The medicine man asked me how old I was and if I would like to get pregnant again I said I wouldn't mind, so he said he'd show me how. While I was musing about the most direct chat-up line in town, he dragged me off into the forest in search of certain tree barks. These were then ground up into a powder and mixed with water. I had to drink these at various times and sit in a stream naked from the waist up while bunches of leaves were slapped around my back What that was for, I don't know Maybe he thought I was too old and wouldn't get pregnant. Vines were then wrapped around my waist and after three days and nights he looked me straight in the eyes and told me I was going to have a female child. I knew you needed sperm to be pregnant but what if it worked? How was I going to explain it to my husband? I panicked and asked for the soft penis plant, another vine which I had to wear around my waist. Fortunately, they have plants for almost everything. WATCHING television is one of the few rituals we have left in the West (it too is a good contraceptive) Nothing can entertain like television Still, for a ritual, it isn't experiential enough.

Sad really, because "it is in ritual that communities come together to heal, to celebrate, to bring out people's talents, to unite generations in a common origin story and therefore in a common morality." They're the words of Matthew Fox, the theologian. Visiting him is a high point of any trip I make to California. Defrocked by the Vatican, deemed dangerous by the Pope, he is a spokesman for one of the most vibrant spiritual movements in the world today - Creation Spirituality. Based in downtown Oakland, the University of Creation Spirituality is remarkable for its pragmatic approach that embraces the body as it enhances the soul. Matthew believes many of the self-esteem problems that plague our society have to do with our divorce from the world of ritual. Watching television, boozing down the pub, gardening - they're about as ritualised as we let ourselves be.

Matthew Fox astounded us all when he came and talked to my companyabout some of the great theological mystical thinkers that were being denied us in Catholic teaching. In telling us about the early Christian thinkers censored by the church, he reawakened the link between Christianity and the pursuit of human rights That's why Matt's is a message I'm happy to spread It's part of my ongoing education. E-mail Creation Spirituality Network: www.csnet AS A believer in wisdom coming with years I'm waiting in wonder for the revelations that will hit me in the next century. Will they be different from the ones we discovered in the 1960s? In that special decade, we realised that there is no ultimate truth, that our beliefs are direct expressions of our choices And we acted on our beliefs.

Watching recent BBC programmes about that much-maligned period re-awakened thoughts about the power and passion of youth.Young people are more affected now than in the 60s by the ravages of unemployment That's why I'm intrigued by the lack of protest by students. I don't know when the ability to be outraged got lost - but I can't understand why our young people haven't marched in protest against the Government on issues that affect them personally, never mind issues such as Bosnia that should instil in them, as in all of us, a sense of moral outrage There are more students now than ever. Where is the ritual of dissent? I know the young have tried to create their own rituals with drugs and dancing, two staples of rave culture which show a hunger for transcendental experience. But imagine channelling that primal hunger for connection into something positive.MY OWN exploration continues unabated, though not always by dissent. I was taken quite willingly by my daughter Sam to the annual Prostitutes' Ball (or "sex workers" as they prefer to be known), at the Seaman's Mission in downtown San Francisco - an event which celebrated behaviour as ritualised as any I've encountered. I love going to market, trading and sharing, but I felt out of my depth in this bazaar of the bizarre Dramatic live- action tableaux recreated S&M scenarios. As the willing victims were trussed up and whipped, I too was struck - by the way people seemed to be into hearing, rather than feeling, the lash on their skin, a light swishhh It was cerebral, almost academic There was no visual evidence of sexual arousal.