Feminism and Religion

What is a Glorian? Almost a Review of Terry Tempest’s book by Sara Wright

There is something deeper than hope that is calling us writes Terry Tempest Williams internationally acclaimed naturalist, environmentalist, and author in The Glorians. When we focus our attention on what she calls the ‘holy ordinary’ we are transported into a new way of being.

A Glorian can be a life changing dream like the one Terry had that inspired the title of this book. “Your vow is to create the Epic Documentation of the Glorians,” she was told as she reached the top of a tower by way of a spiral staircase. “What the hell is a Glorian” her father asked. A Glorian can be a moment, memory, an animal, plant, root, eclipse, an encounter with self or with others, an ordinary or non -ordinary experience that pulls us into the Now when the cloak of linear time falls away, and presence is all there is.

Terry shares her experiences with Glorians throughout the book but refuses to define who or what they might be believing that each person’s perceptions are different.

Death Sentence for Arghavan Fallahi in Iran: An Urgent Call to Action to Save Her Life by Iran Human Rights Monitor

This article appeared on the website of Iran Human Rights Monitor on July 3, 2026. It is reprinted with permission. You can see the original and learn more about Iran HRM here.

The death sentence issued for Arghavan Fallahi stands as an immediate and critical warning regarding the imminent danger of execution facing a female political prisoner in Iran. Arghavan Fallahi, 25 years old, was reportedly sentenced to death on July 1, 2026 (10 Tir 1405) by Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Abolghasem Salavati (notoriously known as the “Execution Judge”), with the verdict formally communicated to her through her legal counsel. The acute urgency of this case stems from the fact that the primary accusations against her were framed within security cases linked to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). This death sentence follows months of arbitrary detention, prolonged solitary confinement, enforced disappearance, relentless interrogations, and explicit reports of torture and coercive pressure aimed at manufacturing a state security case.

Our Children by Annelinde Metzner

How do we bring our children along? How do we share with them all that is best about being human? All too often, I hear of events in children’s lives that no one should ever experience. Children are being subjected to trauma that will reverberate through all our lives. We are all one people, and all children are our own. These poems are just a few simple meditations on how to bring children along with the best we have to give. My own son passed on in 2004, and I honor all that we taught each other.

The Poet Walks the Woods

“That’s what I’m here for!” says the poet
to the young family,
gazing downward beside the trail.
“The Trillium- they’re called ephemerals
because they don’t last long!
They bloom in spring
just before the leaves are on the trees.
Three petals, three leaves, three everything.
So, Trillium.”
The littlest girl stows away a note
in some memory pocket.
“…When I’m an old woman,
I’ll walk the woods
looking for Trillium…”

The Aliveness of Symbols by Xochitl Alvizo

This is an embarrassingly revealing post, please forgive my younger self for her naiveté.

I grew up a proud American. I even had a collection of American flag pins, one of which said “1o1% American!,” and a giant 4×6 foot size U.S. flag hanging in my bedroom wall, which I took with me when I went off to college for undergrad. I was part of the glee club in my junior high school and proudly performed Neil Diamond’s “America” as we all process into the auditorium waving flags from all around the world. Convinced this was a beautifully diverse country of immigrants. My parents were both recent immigrants and were vocal about their appreciation of the opportunities this country provided for them. My dad always said this country gave him more than his country of origin ever did. And I bought the narrative, “hook, line, and sinker!”

Falling into Spring by Sara Wright

The glorious
white stars
waited in vain
for rain
for miner
sweat
mason
or bumblebee
to feast
on pollen
sacred to All
after three days
petals
drooped
golden
eyes shut
pearled
almonds
fell
one by one
next year’s
compost
soaked in
unshed
tears.
Perhaps
Bee Goddess
has a plan
Changing Woman
transforms
Sky Woman
holds the
seeds …
clasping
bloodroot
spears
and
buds
wrapped in
gray shawls
she may
yet
choose
to
intervene.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: In the Face of Despair, Choose Life

This was originally posted on Sept 8th 2014

Yesterday I had a delightful swim with a friend in the cool Aegean Sea. In in the evening I met two dear friends at an open air restaurant for a delicious meal and good conversation. Last night a beautiful moon rose over the sea and a soft breeze caressed my skin. All of this made me very happy. However, the state of the world does not.

Michael Brown. Trayvon Martin. The Ferguson police. Hold your ground laws. Bombing in Gaza. War in Ukraine. War in Iraq. War in Afghanistan. War in Syria. Wars that are not on my radar. Rape as a part of war. Joe Biden threatening to chase ISIL “to the gates of hell.” Citizens United. A rash of laws restricting voting rights. A rash of laws restricting abortion rights. Police brutality. Police brutality that is racially motivated. Young men being sentenced to prision for minor drug offenses. The brutality of the prison system. A woman with children being paid $8.50 an hour working at McDonalds and not even knowing when she will be called in to work. Open carry laws allowing Americans to walk the streets with loaded weapons. And that’s just off the top of my head this morning.

Ariadne & Me – Mother Magic by Arianne MacBean

The fortune teller stood at a square park table, her hair wrapped in a gold scarf, stacking perfectly formed human fingernails. Across from her, I watched as she methodically piled and unpiled the fingernails according to some obscure but precise calculation known only to her. She measured them against a line carved into the wood marked with tiny incremental notches.

Reading the messages she found there, she spoke.

“Your mother and father are not one, but All.”

My friend Jacqueline, standing between us, immediately blurted out, “What the fuck does that mean? That doesn’t make any sense!”

But I answered with unexpected certainty.

“No. She’s right. They are the archetypal Mother and Father. They are not mine alone.”

The fortune teller waved us closer.

“Come on. I have to finish these visions so I can go to heaven.”

This was the dream I had the night I arrived on the Isle of Mull in western Scotland for a two-week Goddess Pilgrimage. I believed I was traveling to my fatherland, the home of Clan MacBean, to heal old wounds and unbind myself from contracts unknowingly inherited through my patrilineal line.

The Creative Divine: L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon by Elanur Williams

Montgomery, L. M. *Anne of Green Gables*. Bantam Books, 1982 edition.

Long before I lived in Montréal, the lands known to the Kanienʼkehá:ka Nation as Tiohtià:ke, Canada lived in my heart. When I moved there as a young adult, the reality beautifully exceeded my imagination; yet in the years before experiencing those landscapes firsthand, they existed for me purely through books. I was an avid reader and an aspiring writer, searching for characters who felt the same strong and sometimes overwhelming pull toward self-expression that I did. I found that mirror in the windswept shores of Prince Edward Island, through L.M. Montgomery’s fiercely imaginative protagonists, Anne Shirley and Emily Byrd Starr. In her Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon books, Montgomery dismantles the rigid, punitive theology of her upbringing and offers a sharp, proto-feminist interrogation of late 19th-century Canadian Presbyterianism. In doing so, she constructs a deeply personal, feminist spirituality that equates creativity and autonomy with the divine.

DeeDee & Helen—A Trans Love Story, Part II by Mary Gelfand

Part 1 was posted yesterday

Being a lifelong spiritual seeker, DeeDee began searching for a church community where she could be herself. Fortunately, she found a Unitarian Universalist Church which had long welcomed the LGBTQ community. DeeDee felt very welcome in this community and it was there that I first met her, in the fall of 2002.

At that time I was doing a lot of teaching around paganism and goddess religions. DeeDee started signing up for my classes and we became friends. She was the first trans person I came to know deeply. Much of my understanding of the struggles trans people face comes from my relationship with DeeDee. For example, in one class I taught, students were asked to engage in an activity that involved braiding 3 pieces of yarn together. Most of the students were women, and they immediately began braiding. I took time to teach the one man in the class how to braid, and turned to find DeeDee at my elbow. She took me aside and shyly whispered—”I never learned how to braid. It’s not something that boys are taught. Can you help me?” This came in the category of “It never occurred to me,” and over the years DeeDee corrected both my assumptions and my language around what it meant to be trans. I was always grateful for her wisdom and insight.

DeeDee & Helen—A Trans Love Story, Part I by Mary Gelfand

Author’s Note: I am a cis woman writing about a trans woman who was my friend. What I know about her experience comes from stories she told me, and things I learned from her wife Helen, who has given me permission to share this story. So I am not writing from a position of personal knowledge of what it means to be trans. I am writing out of compassion for and sensitivity to the lived experience of my friend DeeDee and of trans individuals across the globe.

***

I first met DeeDee when I stopped by my Unitarian Universalist church to drop off a colorful triangular hand-woven shawl I had made for the upcoming auction. DeeDee was sitting behind the desk, recording the items that were being donated and we chatted a for a few minutes. In those days, I was teaching a variety of classes on Paganism and the Divine Feminine at the church. She asked if I was the Mary who taught these classes and expressed interest in joining one That is how our friendship began. I later learned that she made the winning bid on the shawl I donated that day.

DeeDee was assigned male at birth–the oldest child in a large Catholic family residing in New Orleans, Louisiana. Naturally she attended Catholic schools. DeeDee briefly considered a life of religious service and enrolled in St. Joseph’s Seminary. However, being extremely intelligent and given to questioning everything, DeeDee was soon pegged as a troublemaker and she and the Brothers parted ways.