"I don’t identify as a Witch or a Pagan–but my spiritual practice is Goddess-centered," a woman said after one of my workshops. "What do I call myself?"

I replied that I usually told people I was involved in Goddess spirituality, or that I honored the Goddess.

"That’s not enough," she said. "When people tell me they’re Methodist or Catholic or Hindu. I want to be able to say I’m.....what?"

I wasn’t able to fill in that blank a few years ago, but I want to thank her for drawing my attention to the importance of naming both ourselves and the groups we belong to. . . .

Besides being self-empowering, naming imparts meaning. The name you give yourself expresses something you feel is important about yourself. It occurs to me that Internet "screen names" have some of these elements. Though their primary purpose may appear to be anonymity, in most cases, people sign their emails or posts to mailing lists with their "real" names. But, just as with magical names, the screen names they choose may reveal more about them than their legal names.

To not name ourselves is to risk becoming invisible–both to ourselves and to others. To not have a name is to be in peril of not existing, disappearing, becoming subsumed into other groups. This has already started to happen. Women who came to the Goddess through feminist spirituality, for lack of any visible alternative, may join Wiccan or Pagan groups that give short shrift to women and women’s issues, despite having goddesses in their pantheons. Those who don’t find a home in Witchcraft or other Pagan groups may simply lose interest in Goddess spirituality because they have no cohesive group to identify with.

So, for people who are Goddess-centered but don’t know what to call themselves (whether or not they also identify as Pagans), and for others who also may want a name for the spiritual path that is both Goddess-centered and woman-honoring, I’d like offer suggestions for an overall name (comparable to Christianity, Judaism, Hindu,etc.): Goddessism, or Goddessity or Goddessia. The followers could be called Goddessians.

If you told me in the mid-1970s, when I first started exploring the ancient worship of female deities, that less than a quarter century later there would be hundreds of thousands of Goddess worshipers in the U.S., I wouldn't have believed you. . . .

In the Unitarian Universalist church where I was once a lone voice changing male god language to female (or at least neutral) as I sung hymns, eventually thousands more joined me nationwide when the UUs published a new hymnal eliminating solely-male god language. Some Christian and Jewish denominations also began "degenderizing" hymns and prayers. In 1986, two years after The Beltane Papers began publishing, the UUs came out with an adult education course, "Cakes for the Queen of Heaven," which brought thousands of women to Goddess. And it seems only a few years ago that I attended a showing of Donna Read's film trilogy, beginning with "Goddess Remembered," at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. We had arrived! Before the screening most of us thought there were maybe 25 other Goddess people in the area, but looking around the packed auditorium, we realized that there were in fact hundreds, if not thousands, of us. A few years later along came the Internet. How exciting to meet people worldwide on Goddess and women's spirituality lists and to engage in lively discussions of our common concerns and uncommon questions.

But as much progress as we have made, there still remains much to be done. Today resistance by the "old boys" (including female old boys) persists. As the case for ancient Goddess cultures is made more powerfully, so does academic resistance become stronger. Goddess (and feminist) scholars are expected to meet standards not required of their colleagues conducting research from patriarchal points of view. Ground-breaking work in religion by women is still often ignored, with credit going years later to men when they restate the women's discoveries and innovative views. . . .

Goddess spirituality is at a crossroads. Do we continue to be a scattered spiritual path? Or do we become a full-fledged religion? It seems to me that to choose the former is to choose continued marginalization–-both by mainstream religions and by Paganism–and eventually to fade into the persisting patriarchal culture.

For in some ways the fire of early feminism that sparked Goddess spirituality's development is sputtering. Paganism (and Wicca) continue to grow, but women's issues so central to Goddess spirituality's beginnings often got lost. It's not unusual for women to learn a little bit about Goddess and then join pre-existing Pagan/Wiccan groups, some of whose patriarchal assumptions are left uncriticized. We need to realize that though a group has Pagan/Wiccan roots it may not be egalitarian; just because a group is polytheistic or includes goddesses does not automatically mean it honors women. This, together with the erroneous confusion of New Age thought with Goddess teachings has resulted in the weakening of Goddess focus. Energy that 20 years ago was directed towards establishing equality in both representation of deity and participation of women in spiritual groups has dissipated. For example, the Unitarian Universalist Association has taken its "Cakes" curriculum out-of-print. . . .  A second UU course, "Rise Up and Call Her Name," is also no longer directly available from UUA. Christian and Jewish sects–-including both liberal denominations and some evangelical Christian and Orthodox Jewish women's groups–-continue to examine ways to include women both in scriptural interpretation and religious practice. In many cases, however, they are severely restricted by church dogma and tradition, and nearly always stop short of using the term, Goddess.

What is needed to sustain and hopefully spur the growth of Goddess spirituality in the next 20 years? First, a steadfast concern for inclusiveness in language and practice, including representing the divine as female. Second, establishment of Goddess spirituality as a legitimate religion either as part of, or apart from, mainstream Paganism.

To achieve the first, we can ask:
 – Do women participate equally in discussions in our mixed gender groups (including covens), or do they defer to, or are they often interrupted by men?
 – Are leadership roles, other than high priest/ess, filled as often by women as by men in mixed gender groups?
 – Are deities referred to as "the gods" when we actually mean both goddesses and gods?
 – Are the group's teaching materials free of sexist assumptions (for example, characteristics assigned to gods and goddesses)?
 – Do the books and techniques used for metaphysics (such as tarot, astrology, kabbalah, meditation, magick) depend on outdated patriarchal frameworks?