Our Her-story

Temple of Diana, Inc. is a non-profit and tax-exempt federally recognized Temple, co-founded by Ruth Barrett and Falcon River in 2001. Ruth Barrett was ordained by Z Budapest in 1980, and inherited Z’s Los Angeles ministry that formally started in 1971, during the feminist movement of the 2nd wave. Ruth was HP of her first coven, Moon Birch Grove, that later evolved into Circle of Aradia, providing classes and community rituals for the Los Angeles women’s community. Circle of Aradia continues to offer seasonal rituals to this day as a Grove of Temple of Diana, with HP Cerridwyn RoseLabrys.  Temple of Diana, Inc. was founded to provide legal protection for our Dianic tradition and its affiliated groves. Temple of Diana groves are branches of the Temple in various locations. 

     In August 2014, Budapest ordained a male as a kouretes Priest in her lineage. This decision resulted in a branching off of Temple of Diana, Inc. and other Dianic groups and individuals, who continue the original vision of a tradition entirely by, about, and for women and girls, including ordination of our clergy.

 

Dianic witches who are affiliated with our lineage through Temple of Diana, Inc. have an identifiable and continuous feminist ritual tradition that spans over fifty years, and thousands of women have greater or lesser degrees of training or exposure to the same herstory, cosmology, ethics, and magical and ritual practices.

 

Inspired by the nature and aspects of the goddesses Diana and Artemis as protectors of women and life, Dianic ritual work focuses on personal and global healing, environmental concerns, and a deep commitment to end patriarchal oppression of women and children, both personally and globally. This work involves visioning and striving to create a world where the Web of Life is honored as the sacred creation of the Goddess. It is these feminist values and female-centered ritual practices of Dianic tradition that have so deeply influenced and inspired the contemporary goddess movement.

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Women's Mysteries

 

From earliest times, across cultures, women have created, facilitated, and participated in ceremonies and rituals that are sex-based and separate from those of males. The practice of female-only ritual was not born from a rejection of males but rather from an understanding and honoring of women's unique biological rites of passage and the ways in which our female bodies inform our diverse life experiences. There are physical and psychological experiences and rites of passage common to all women's lives, crossing the boundaries of age, class, culture, race, sexual orientation, and religion. The Dianic tradition was revived to empower women by asserting that we, as the physical embodiment of the Goddess (She who is the life force present in all things), are sacred, and our sacred rites of passage are our birthright.

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The heart of the Dianic Wiccan tradition is Women's Mysteries: the five blood mysteries of our birth, menarche, giving birth/lactation, menopause, and death. Contemporary Dianic rites of Women's Mysteries also include other essential physical, emotional, and psychic passages that only women can experience by being born female in a patriarchal culture and becoming conscious about how growing up in that culture affects our daily lives and female sense of selfhood. Our Dianic rituals celebrate the mythic cycle of the Goddess in the earth's seasonal cycles of birth, death, and regeneration. These cycles correspond and overlap with female life-cycle transitions, we honor the Goddess in every woman through our seasonal rituals. Our rites mark life passages and celebrate women's ability to create life, sustain life, and return to the Goddess in death. Dianic seasonal themes are not based on an exclusively heterosexual fertility cycle, as other Wiccan traditions are, and therefore are inclusive of all women. From the beginning of its contemporary practice, the Dianic Wiccan tradition has also inspired rituals that are intended to help women heal from, and counter the effects of, misogynistic, patriarchal social institutions and religions.

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Women embody the Goddess as Creatrix. Physically, we embody the power of the Goddess in Her capacity to create and sustain life. Our wombs are the living metaphor of Her creative potential and thus are the very source of our creative power. Even if a woman has had a hysterectomy or is postmenopausal, the power of her womb will continue to carry within her the energetic potential of its creativity. Inspired by the ancient mythic cosmology of the Goddess, wherein She draws Herself out of Herself in the original act of creation, many women embrace the metaphor of spiritually giving birth to themselves and each other. Within Dianic Wiccan rites, the focus is on each woman's own experience, opinions, ideas, and feelings, and not those of her spouse, lover, family, or friends. Within Dianic circles, women have the opportunity to discover their true selves, apart from the constraints of males and patriarchal culture.

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By prioritizing female-only space, whether in ritual or daily life, many women are able to find their center and explore their own truths. Baby girls are born through and into the unfolding mysteries of womanhood. The circle of womanhood is the very circle of life itself, for it is upon our sacred womb blood, the generative gift that is passed from mother to daughter, that human life depends. While all human beings celebrate this mystery, standing humbled by the enormity of it, only females can actually experience this lived mystery and we gather to honor and celebrate the gifts passed on to us by our mothers and grandmothers from the beginning to this day, and into the future.