Pauline Maclaran, of Royal Holloway at the University of London, has been working with me to study “new age” religion and the marketplace in Glastonbury. I am particularly interested in the interface between more feminine visions of the sacred and commercial activity. As Glastonbury has a long tradition that highlights both the male and female aspects of the divine–and is the setting for the annual global goddess conference–it is a good research site for observing this phenomenon. I believe that rethinking the touchpoints between religion and economics is essential for building a gender-balanced economy, on a global level. Though each of the world’s leading religions makes claims to value the souls of women equally with those of men, in practice all of them have supported and rationalized the subjection of women in every sphere of life, for centuries. The video below documents the goddess march in Glastonbury in the summer of 2009. Two Christian processions, one Anglican and one Catholic, have traditionally marched down the High Street in Glastonbury at different times of the year. The goddess march, however, goes up the High Street in the opposite direction to the Chalice Well and on to the Tor, a fitting bit of symbolic action.
