands out to you about that phrase, and anything that you wanna start with.
[00:06:01] Starhawk: Yeah. I'm impressed that you do negotiation, 'cause I, I feel like I'm really terrible at it. Like, I'm good at it as far as conflict resolution and things like that, but I read Chris Voss' book on Never Split the Difference, and he has a whole chapter in there about how he, he negotiated his way into a, you know, good deal on his car.
[00:06:26] And last time I had to buy a car, I kept thinking about that, and I was, like, completely unable right?
[00:06:32] Susan: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:06:34] Starhawk: So.
[00:06:35] Susan: Well, I, I definitely speak of negotiation in a much broader sense too.
[00:06:40] Starhawk: Yeah.
[00:06:40] Susan: You know, not just about business- Mm-hmm ... not just about money. But at the end of the day, of course, all of that, you know, building relationships is so key.
[00:06:48] But- Yeah ... you know, I think there has been a huge negotiation going on around gender for thousands of years. Yeah, so I, I'm not gonna argue about, with you about whether you're bad at negotiation, but I know you're not bad at understanding about patriarchy and how it has shaped so much of how- Mm-hmm ... the context in which negotiation happens in, in Western society anyway.
[00:07:13] Starhawk: All right. Well, I'm ready to dive in whenever you are.
[00:07:16] Susan: Yeah, yeah. Go, you go for it. I will go back and forth like a seesaw with you to the- Mm-hmm ... you know, but I'm really interested in, in hearing your voice.
[00:07:24] Starhawk: All right. Susan, you asked, how did we get into this mess? Mm. Which is a question I've been asking for many, many years, and it led me at different times into doing a lot of historical research.
[00:07:41] So if we're talking about patriarchy, uh, let's go back to its beginnings.
[00:07:50] Susan: And when do you place that? How many thousands of years ago would you mark that?
[00:07:55] Starhawk: Well, it's gonna be a little bit different in every different place. Mm. And of course, there are many different kinds of patriarchies, and there are places all over the world where patriarchy has erupted.
[00:08:10] But the kind of patriarchy that's plaguing us today, I think really goes back to the origins of warfare.
[00:08:22] Mm.
[00:08:22] Starhawk: And by warfare, I mean organized warfare for conquest and plunder, not just tribal warfare for going out and counting coup on the neighbors or stealing a few cows or something. Where I've looked at it most deeply is in ancient Mesopotamia.
[00:08:44] Mm.
[00:08:44] Starhawk: Because I see that as so deeply intertwined in the roots of what we call Western culture, and also in my own roots, which are Jewish, you know, going back at least theoretically to the Middle East hundreds and maybe thousands of years ago. And in Mesopotamia, you can really trace the rise of patriarchy, uh, through the myths, because that's also where we have some of the earliest writing, and particularly the earliest writing that's more than just temple accounts, but also stories and myths and lore.
[00:09:26] So Mesopotamia, like most of Europe, originally was hunter-gatherers, and then was small villages that began to do agriculture. And that area is one of the earliest Beginnings of agriculture in Middle East and Asia, Western Asia, with herding and with also with the cultivation of grain. And it was one of the earliest areas where we started to see those settled villages develop into bigger settlements and ultimately into cities, probably originally oriented around shrines- Hmm
[00:10:17] to different gods and goddesses. And you don't actually get writing in Mesopotamia until around 2500 BC, and by that time, the change has already started to happen. So we don't actually have the original myths from, say, 6000 BCE or 5000 BCE when this was all developing. But if you look even at the later myths, you can see a progression from ones where women were seen as very powerful agents, where goddesses were very powerful and were instrumental in all of the important aspects of culture and civilization.
[00:11:05] There's a story about Inanna, who was originally the goddess of the storehouse and the sacred marriage, the communal stores of food and resources and abundance.
[00:11:20] Hmm.
[00:11:21] Starhawk: Uh, and how she goes to steal the maize, which are, like, the foundational principles of culture From her father, Enki, and gets him drunk and sails off with them.
[00:11:39] There's also a very powerful story about Inanna descending into the underworld to visit her sister, Ereshkigal, who is the goddess of the dead and of the underworld. And she gets trapped down there, 'cause once you go down to the underworld, you don't get to go back. Mm. And then her faithful servant talks the gods into sending down two little creatures who bring her the food of life and the water of life.
[00:12:11] Mm. And she returns, but she has to send down a substitute, and she discovers her consort, Dumuzi, has been sitting on her throne and living it up while she's gone. And in a rage, she runs after him and runs after him, and, you know, no one will actually hide him. No one will help him. They're all terrified of Inanna until he gets to his sister, and his sister Geshtinanna volunteers to share this substitution with him.
[00:12:45] And so they spend half the time in the underworld. And you can see this myth as underlying some of the other later ones like Demeter and Persephone, Isis and Osiris, all these myths of descent and return, and even Orpheus and Eurydice. But it represents the incredible power around life and death and regeneration that was seen invested in the goddesses and this female power- Mm
[00:13:20] of bringing life into the world.
[00:13:23] Susan: Hmm. Yeah, my understanding, I don't know, but, and, and I... is that men and women lived really in... There was gender equality, m- I mean, if you could call it that, for much of our time- Yeah ... on the planet, and that really didn't shift until maybe, okay, 10,000 year- whatever thousands- Mm-hmm
[00:13:41] of years ago, but very recently at the same time when war started to happen as well. And-
[00:13:47] Starhawk: Yeah, and I think that shift... I mean, I think we can also romanticize early cultures and indigenous cultures a lot, and I think that gender- There wasn't this sense of one gender is the valued one and the other is devalued.
[00:14:04] But each gender did have their own roles, and it wasn't just a vast playground of gender freedom. You know? It was- No,
[00:14:14] Susan: I liked, I, I like how it like, um, so where I, where I live- Mm-hmm ... I live north of New York City in the Hudson Valley.
[00:14:21] Starhawk: Yeah.
[00:14:21] Susan: So 12,000 years ago, the people that lived- Mm-hmm ... here were known by the British, by the Dutch and the British.
[00:14:27] I don't know what the indigenous folks called themselves, but they were known as, by the British and the Dutch later as the Wappinger. And in those cultures, as best I can understand it, they were matrilineal for sure. Mm-hmm. They weren't matriarchal and they weren't patriarchal. Mm-hmm. They were matrilineal.
[00:14:45] And I kind of think, oh, it's so interesting because, of course, I'm a descendant of, uh, I have Dutch ancestry and British ancestry. So when colonists came-
[00:14:54] Hmm ...
[00:14:55] Susan: 500 years later, 400 years later, whatever it was, I think women, the colonial women had way less power-
[00:15:03] Yeah ...
[00:15:04] Susan: than the indigenous w- the indigenous women.
[00:15:07] I think they would send out to the colonists, they would send out their representative to speak to the colonists. They would always send out a man because they weren't gonna send out their most prized-
[00:15:18] Starhawk: Uh-huh ...
[00:15:19] Susan: you know?
[00:15:20] Starhawk: Yeah.
[00:15:20] Susan: And then the colonists made that understanding that, oh, then that person must be the most important person, you know?
[00:15:27] Yeah. But, but it's interesting how the colonial, the colonists brought patriarchy with them to this country. I don't think it really existed in the way that we certainly know it-
[00:15:37] Starhawk: Hmm ...
[00:15:37] Susan: now.
[00:15:38] Starhawk: So yeah, if we go back to Mesopotamia Later, Inanna becomes the goddess of love and war.
[00:15:46] Susan: Mm.
[00:15:46] Starhawk: And warfare becomes more endemic.
[00:15:50] Again, it's not just tribal warfare. It began to be wars of conquest. You know, you can look at the history of Mesopotamia and go, "All right. These people, they built this city. They invented all this amazing stuff, you know, uh, architecture, pottery, art, and built this incredible thing," and then they went to war with another city, and everything got burned down.
[00:16:15] Mm. And then they built up another thing. Mm. And beautiful culture, hanging gardens, gorgeous buildings, huge temples, and then they went to war with another city- Mm ... and everything destroyed. And over and over and over again, you know, you had all these different city-states there that shared some common language and shared some common culture, but you'd get a very ambitious king, and they'd go out, and they'd start conquering the neighbors.
[00:16:46] And the thing about Mesopotamia is if you had conquered people, if you had slaves that were your war captives, you can actually put them to use because the more irrigation canals you could create and build there, the more land you could irrigate, and the more you could grow, and the more you could expand your wealth and your resources.
[00:17:14] And so there was an incentive to go out and conquer and make use of other peoples.
[00:17:21] Mm.
[00:17:22] Starhawk: You know, in most indigenous tribes, there's often warfare, but you can't really do that much, you know, right, with people. You've gotta feed them, and, you know, if you wanna keep them alive, and there isn't that much that they can really do for you.
[00:17:38] But in Mesopotamia, there was.
[00:17:41] Susan: Hmm.
[00:17:42] Starhawk: And so as warfare becomes more endemic, I think what, you know, you
[00:17:46] Susan: see the- So
[00:17:47] Starhawk: it
[00:17:47] Susan: became profitable. There was really an incentive-
[00:17:49] Starhawk: Exactly ...
[00:17:50] Susan: where there hadn't been an incentive- Yeah ... before as far as you understand it.
[00:17:54] Starhawk: But if you're thinking about that kind of organized warfare, what it meant was you had to have a, a few people in charge who had the use of lots and lots of other people, other men, who were essentially expendable, 'cause that kind of warfare depended on a bunch of guys all in a line with their spears and their shields marching up to another bunch of guys all on the line.
[00:18:22] And what was important was that nobody gave in to that natural human instinct when you're facing a bunch of guys with spears to turn and run.
[00:18:32] Susan: Yeah, really.
[00:18:33] Starhawk: That you stood there, and you held that line. So you needed- A psychological incentive as well as, you know, the incentive of money and power and whatever.
[00:18:47] And the truth is, if you were a soldier in that line you weren't ever gonna get very much power. You were always gonna be among the expendable ones. You were not gonna get to be a great hero who was, you know, talked about in myths. Um, so- So what was
[00:19:04] Susan: the psychological incentive?
[00:19:06] Starhawk: Patriarchy. But,
[00:19:07] Susan: but that-
[00:19:07] Starhawk: The incentive was that before that women were very much seen as In charge of their own sexuality as having agency around sexuality.
[00:19:20] But warfare involved the incentive of rape. So what you got to do if you won that war was you got to take the women and rape them or keep them as captives. It also then had to involve the fear, you know, this differentiation between men and women so that the most terrible thing you could be would be weak like a woman.
[00:19:47] And then- Yeah, this
[00:19:47] Susan: is, this is sort of sound- sounding our, like our modern-day definition of masculinity, which is basically- Well,
[00:19:53] Starhawk: this is- ... don't
[00:19:54] Susan: be
[00:19:54] Starhawk: a pussy ... a piece headset, right. Yeah. You know? It's like it hasn't changed- Yeah ... in, like, 5,000, 7,000 years. You know, it's the same stuff. Like, don't be weak. And what does weak mean?
[00:20:07] You know, weak means being like a woman.
[00:20:10] Susan: Yeah.
[00:20:11] Starhawk: Which is ironic because really if you think about women and men, women in many, so many ways are actually much stronger. But- And
[00:20:21] Susan: why, why do you say that?
[00:20:22] Starhawk: Well, think of the strength it takes to give birth or the strength that it takes even when you don't physically give birth just to wake up every day and take care of a kid and soothe a crying baby.
[00:20:36] Hmm. You know, grow food. All of the women who get left with the kids and are single moms and have to make a living and do all of the childcare and, you
[00:20:49] Susan: know- It makes me, me think of also, I don't know if you... You know, one of the things I wrote about in my book was I was- Yeah ... quoting Rabia Roberts who did a lot of research on her story.
[00:20:58] But she was talking about the whole myth of Adam and Eve and how- Mm-hmm ... it's kind of backwards because- Yeah ... y- yeah, 'cause human, we started, mammals started with cloning, which was XX, and maybe the XY came in later on as a possibly even a mutation. And, uh- Yeah ... so maybe you could... I mean, I don't know i- you know, if this is biologically sound, but you could s- see us as a very sort of the basic, you know, the XX model as the, the first model anyway.
[00:21:27] Mm-hmm. And, um, maybe contributing to our strength. I don't know. But I did just saw something right before we got on that I thought was so- Mm-hmm ... interesting, which is that they have discovered that menstrual blood has all these stem cells in it. And why not, you know? Oh, yeah. And, and that they're thinking, "Oh my God, this resource of stem cells, you know?
[00:21:48] We've been looking everywhere, but there it is in all, all this menstrual blood that people consider disgusting" and, you know, like...
[00:21:55] Starhawk: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:56] Susan: Uh, anyway, so
[00:21:58] Starhawk: yeah. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, you gotta sort of mentally condition men to be willing to be speared rather than show- Uh, natural fear or weakness-
[00:22:12] Yeah ...
[00:22:12] Starhawk: run away.
[00:22:13] And for most men, you know, while patriarchy benefits men over women, it actually always benefits a few men over all other men.
[00:22:24] Susan: Right. Yeah.
[00:22:24] Starhawk: I think, you know, we're looking at patriarchy wrong. I, I actually wrote one of my substacks was like, you know, "Man, patriarchy is a plot to kill you."
[00:22:34] Susan: Yeah.
[00:22:34] Starhawk: Because it i- it is.
[00:22:36] It's about-
[00:22:37] Susan: Yeah ...
[00:22:37] Starhawk: conditioning you to be willing to be killed or to kill other men rather than actually feeling your feelings and identifying that strength is not just about aggression and the ability to cause harm to someone, but it's about multiple, multiple things like caring, and nurturing, and growing food, and building houses, and doing all those things that actually make life better for people.
[00:23:13] And you can see this so clearly today. Have nothing else to thank the manosphere for. It's for making this crystal clear. Right. Yeah. It's like they're still mentally back there in ancient Mesopotamia, or Greece, or Rome, or that, you know, stan- you know, trying to- Go with all the other men, just stand in there, sh- you know, in the front lines with their shields together and their spears out and not turning tail and run.
[00:23:46] The difference, though, between, you know, someone like, let's say Alexander the Great, you know, we call him, call these guys The Great who were- I know,
[00:23:56] right ...
[00:23:57] Starhawk: murderers. Mas- Alexander
[00:23:58] the murderer.
[00:24:00] Starhawk: Right. Yeah. Yeah. He was like in many ways a, just a brutal and vicious human being- Mm ... responsible for massive catastrophes because he wanted to conquer the world.
[00:24:12] Right. For his ego. But to give him his due, when he went out to conquer something, he was there in the front line leading the charge, you know, over the wall, and his men wouldn't have followed him if he hadn't exemplified that kind of physical courage.
[00:24:33] Susan: You mean unlike Pete Hegseth, for instance?
[00:24:35] Starhawk: Yeah, I mean unlike Pete, you know?
[00:24:37] Something like that. Can you imagine Pete Hegseth actually, like, leading a charge or- Yeah ... Donald Trump or any of his sons- Yeah, yeah. Right, yeah ... you know, actually putting themselves in harm's way? Yeah.
[00:24:48] Right.
[00:24:48] Starhawk: And, you know, the virtue in that patriarchy was courage. Now they want the patriarchy without themselves having to exhibit the courage, and
[00:25:01] Susan: right.
[00:25:01] Yeah, I think a better word is that i- if for pat- I mean, patriarchy, I know many times- Mm-hmm ... men will hear it and they will f- and, and women will hear it and feel like it's somehow anti-men, which of course I think it, it's more the power over paradigm, and-
[00:25:16] Starhawk: Yeah ...
[00:25:16] Susan: I think that's a kind of a better- phrase for it in a way.
[00:25:20] But I don't know if you've ever, you know, heard the, of the psychological, the three rings of patriarchy. I, I know Terry Real talks about it a lot. Mm-hmm. That you take a human being and there's first the great divide. You divide the human being in half, and everything on the left side is the masculine or k- whatever.
[00:25:38] Mm-hmm. And everything on the other side is the feminine. And then there's the dance of contempt. Everybody agrees that everything on the feminine side- Mm-hmm ... is not good. And then there's the core collusion. Everybody, uh, all the people on the feminine side are making sure they're supporting-
[00:25:52] Starhawk: Yeah ...
[00:25:53] Susan: the masculine side.
[00:25:54] And so when I think about it, I think, like, the thing that so sucks for men is that... And I have, you know, a beautiful son who I've learned so much from about this. But it's how they're cut in ha- you know, the p- both men and women are cut in half. Like, they're not supposed to be these whole beings that of course have all these different characteristics, you know?
[00:26:14] Yeah. But, but hopefully neither side has to, has to embrace this power over paradigm, which has been so destructive.
[00:26:20] Starhawk: Yeah. Mm-hmm. And the, you know, the particular form of it, which we call patriarchy, again, we think of it as benefiting men, and it does in some ways, but it's actually devastating to men-
[00:26:34] Susan: Mm-hmm
[00:26:35] Starhawk: as well as to women. Because again, at its root, it is a way to get men killed. Right.
[00:26:44] Susan: Yeah. And then- Yeah. I mean, I think about five-year-old little boys. They are so sweet. And by the age- Yeah ... of five, they're already being told not to be a pussy. Yeah. They're already being told that they can't have their blankie, that they, you know, they have to toughen up and...
[00:27:00] Yeah.
[00:27:01] Starhawk: And you know, I know so many men who are, especially younger men, who are wonderful fathers and- Mm ... nurturers- Mm ... and just get so much pleasure and delight out of their children, and they're so bonded. Mm-hmm. You know, when I was growing up in the '50s, men didn't do that a lot. Mm. You know, they may have loved their kids, but they didn't really spend a lot of hands-on time child-rearing
[00:27:33] Susan: and- Mm
[00:27:34] Starhawk: playing with their kids and-
[00:27:36] Susan: Yeah, I remember this scene where my father died of lung cancer when he was 57.
[00:27:41] Starhawk: Mm. Uh-huh.
[00:27:42] Susan: And so he was really pretty sick. And, well, he was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, and he had two grandchildren that had just been born. Mm-hmm. And he... And, and my sister put her son on his lap.
[00:27:55] He, I guess he came, he sat down. My sister put his- Sure ... her little infant son on his lap, and he was... I was watching him, and he was so clearly... My father was a Wall Street dude, you know? It was- Mm-hmm ... he, he didn't get to do any of this. I could see it. He was so enjoying this moment with this infant.
[00:28:11] Starhawk: Yeah.
[00:28:11] Susan: But my mother, who was kind of your s- uh, I mean, she had wonderful qualities, but she was also- Mm-hmm ... your stay-at-home mom. She suddenly came in from the l- left side, and came in and sweep- swooped the kid- ... away. "Get away from him." Like, "No, no, no, that's not your job," or something like that. Yeah. And he was like, "Oh," you know?
[00:28:30] And I thought, yeah, the way that men were not allowed to participate really. Yeah. And, um, the roles were divided. The roles were so divided.
[00:28:40] Starhawk: Yeah. And, you know, and, you know, we've done a lot in the feminist movement about identifying how destructive that is to women, and how constricted women's lives were, and limited in opportunities.
[00:28:53] Yeah. Which is, of course, vitally important and has changed quite a bit.
[00:28:59] Susan: Mm.
[00:29:00] Starhawk: But I think in terms of the second part of your question, how do we get out of this?
[00:29:07] Susan: Start- Well, one thing I w- I sorry to interrupt you, but when I say how do we get out of it- Yeah ... I mean, I, I guess my basic feeling is that patriarchy is, a- even though I don't wanna say it in an anti-male way-
[00:29:17] it is the fundamental problem, is that power over paradigm to me is the fundamental problem. And I guess I wanted to ask you if you agree with that in term- before you talk about how we get out of it.
[00:29:29] Starhawk: Yeah, I do. I think patriarchy is one key aspect of it. I also think racism and other forms of othering a- also are part of that s- you know, we tend to think of them as separate issues, but I think they're actually all related to that same paradigm.
[00:29:47] Susan: I do, too. I do, too. Yeah. I think they're, I think in some ways that, that power over paradigm that, that people, humans learn in their homes so early on-
[00:29:56] Starhawk: Yeah ...
[00:29:57] Susan: and translates to racism, and obviously sexism, and all the othering- All the othering that goes on, but certainly to racism, you know, like, um, that some humans are better than other humans and-
[00:30:12] Starhawk: Yeah, and that y- you know, again, you can look at how that is related to warfare and conquest because, of course, if you're gonna override that natural human empathy and ability to care about other people, one of the easiest ways to do it is to redefine them as not people.
[00:30:34] Susan: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:34] Starhawk: Not of value.
[00:30:35] Susan: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:36] Starhawk: Uh, they're not us, you know, they're the city-state over there, right? So-
[00:30:41] Susan: Right ...
[00:30:42] Starhawk: you know, they're animals, they're-
[00:30:45] Susan: Right ...
[00:30:45] Starhawk: uh, and again, it's like we see that right now hasn't seemed to have changed or evolved for some guys in 5,000 years. They're still using the same terminology.
[00:30:59] They're still doing the same dehumanizing.
[00:31:02] Susan: Yeah. If not anything, it's almost like they've upped the volume-
[00:31:06] Starhawk: Yeah. Right ...
[00:31:07] Susan: on it.
[00:31:07] Starhawk: Well, it sort of felt like this was, like, maybe still an undercurrent that was being challenged all the time and addressed all the time, m- not always in very skillful ways. And then with Trump's re-election, it just all has burst forth, and now everybody's, like, totally free to let their worst impulses out and without any shame.
[00:31:37] And that's what we're seeing.
[00:31:40] Hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:31:41] Starhawk: And we say the right- You know, ri- wing extremists are really good at making people feel good about their worst impulses
[00:31:51] Susan: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:52] Starhawk: And unfortunately, on the left, we're often really good at making people feel bad about their best impulses.
[00:31:58] Susan: I so appreciated the, the move- You know, I, I didn't get through all of The Movement We Need, but I read a lot of it, and I so appreciated...
[00:32:07] First of all, I hope you are able to publish the whole thing. I mean, I know you did publish it on Substack, but I hope- Yeah ... you're able to really-- Maybe I'm putting Substack down to say really publish it, but really publish it. But I really appreciated how well you talked about being welcoming, you know?
[00:32:25] Yeah. Be- being welcoming to a diverse range of views without... Well, I don't know. You speak to it because, again
[00:32:34] Starhawk: Well, that, The Movement We Need, it is this book I wrote chapter by chapter, um, on Substack, and I was looking at some of our core human needs because I was thinking about that question, sort of how did we get into this mess, maybe not in quite such a long historical framework, but how did we get into it so recently?
[00:32:58] What is the appeal of this, you know, horrible right-wing ideology and MAGA stuff? And I think the appeal is that it actually meets some core human needs in ways that the left often does not. The need for safety, a need for belonging, um, a need to be valued, seen, the need for a sense of power and agency, and the need for purpose and meaning.
[00:33:31] Now, of course, it meets those all in, in really damaging and limited and destructive ways. But I think the left sometimes in our efforts, you know, our efforts to create safety in our groups will come out with, like, safe space agreements that are So punitive that everybody
[00:33:54] Some of the ones you quoted, I was like, "Oh my God."
[00:33:57] Yeah. You'd be scared to, scared to breathe, you know?
[00:34:00] Starhawk: Oh, yeah, and anyone, you know, anyone who says anything racist or sexist or homophobic or whatever, you know, will be, you know, we will believe the victims, and you will be ejected from the group. Right. And you're kind of reading that going like, "Oh my God, I'm, I know I'm gonna say something wrong."
[00:34:22] Susan: What I really liked about it was it is so m- when- Yeah ... in, in my model, you know, I mean, I, I think that part of the feminine or bringing- Yeah ... more of the feminine into conflict resolution and negotiation is, is being good at speaking the language of needs.
[00:34:36] Starhawk: Yeah.
[00:34:37] Susan: Because when you are able to do that, you, just being able to articulate that, you put into motion their fulfillment, uh, when people really understand what they are.
[00:34:47] Starhawk: And they all kind of work together. I mean, to be, to really feel safe emotionally in a group, you know, you need to feel like other people have your back.
[00:34:57] Mm.
[00:34:57] Starhawk: And that there's room for you to make a mistake because we're all human, and we all do make mistakes.
[00:35:04] Right.
[00:35:05] Starhawk: And you can't live with this walking on eggshells feel that you're constantly, you're gonna say the wrong thing because possibly the terminology changed last week, and nobody informed you of it, and then everything you've ever done before in your life is gonna be un- devalued or invalidated.
[00:35:26] Mm-hmm.
[00:35:27] Starhawk: You know? And, and people are feeling like that.
[00:35:31] Mm-hmm.
[00:35:31] Starhawk: I think it's actually better now in some ways, you know, because people are organizing now that Trump got back in, and they are doing real things and standing up there and, you know, confronting ICE and organizing to support their immigrant neighbors and going out on marches.
[00:35:53] And once people are actually doing stuff, then you don't have as much time to sit there online, like, policing everybody else. Yeah.
[00:36:03] Susan: I, I have this, maybe this is Pollyanna. Yeah. But I have this feeling like maybe what Trump has done for, for us, and I'll say us, the United States of America. Mm-hmm. I mean, the world is obviously engaged in this as well is, but is woken
[00:36:18] He, he, he was so anti-woke, but he's woken so many people up, you know- Yeah ... to what need, to, that this is not okay, and yeah, which feels exciting maybe. Maybe. I would, I'd like to think that we're- Yeah ... gonna evolve from this. That, I mean, I, maybe I'm always looking for the sunshine, but, you know. That's my hope.
[00:36:37] Starhawk: Well, I am, you know, in the long run, optimistic in spite of the, you know, the terrible things that are happening and the huge losses and the immense- Damage. But, you know, people will often compare this time to the 1930s in Nazi Germany, and I'll always say yes, but there's one big difference that, you know, when the SS was going around beating up Jews in the streets in Nazi Germany, the neighbors were cheering them on-
[00:37:10] Mm-hmm
[00:37:11] Starhawk: and turning them in. And-
[00:37:13] Right. That's
[00:37:13] Starhawk: a big difference ... what's happening now, yeah, there's a big difference now. Big difference.
[00:37:17] And
[00:37:17] Starhawk: it's been very inspiring to see what people have done in-
[00:37:20] Mm-hmm ...
[00:37:21] Starhawk: Minneapolis and Portland and LA and all over- Mm ... in standing up to this. And hopefully we can build on that into Creating, like, both movements and also strategies and ideas of not just how we get rid of Trump and the MAGA movement, but what we actually wanna do and accomplish and achieve- Mm
[00:37:49] once that's done.
[00:37:51] Susan: Mm. Yeah, as, uh, my back- my work has been about, I mean, it's been organizational mediation- Yeah ... in a way. I've been an organizational intervener, but-
[00:38:00] Starhawk: Mm-hmm ...
[00:38:00] Susan: there's nothing like a compelling vision for the future.
[00:38:03] Starhawk: Yeah.
[00:38:03] Susan: You know, nothing. But of course, of course the problem with that is it's Project 2025, I suppose, was a compelling vision for the future as w- you know, it's kinda like, okay, watch out for what your compelling vision of the future is.
[00:38:15] Starhawk: Well, it, you know, what we can learn from that was that they had their own compelling vision of the future, but they also had a plan for how they were gonna get there. Right. A detailed and strategic plan. And sometimes we don't have that vision of the future. We just have, you know, the vision of what we don't want in
[00:38:31] the future.
[00:38:36] But even when we do have that, I think we've got to also work on developing a strategy, a plan for how we get there, and what we do with that power once we have it, and that's what I've been writing about most recently.
[00:38:50] Susan: Yeah, which is so useful. So useful. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Kurt Lewin, who is, like, one of the grandfathers of social psychology- Yeah
[00:38:57] it's like everyone understands authority, but democracy is a learned behavior.
[00:39:02] Starhawk: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:39:03] Susan: And I do think, you know, that's the problem is, like, the, the oligarchy or whatever that it's much easier to, if you have tons of money, to, like, orchestrate what you wanna orchestrate. But to try and- Mm-hmm ... coordinate a- all of us, all the voices- Mm-hmm
[00:39:15] the diversity of voices, it's a... I mean, I don't know if y- your strategy is speaking to that. How do you, how do you, you know, how do you move forward to bring the inevitable c- conflict and tensions of, uh, if you try to bring diverse groups together? Because you're- Yeah ... not using an authoritarian. Of course, I say that, and of course, within, I guess, in the right wing, there's a lot of cracks showing up.
[00:39:37] There's a lot of infighting- Yeah ... and yeah, I mean, not so they, but-
[00:39:41] Starhawk: One thing we have to do is clearly identify our values, and diversity has to be one of them, and diversity actually in ecosystems... I mean, a lot of my work, uh, aside from my writing, is teaching permaculture- Right ... regenerative design, and diversity- Could you just say
[00:40:01] Susan: what, what permaculture is for people?
[00:40:03] 'Cause I don't know if everybody- Yeah ... knows what that is. Yeah.
[00:40:05] Starhawk: It's a system of ecological design that says, "Hey, if we- Look at the way nature works and actually allow nature to guide us, then we can actually meet our human needs, uh, with abundance while regenerating the environment around us instead of destroying it.
[00:40:30] Hmm.
[00:40:31] Starhawk: And it was originally coined and developed by two Australians, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. Hmm. But it's become, over the years, a, a worldwide movement- Hmm ... of practitioners and students. Uh, and it has a set of core ethics, care for the earth, care for the people, care for the future, and principles to guide us in making decisions.
[00:41:00] And then it embraces a lot of the whole field of sustainability from, you know, renewable energy to farming to gardening in ways that actually heal the soil, to grazing and forestry, and also urban systems. And a lot of us, especially some of the women in the movement, have been bringing in what we call the social permaculture.
[00:41:28] Hmm. You know, the human aspect of how do we get along with each other, how do we resolve conflicts, how do we negotiate those differences, because every human, group of humans, including every pair in every relationship, and sometimes even myself, I need to negotiate with myself. Right.
[00:41:54] Susan: For sure.
[00:41:56] Starhawk: Um, because- Why
[00:41:56] Susan: do you suppose it's the women, you say it's the women that are-
[00:41:59] Starhawk: Yeah
[00:42:00] Susan: doing, why do you suppose that's the case?
[00:42:01] Starhawk: I think it's because, again, in this culture, I am not saying that women are innately more relational than men. I don't know if we even know that. But I think we've been so acculturated that women are more attuned to those questions of relationship. And, um, so it- I
[00:42:21] Susan: like how Pat, I don't know if you know Pat McCabe, she's with the Dine and the Lakota, but she's a- Yeah
[00:42:27] but she, I like how she talks about how we have been, w- whether we are more collaborative or not, we've been on the outside of things, and so we- Mm-hmm ... haven't been as, you know, like sucked into- I, I don't know if that's the word she would use, but that's the idea, I think- Yeah ... that we have been as, as acculturated into that power over paradigm, you know?
[00:42:47] Starhawk: Mm-hmm. Yeah, the truth is, in permaculture, as in everything else, it's often the human relations that are the sticking point. Diana Leafe Christian, who wrote this book on intentional communities called Creating a Life Together, says that 90% of intentional communities fail, which is a tragic statistic.
[00:43:12] Susan: Mm.
[00:43:13] Starhawk: But they don't fail because, uh, the gray water system doesn't work or the lettuce, you know, wilts. They fail because of conflict.
[00:43:24] Mm.
[00:43:25] Starhawk: And we have to get good at conflict, and that starts also with identifying that conflict is not something to be afraid of. Mm-hmm. You know, it's not something to be avoided, that we have conflict because we have diversity.
[00:43:46] We have different ideas. We have different priorities, and if we can speak strongly for them and argue for them, then conflict can be invigorating. Mm-hmm, yeah. And it becomes destructive only when it turns into personal attack and othering rather than respectful conflict and negotiation.
[00:44:12] Susan: One of the things that I see, my training was as...
[00:44:15] Well, I've had a lot of different training, but as a, as a lawyer- Yeah ... was part of it, and y- you know, our legal system is basically known, the US legal system anyway, is known as the adversary system, you know? Yeah. And it is very binary. It is very win/lose. It is sort of the fundamental building. I mean, I guess I've become more appreciative of it since Trump took over because it's like, okay, well, maybe a system of rights and rules is not a terrible thing, in fact.
[00:44:43] I've seen the power of when, of working out conflict at the level of needs and interests. It's just, to me, it's a much more powerful- Yeah ... way of doing it, and letting people self, or creating containers where people are self-organizing that can work really beautifully. And, you know, I think, I was thinking about the permaculture idea because it's so much more creative when you allow- Mm-hmm
[00:45:06] people to really work differences in that kind of way versus litigation, which is just like right, wrong.
[00:45:15] Starhawk: Yeah.
[00:45:15] Susan: Or power over. It's power over- Yeah ... or right, wrong, you know? And- Or
[00:45:19] Starhawk: win, lose ...
[00:45:20] Susan: win, lose, yeah.
[00:45:21] Starhawk: And I often tell people, you know, we tend to think of every conflict as good versus evil- But most of the conflicts we actually have in communities, you know, setting aside the ones where someone actually embezzles the funds or something, but most of them are about misunderstandings, or they're about something I call good versus good.
[00:45:43] It's like we have different priorities, like I want people to move into my intentional community who don't have a lot of money, and so I want it to be affordable and, you know, not charge a lot. And you want to keep it sustainable and make sure that we can actually make the mortgage payment and replace the faulty electri- electrics.
[00:46:07] And it's not like one side is good or evil.
[00:46:10] Susan: Mm.
[00:46:11] Starhawk: It's like they're both important values. Mm. It's about negotiating a good versus good.
[00:46:17] Susan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it- And being able to work that, you're likely to come up with a much better solution.
[00:46:23] Starhawk: Yeah, a much more creative solution.
[00:46:25] Susan: Like I think it is so ridiculous in this, in the- Uh-huh
[00:46:28] in the conversation that's happened in this country. We can have a system that you meet people's basic needs and create a system that allows for your creativity and entrepreneurial-ness. Those two things are not- Yeah ... and, you know, they-
[00:46:40] Starhawk: Uh-huh ...
[00:46:41] Susan: they are not mutually exclusive.
[00:46:42] Starhawk: No.
[00:46:43] Susan: They absolutely can go together, but we've created this big polarization and of individual, you know, whatever.
[00:46:49] Mm-hmm. Um-
[00:46:50] Starhawk: Yeah, it was, you know, during the pandemic when suddenly they had to get everyone off the streets, and so suddenly they were putting all the unhoused people up in hotels. And you could sit back from that and go, "Oh, so we could have been, we could do this all the time." Yeah. Like
[00:47:09] Right. God, what a, what a, what a concept.
[00:47:12] Starhawk: Yeah.
[00:47:12] What a concept.
[00:47:14] Starhawk: Right. You know, and, you know, why do we think it's a benefit, you know, that Elon Musk is allowed to accumulate, I don't know, what is it, 400 billion, now it's a trillion. You know, like, you know, it... Take some of that away from him.
[00:47:30] Mm-hmm. You know? Mm-hmm.
[00:47:31] Starhawk: You know, a few billion of that, and every unhoused person in the Bay Area, you know, we could build some little apartment buildings and provide for them and hire someone to come in every week and clean up their apartments if we are afraid they're gonna trash them.
[00:47:50] And, you know, and then, I mean, there have been many, many places where they found that housing first, you know, just giving people housing and then working on the addiction or the other mental health issues that some of the unhoused have, uh, is the most effective way. Like, if we can be spending a billion dollars a day bombing people in Iran for completely, uh, obscure reasons, right, that nobody understands, imagine what we could do if we shifted.
[00:48:27] Again, it goes back to that idea that somehow strength is always how mu- how many people you can kill and how many missiles you can blow up, and not how much can we actually care for people and how can we provide for the real needs of humans and also of all the natural systems around us.
[00:48:47] Susan: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:48:49] Well, that get, you know- Yeah ... evolving away from that power over paradigm, which I think- Yeah ... fundamentally makes it seem somehow like it's a handout if you take care of people.
[00:49:00] Starhawk: Right. Yeah.
[00:49:01] Susan: Which, which, uh, and not to mention that I, I don't, I don't know if we're gonna survive if we don't get beyond it. I, I-
[00:49:09] Starhawk: Yeah
[00:49:09] Susan: I think there's a real... I mean, not to be alarmist, but to go back to the origins, I, I don't know if many people really understand that war is not inevitable. It was not part of our, for th- for most of our life on Earth, I mean, I'm not an anthropologist, but I'm citing- Yeah ... the anthropologists, but, and of course there was a lot of, a lot of time in there, but, and a lot of- Yeah
[00:49:33] room to move around, but there's no evidence of war. There is a- no evidence of war for up until very, very recently in human history, which says to me That we can move beyond it. And I also would say that it seems very connected to patriarchy. I mean, I think it's interesting how the definition of the masculine, I know I'm gonna get this wrong, but, um- Mm-hmm
[00:49:59] but anyway, is basically a war- a, a war- you know, is, um- Yeah ... a warrior, which is not necess- it's not an accurate definition, so.
[00:50:06] Starhawk: No.
[00:50:07] Susan: Mm-hmm, yeah.
[00:50:08] Starhawk: Yeah.
[00:50:08] Susan: Yeah.
[00:50:09] Starhawk: And yeah, it's kind of staggering to me that we know all this stuff. We know climate change is a huge and pressing issue, and yet we're still allowing powerful people to act as if it didn't exist.
[00:50:28] Right.
[00:50:28] Starhawk: I mean, you think about them building all the data centers that are, you know, suddenly using massive, massive, massive amounts of energy, and it's like these are not dumb guys- ... who are doing this. You know, they know that we've got to get off fossil fuels and do something different, and they're just ignoring it because they can.
[00:50:52] Susan: Although, do you think... I don't know. Sometimes I wonder, Starhawk, whether-
[00:50:55] Starhawk: Yeah ...
[00:50:57] Susan: Elon really does think that Mars might be the place he'd li- I mean, I, I really sometimes- Well- ... wonder about him, you know? It's like-
[00:51:03] Starhawk: I, I think he may have taken too much ketamine or something.
[00:51:06] Susan: Maybe.
[00:51:07] Starhawk: I'm not sure he's that smart anymore, if he ever really was.
[00:51:11] But- Uh-huh ... you know, I think also there's something we should talk about, too, which is empathy.
[00:51:17] Uh-huh.
[00:51:17] Starhawk: Because empathy is under attack by those same guys e- 'cause they identify it, again, with that constellation of things that they identify as weakness, which is, again, everything that involves caring or nurturing or actually meeting other people's needs.
[00:51:38] Susan: Mm-hmm.
[00:51:39] Starhawk: And that have been traditionally assigned to women.
[00:51:42] Susan: Mm-hmm.
[00:51:43] Starhawk: But empathy is actually a form of intelligence.
[00:51:46] Susan: Mm-hmm.
[00:51:47] Starhawk: Empathy is your ability to imagine how the world looks through somebody else's eyes. Mm-hmm. How other people perceive things.
[00:51:56] Susan: Mm-hmm.
[00:51:57] Starhawk: And
[00:51:57] Susan: with- Which is the foundation of really good negotiation.
[00:52:00] I mean- Yeah ... if you're talking about a collaborative negotiation, that is the essence of it. And- Now, you have to be able to do that ...
[00:52:07] Starhawk: and if you have no empathy, then I would say if you don't have empathy, you're gonna do stupid shit, and we've seen that happen. Like, you know, you're gonna, like, dance around on the stage with a chainsaw and think that this is somehow gonna endear you to people.
[00:52:24] Right. As you cut their jobs and you destroy the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Africa who now don't have the food aid that's rotting in warehouses and don't have the medicines that could prevent the death
[00:52:44] Susan: Well, which comes back to that core collusion I was talking about- Yeah ... that, you know, where people on the feminine side, the feminine side are supporting the ma- the hyper-masculine- Yeah
[00:52:56] side. And I think that's what needs to shift because I think women, and I'll say women or people- Mm-hmm ... that embrace the feminine- Mm-hmm ... are, have the capacity to really turn this around because- Yeah ... when we pull the plug on it, it will... I mean, these are, these are falsely empowered human beings. They got- Yeah
[00:53:12] falsely empowered by somebody.
[00:53:14] Starhawk: Yeah.
[00:53:15] Susan: And, and, um, I mean, I'm talking about the Elon, all the, all the Uber, the billionaire, the billionaire crowd. Oh. I mean, yeah, they're falsely empowered humans and-
[00:53:26] Starhawk: Yeah ...
[00:53:26] Susan: we gotta pull the plug. And they're
[00:53:27] Starhawk: not happy humans.
[00:53:28] Susan: No, that's the other thing, they're not happy as far as we can tell.
[00:53:31] I mean, you know, so. So I don't want to take too much of your time. I guess in summary, I want people when they negotiate, particularly women when they negotiate, to understand how much we are not secondary in any way. And you- Yeah ... you know that because I think there is the... And then to also understand some of the violence of patriarchy because- Mm-hmm
[00:53:55] I think it affects, it has affected over the millennia, it has affected women in negotiation. Like people joke about the burned, the burned at the stake.
[00:54:03] Starhawk: Yeah.
[00:54:04] Susan: You know, the witch, the burned at the stake gene. You know, like I can't ask- Mm-hmm ... for that because I'm, I might get, you know-
[00:54:09] Starhawk: Uh-huh ...
[00:54:10] Susan: burned at the stake, which I, I mean, you know, I say that- Oh, that
[00:54:13] tongue in cheek, but I think it really has, there's been a fear because patriarchy is very violent, and it is very violent in terms of keeping people in check. And I wonder how it's been for you being somebody who... By the way, where did, where'd you get the name Starhawk? Is that a long story or a short story?
[00:54:31] Starhawk: It came from a dream I had about a hawk who turned into a wise old woman, and when I became a witch, it was kind of traditional to take on a magical name. Uh-huh. So I took it on. And then when I wrote my first book, The Spiral Dance- Yeah ... my editor was like, "I don't know. Should I publish it under my original name or publish it as Starhawk?"
[00:54:55] And she said, "Oh, you should go Starhawk. It's such a great name."
[00:54:59] Susan: Mm-hmm. So
[00:55:00] Starhawk: I did, and it kind of, it stuck, right? Yeah.
[00:55:04] Susan: Yeah, it's a cool name. Yeah. And how has it been for you to be living in, if you go along with the description of a patriarchal world culture-
[00:55:12] Starhawk: Yeah ...
[00:55:12] Susan: to be claiming the identity of witch in the middle of that culture?
[00:55:17] Starhawk: Well, that was in part a very conscious choice because of the witch persecutions- Mm-hmm ... which is also something I've looked at a lot historically. The way that- They were used to both destroy women's agency around childbirth and midwifery and herbal medicine and healing The way they were also used to sort of sever the solidarity of the peasant class-
[00:55:54] Mm-hmm
[00:55:54] Starhawk: and the traditional ties to the land at a time when the land was being enclosed and was being turned into a commodity around the 16th and 17th centuries. And the way that they were used to sort of wall off certain areas of knowledge and say, "Well, this is legitimate, and these other areas are not legitimate."
[00:56:19] I wrote about it in a book called Dreaming the Dark back in the '80s, and- Mm ... I talked about it so much I got thoroughly sick of it. And then, like, in 2016, I went to Standing Rock when there was the big mobilization there. I went to a meditation, and in the meditation, it was like I heard this voice saying, "White people need to know about the witch persecutions or they can't heal."
[00:56:48] Mm.
[00:56:48] Starhawk: And the next morning I went to a sweat that was being poured by this wonderful Indigenous singer-songwriter named Lyla June Johnson.
[00:56:58] Mm.
[00:56:59] Starhawk: And she was wearing a T-shirt that said Boudica. Boudica was the Celtic warrior, actually, who almost threw the Romans out of Britain after they raped her daughters and I think burned London.
[00:57:16] Mm.
[00:57:16] Starhawk: And she started talking about recovering sort of the Swedish side of her heritage and about the witch persecutions. And I thought, "Oh, okay, I have to talk about this again." Right. Mm-hmm. But I think it-- they have left for women sort of a deep, almost generational, uh, scar on our psyches about the fear of speaking up and being a powerful and uppity woman.
[00:57:46] So taking on the name of witch was really around reclaiming that-
[00:57:53] Susan: Mm-hmm ...
[00:57:54] Starhawk: and reclaiming these traditions of spirituality that are rooted in the earth being sacred- Mm-hmm ... not some external heaven you have to achieve. Mm-hmm.
[00:58:07] Susan: Mm-hmm. Mm.
[00:58:07] Starhawk: And a lot of my journey started with the research and the recovering of the old goddess traditions and the question, was there ever anything other than patriarchy?
[00:58:18] Mm-hmm.
[00:58:19] Starhawk: And of course, there was. Yeah. And again, as you've said, patriarchy really, if you think of human history going back 100,000 years if we're just looking at Homo sapiens and a couple million years if we're looking at hominids in general, and now I think they've just found somewhere in England where there's evidence that humans made fire- 800,000 years ago Oh,
[00:58:45] wow.
[00:58:46] Wow ...
[00:58:46] Starhawk: you know, have used fire for a couple million years. You know, it's a long history.
[00:58:53] Mm.
[00:58:53] Starhawk: And if you look at the caves in France or Spain with all those incredible paintings- Mm ... that are 25,000 years-
[00:59:02] Susan: Mm ...
[00:59:02] Starhawk: y- old, and think about, oh, they were painting there, some of them for 10,000 years- Mm ... or 15,000 years. Mm.
[00:59:11] That's as long as all of human history since then. Right.
[00:59:14] Susan: Right.
[00:59:15] Starhawk: And patriarchy seems more like a, a blip.
[00:59:18] Susan: Yeah, a modern invention- Yeah ... that is really about, uh, profit. And maybe we have run it out of, because w- Mm-hmm ... it, you know, the Earth is, Earth, it, maybe Mother Earth is telling us, "Time to cut it out.
[00:59:33] Time to cut out the dis- extraction principle, and the domination and extraction principle."
[00:59:39] Starhawk: So yeah, how we get out of it, we, we clarify our values around- Mm ... valuing diversity, valuing empathy, uh, valuing the life support systems of the Earth.
[00:59:52] Susan: Mm.
[00:59:53] Starhawk: I always tell people what's sacred, it's not like something you bow down to.
[00:59:58] It's what you consider more important than your personal profit- Mm ... or even sometimes your personal safety.
[01:00:05] Susan: Mm.
[01:00:05] Starhawk: You know, what you'll take a stand for or take a risk for. Mm.
[01:00:08] Susan: And- I will quote Pat McCabe again. I like how she says- Yeah ... you know, "We need to put all life at the center, and if we do not, we need to begin again."
[01:00:18] Starhawk: Yeah.
[01:00:18] Susan: Something like that. Yeah. Which, mm.
[01:00:20] Starhawk: And then we develop a plan to get there.
[01:00:23] Susan: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
[01:00:25] Starhawk: And that means a plan that allows us to develop relationships in organizations that are welcoming, that meet those human needs in positive ways, create ways of belonging that don't require identifying some other group and saying, "Oh, they don't belong.
[01:00:44] We're the ones- Mm ... that belong."
[01:00:46] Susan: Mm-hmm.
[01:00:46] Starhawk: You know? But create rituals and, uh, ways that people affirm that belonging. Mm. Um, ways that we see and value each one of us- And that we clarify our vision of what the world means, what we're here for.
[01:01:04] Susan: Mm. Mm-hmm.
[01:01:05] Starhawk: Uh, there's a wonderful Australian Aboriginal writer named Tyson Yunkaporta.
[01:01:11] He writes a lot about humans as a custodial species.
[01:01:15] Susan: Hmm.
[01:01:15] Starhawk: You know? Why are we here? Well, we're here to, like, look after the world, and look after the earth, and look after the land- Mm-hmm ... and look after each other.
[01:01:25] Susan: Mm-hmm.
[01:01:26] Starhawk: And-
[01:01:26] Susan: Yeah. In the woods behind me, I found one chestnut tree.
[01:01:31] Starhawk: Oh.
[01:01:31] Susan: And of course, the chestnuts, I think, spanned all of Turtle Island, all of the North American continent, I think, and were so nurtured, and for food, and you know.
[01:01:42] But yeah, I mean, human beings can do so much to- Yeah ... nurture life, to bring life, make it really abundant and-
[01:01:49] Starhawk: Well, the chestnuts, the American chestnut was all up and down the East Coast in the Appalachians. Was
[01:01:56] Susan: it just the East Coast and not... I don't, I actually-
[01:01:59] Starhawk: It wasn't the whole continent. It
[01:02:00] Susan: wasn't. Um- Okay.
[01:02:01] Okay ...
[01:02:02] Starhawk: but, uh, it was a core f- food tree for animals, for plants, for birds, for humans. And then in, I think it was the late 1800s, early 1900s, the chestnut blight came in-
[01:02:20] Right ...
[01:02:20] Starhawk: from China, and it wiped out all the chestnut forests.
[01:02:25] Right. Right.
[01:02:25] Starhawk: But people have been working for many, many years to breed back an American chestnut tree that would be blight resistant.
[01:02:37] Susan: That would be awesome.
[01:02:38] Starhawk: And yeah, up here where I live, there is actually a couple of different grids where they've planted the Chinese chestnuts. Is that North, Northern
[01:02:46] Susan: California? N-
[01:02:47] Starhawk: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Because the chestnut blight never came here- Mm-hmm ... because there weren't chestnut trees here. And so they've, hundreds of people have been working to breed back a form of the American chestnut that would have enough of the Chinese genes in to be blight resistant, and they have done it.
[01:03:07] Susan: Wow.
[01:03:07] Starhawk: Um, yeah.
[01:03:08] Susan: That's awesome.
[01:03:09] Starhawk: That's awesome. So I, it's something I find very hopeful and-
[01:03:12] Susan: All the, uh, all the regeneration that is happening- Yeah ... the rewilding, the regeneration, and-
[01:03:17] Starhawk: Mm-hmm ...
[01:03:17] Susan: and then I guess what we have to figure out is how to regenerate humans, human beings. Right.
[01:03:23] Starhawk: Yeah.
[01:03:23] Susan: That's the big question.
[01:03:25] How do we-
[01:03:25] Starhawk: Uh-huh ... how
[01:03:26] Susan: do we regenerate us? Anyway, well, thank you so much for your time, and, uh, how do you want people to... The best place to find you is on Sub- Substack? Is that the best place to find you?
[01:03:39] Starhawk: That's probably the easiest place right now, is starhawk.substack.com. Uh, my website is starhawk.org, and Earth Activist Training is our permaculture teaching organization, and that's earthactivisttraining.org.
[01:03:56] Hmm.
[01:03:57] Susan: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Starhawk. I really appreciate it, and,
[01:04:02] Starhawk: um- Thank you ...
[01:04:03] Susan: yeah.
[01:04:04] Starhawk: And I've enjoyed our conversation.
[01:04:06] Susan: Yeah, me too. Me too, very much. Thanks so much for listening. Please like and share. And if you're interested in more on this subject matter, check out the episodes 47 and 48 from my first podcast, the Peacebuilding Podcast, where Robia Roberts shares her significant research on what she calls Herstory, the huge empowering story of the beginnings of Homo sapiens from the perspective of women.
[01:04:33] And also, please join me on the upcoming collaborative hardball Zoom conversations about the patriarchy hex. I'd love to see you there, and you can find more information about this on my website, susancoleman.global. Thanks again. See you soon.