Author Archives

Carol P. Christ is a leading feminist historian of religion and theologian who leads the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete, a life transforming tour for women. www.goddessariadne.org

• Seared by Vietnam by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on May 6, 2019 • ( 7 )

  

  Warning: This post discusses and includes images of the violence of war.  Recently I have been binge-watching the American comedy-drama series This Is Us. I am of the same generation as Jack and Rebecca, the parents of the triplets, but… Read More ›

• My Body, My Self by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on April 29, 2019 • ( 19 )

  

  The other night I was invited out by a new friend to meet a group of his friends. It was a lovely gathering, and I felt welcomed. As we hugged good night outside the restaurant, one of the women commented,… Read More ›

• Kassiani’s Song: Woman at the Center of the Easter Drama by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on April 22, 2019 • ( 9 )

  

  Today I am reposting the song and story of Kassiani, the Byzantine composer, poet, and hymnographer, who is not well-known to western feminists or in western history in general. In Christian Orthodox tradition, Kassiani’s most famous song will be sung… Read More ›

• The Room Where We Support Each Other, Part 2 by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on April 15, 2019 • ( 8 )

  

  Last week, In the Room of Undressing where women strip themselves to the bone, my great-great-grandmothers on my father’s side spoke in me. I had been afraid they would judge me for not being a wife and mother like they… Read More ›

• The Room Where We Support Each Other, Part 1 by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on April 8, 2019 • ( 21 )

  

  Over the past year or so I have been reciting my mother line, seven generations back, as a mantra of gratitude that helps me sleep at night. Sometimes I also name my sixteen great-great-grandparents, though I often fall asleep before… Read More ›

• “Calling All Women” to Save the Earth, signed and shared by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on April 1, 2019 • ( 13 )

  

  I contend therefore that we have allowed these chemicals to be used with little or no advanced investigation of their effect on soil, water, wildlife and man himself. Future generations are unlikely to condone our lack of prudent concern for… Read More ›

• His Terror by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on March 25, 2019 • ( 8 )

  

  The first two parts of Susan Griffin’s Woman and Nature, “MATTER” and “SEPARATION,” are written in the authoritative voice of western philosophy and science that declares matter to be dead and the body an impediment to thought, and proceeds to… Read More ›

• A Matter of Life and Death: The Military or the Green New Deal? by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on March 18, 2019 • ( 12 )

  

  “I have set before you life and death . . .  Choose life.” (Deut. 30:19) Scientists tell us that an environmental catastrophe which has already begun threatens every aspect of life as we know it on planet earth. The choice… Read More ›

• Tree-Hugging Is About Trees and So Much More Than Trees by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on March 11, 2019 • ( 14 )

  

  Not too long ago I heard someone deride members of a seminar who were building labyrinths in the olive groves of Greece as “a bunch of tree-huggers.”  I bristled! I probably first heard of the Chipko tree-hugging movement which is… Read More ›

• Meeting the Windigo by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on March 4, 2019 • ( 14 )

  

  Towards the end of Braiding Sweetgrass, mother, biologist, and member of the Citizen Potawami Nation Robin Wall Kimmerer sets out at the end of winter to visit a forest area near her home that she considers hers not in name… Read More ›

• Time to Dismantle the Myth of the Nation State? by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on February 25, 2019 • ( 11 )

  

  I am a citizen of two countries currently being torn apart by popular nationalism. In Greece, the cry is “Macedonia is only Greek,” while in the United States a nation of immigrants is being told that it must fear being… Read More ›

• Making a New Home: It’s Not So Easy by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on February 18, 2019 • ( 16 )

  

  I am sitting in my studio apartment with my computer on my lap on a cold, windy, and rainy day in Voutes, Heraklion, Crete. My little dog is curled up asleep, seeing no reason to awake on a day like… Read More ›

• Just When We Thought It Couldn’t Get Worse, It Did by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on February 11, 2019 • ( 15 )

  

  Like many of you I have been following discussions of the revelation that Virginia Governor Ralph Northam dressed in blackface or as a member of the Ku Klux Klan when he was a medical student. It was reported that Northam… Read More ›

• Receiving, Giving, Reciprocating vs. Nonintervention: Two Different Models for Environmental Ethics by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on January 28, 2019 • ( 11 )

  

  “Gifts from the earth or from each other establish a particular relationship, an obligation of sorts to give, to receive, to reciprocate.” –Robin Wall Kimmerer The notion of a gift economy is at the heart of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding… Read More ›

• Iroquoian Women: Power Held and Shared by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on January 21, 2019 • ( 19 )

  

  According to Barbara Alice Mann, author of Iroquoian Women, women were at the center of a matrilineal Iroquoian society that could be called (though she does not call it that) an “egalitarian matriarchy.” As in other egalitarian matriarchies, including those… Read More ›

• When Violence is Normal and Normalized by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on January 14, 2019 • ( 20 )

  

  Warning: this blog discusses spanking and bodily violence “No Whips, No Punishments, No Threats: Women’s Control of Social Life” is the title of one of the chapters in Iroquoian Women, Barbara Alice Mann’s stunning reconstruction of female power in a… Read More ›

• “Old South Asia” and “Old Europe”: New DNA Research Suggests Tantalizing Relationships by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on January 7, 2019 • ( 27 )

  

  When European scholars began to study Sanskrit they were surprised to discover linguistic similarities between Sanskrit and Greek and Latin. Old Persian was found to be even closer to Sanskrit. Scholars thus began to speak of related groups of Indo-European… Read More ›

• The Lost Is Found by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on December 31, 2018 • ( 22 )

  

  Since I wrote “Claiming the Power to Choose to Our Lovers” and “Choosing to End Love” in the spring, my beloved and I came back together and parted again, not once, but twice.  At the end of the summer, believing… Read More ›

• Moving On by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on December 24, 2018 • ( 35 )

  

  Last year when I was newly in love, I found myself wondering if my boyfriend would ask me to move to Crete to be closer to him. Pondering this possibility, it suddenly dawned on me that I was ready to… Read More ›

• This Is What Rape Culture Looks Like: Part 3 by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on December 17, 2018 • ( 14 )

  

  Warning contains images of rape in the history of art portrayed through the pornographic male gaze According to the myth, Danae was the only child of the King of Argos who longed for a male heir. After an oracle declared… Read More ›

• This Is What Rape Culture Looks Like in “Great” Art by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on December 10, 2018 • ( 22 )

  

  Warning: contains images of rape portrayed through the lens of the objectifying pornographic male gaze When I reflected on the discovery of a rape fresco from ancient Pompeii that depicted Leda and the swan, I did not mention that the… Read More ›

• This Is What Rape Culture Looks Like: Then and Now by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on December 3, 2018 • ( 8 )

  

  I was not paying full attention when I heard a news report on CNN saying that archaeologists had uncovered an “ancient erotic fresco” in Pompeii. Hmm, I thought to myself, this story deserves further investigation. I had heard whispers about… Read More ›

• The Gifts of Life: Do We Remember? by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on November 26, 2018 • ( 8 )

  

  Strawberries shaped my view of a world full of gifts simply scattered at your feet. A gift comes to you through no action of your own, free, having moved toward you without your beckoning. It is not a reward, you… Read More ›

• Let Us Proclaim the God Who Bleeds Now by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on November 19, 2018 • ( 10 )

  

  we need a god who bleeds now we need a god who bleeds now a god whose wounds are not some small male vengeance some pitiful concession to humility a desert swept with dryin marrow in honor of the lord… Read More ›

• Religions and the Abuse of Women and Girls: God Is the Problem by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on November 12, 2018 • ( 20 )

  

  At the 2009 meeting of the Parliament of World Religions, former US President Jimmy Carter called the worldwide abuse of girls and women the greatest unaddressed human rights crisis of our time. In the book that followed the speech, he… Read More ›

• Challenging Christian Feminists to Re-Imagine the Goddess by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on November 5, 2018 • ( 10 )

  

  From the 1993 Re-Imagining Conference: Our mother Sophia, we are women in your image: With the hot blood of our wombs we give form to new life. With the courage of our convictions we pour out our life blood for… Read More ›

• Goddess Pilgrimage: A Sacred Journey for Women by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on October 29, 2018 • ( 9 )

  

  A pilgrim leaves home and sets off on a journey, seeking healing, revelation, and direction in her life. She finds companions along the way whose stories reflect her own, validating her quest and shedding light on her journey. According to… Read More ›

• Troubling Our Souls: Selling Arms to Saudi Arabia, the War in Yemen, and the US Military Industrial Complex by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on October 22, 2018 • ( 23 )

  

  There is a very big elephant in the room. Apparently it is invisible because even the left is not discussing it. This elephant is the civil war in Yemen to which Saudi Arabia has contributed 19,000 (19,000!) deadly (deadly!) air… Read More ›

• Religions and the Abuse of Women and Girls by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on October 1, 2018 • ( 20 )

  

  At the 2009 meeting of the Parliament of World Religions, former US President Jimmy Carter called the worldwide abuse of girls and women the greatest unaddressed human rights crisis of our time. He stated that this problem is “largely caused… Read More ›

• “What Would Happen If One Woman Told the Truth about Her Life?” by Carol P. Christ

  By Carol P. Christ on September 24, 2018 • ( 20 )

  

  According to poet Muriel Rukeyser, “the world would split open.” This poem accurately describes what many women experienced in consciousness raising in the 1970s and what many women experience today in the #MeToo movement. For many of us the world… Read More ›