Author Archives
-
Bikini Season by Sarah Kiefer
I grew up in a suburban town stuck in the middle of rural Indiana. I drove through corn fields to get to school and on more than one occasion I did have to crawl through my sun roof to get… Read More ›
-
Public Art and Personal Transformation by Jessica Bowman
Public Art Sculptures Borrego Springs, CA Artist: Ricardo Breceda Photo: Jessica Bowman Public Art displays like the image above, a dragon that appears to be moving through the sand dunes of Borrego Springs, California offer tremendous insight into… Read More ›
-
Remembering Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s Life and Legacy: Champion of Universal, and Non-Human Rights November 12, 1648/51 – April 17, 1695 by Theresa A. Yugar
She studies, and disputes, and teaches, and thus she serves her Faith; for how could God, who gave her reason, want her ignorant? —Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Villancico, or, “Carol”, in celebration of St. Catherine of Alexandria (1692)… Read More ›
-
Religion, Race, and Feminism in an Era of Elusive Enlightenment by Salaam Green
The warrior spirit is not only the coherent ability to resist circumstances outside of one’s making; but the ability to fight the war within all of us thus managing discomfort and chaos with the force of authenticity. Recently an enlightened… Read More ›
-
Sedna in Spring by Anna Marie Laforest
With the Sun in Aries and then Taurus from late March through mid-May, representing Spring and the renewal of all things creative, it is a good time to think about the evolution of the goddess Sedna who created the walruses,… Read More ›
-
Coming in the Back Door by Jessica Bowman
“I’m not ready to make nice I’m not ready to back down I’m still mad as hell, and I don’t have time To go ’round and ’round and ’round It’s too late to make it right I probably wouldn’t if… Read More ›
-
Agape: Inspiration and Word Made Flesh by Margot Van Sluytman
breathe me compel my flesh to stir. will new landscapes through your pores. dine upon my potent supplication. peel the lonely longing from your swelling desire. partake of flaming majesty, while speaking: yes, over and over and over again, rising… Read More ›
-
Puff the Magic Dragon & the Loss of Magic by Susan Morgaine
Did you believe in magic? Did you once believe in fairies, leprechauns and and flying dragons? Did you believe that if you climbed a tree to the uppermost branches, you could touch the sky? Do we need magic? As the… Read More ›
-
Join the Rebellion by Jessica Bowman
Like many other thousands of Americans, I watched the newest offering from the Star Wars legacy last autumn and was re-inspired to be an active part of the rebellion against oppression. Viewing the movie through my feminist lens I was… Read More ›
-
She is Here by Mary Petiet
On the morning of January 20, 2017, the world watched Donald J. Trump stand on Capitol Hill for inauguration as the 45th president of the United States. He did not stand alone. Timothy Michael Dolan, Catholic cardinal and archbishop of… Read More ›
-
“Tricolor Mary: Encountering Three Faces of the Divine Feminine” by Simone Grace Seol
I always felt curiously distant from the figure of Mary. I always sensed that there is so much there and yet, I could never connect to it emotionally. The foil to Eve, vessel of Love, suffering mother. I wanted to… Read More ›
-
Divine Physics: A Poetic Reflection on Ecclesiastes 3:14 by Lori Stewart
Ecclesiastes 3:14 – I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all that should stand in awe before him. Nothing can be added… Read More ›
-
Mother Demdike, Ancestor of My Heart, Part 3 by Mary Sharratt
Continued from Part 1 and Part 2 When Bess was in her fifties, walking past the quarry at sunset—called daylight gate in her dialect—a beautiful young man emerged from the stone pit, his hair golden and shining, his coat half… Read More ›
-
Mother Demdike, Ancestor of My Heart, Part 2 by Mary Sharratt
Continued from Part 1. As I sought to uncover the bones of the cunning woman Mother Demdike’s story, I was drawn into a new world of mystery and magic. It was as though Pendle Hill had opened up like an… Read More ›
-
The God of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar by Race MoChridhe
The morning air is hot around the pillars of Jerusalem stone, but the congregation is already tired. The prayers are old, pro forma and remote, drawing power now from the sound of the Hebrew more than from the meaning of… Read More ›
-
Interreligious Friends after Nostra Aetate (Book Review) by Janice Poss
Book Title: Interreligious Friendship after Nostra Aetate Editors: J. Fredericks and T. Tiemeier Series Title: Interreligious Studies in Theory and Practice Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2015 “… the Jew prayed words of blessing … over his Roman Catholic friend. …Willebrands… Read More ›
-
Love “Makes” Us Human? by Lauren Hippert
I was in the passenger seat of my friend’s car and we were driving home from dinner. She was telling me about an experience she had a few summers ago, falling in love abroad. She told me that she felt… Read More ›
-
The Heart of the Labyrinth: BOOK REVIEW by Mary Petiet
What if it really is as simple as changing our minds? This is the central question of Nicole Schwab’s book, The Heart of the Labyrinth (Womancraft Publishing, 2014). This question paves the way for her eco-feminist approach to balancing the… Read More ›
-
Atonement, Forgiveness, and Feminism by Debra Guckenheimer
As Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur approach, I am in the midst of my annual process of asking forgiveness to everyone I have knowingly wronged in the last year. During this time, Jews atone for our wrong-doings. We are tasked… Read More ›
-
Women Beyond Belief by Karen L. Garst
If you knew about me, you might ask, “Why does a former executive decide to abandon retirement and devote herself to writing a book about women leaving religion?” Of course if you knew me well, you would understand that I… Read More ›
-
Body Sovereignty: Tracing the Relationship Between Feminism & Fat by Sydney Bell
Acknowledging and responding to feminine divine energy is an inherently radical, feminist act. With age my feminism and spiritual path have become inexorably intertwined and I have become more comfortable and confident in my identity as a daughter of the… Read More ›
-
20 Tibetan Buddhist Nuns Become Geshemas — An Update by Karen Nelson Villanueva
In the winter of 2013, I went on pilgrimage to Kathmandu, Nepal. While there, I visited the Khachoe Ghakyil Ling (Pure Land of Bliss) Tibetan Buddhist nunnery, the largest in Nepal with about 400 nuns. It’s affiliated with the nearby… Read More ›
-
Power & Restraint: A Feminist Perspective on Mormon Sisterhood: A sculpture series by Page Turner, presented by David Volodzko
History offers few instances of women helping create scripture. Hinduism’s sacred Rigveda may have been partly composed by women, and scholars believe the biblical Book of Ruth was possibly written by a woman, but the evidence for each is wanting…. Read More ›
-
When Women are Placed on Pedestals to Fall by Cheryl Peterson
Working alongside my dad on the family farm, I grew up learning how to operate and maintain machinery: tractors, balers, and a double-shift 10-wheeler. We worked outdoors in weather with temperatures ranging from minus 10 to plus 110 degrees Fahrenheit…. Read More ›
-
Ignoring Isn’t The Same As Ignorance by Darla Graves Palmer
My book club recently read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, a futuristic novel wherein women’s reproductive rights, as well as the women themselves, are controlled entirely by those in power. I’ve wanted to read it for a long time… Read More ›
-
thea Gaia née Dorothy Ivy Wacker: Feminist Foremother and a Great “Ponderer” by Glenys Peacock
On 15th May, 2016 thea Gaia left this earth which was her home for 85 years. thea was born Dorothy Ivy Wacker in Gatton, Australia on 9th February, 1931, the eldest of four children. Her family were descendants of German… Read More ›
-
A Woman Leads: Church and Politics 2016 by Dawn Morais Webster
There is no shortage of men in power. No shortage of men who are ready to issue warnings and threaten punishment for straying from the party line. No shortage of men ready to hold forth in front of cameras. And… Read More ›
-
Education as Resistance by Dawn Morais Webster
Ivy Helman’s recent commentary (((Israel))) criticizes what she sees as “a new form of anti-Semitism” from organizations such as Jewish Voices for Peace in their advocacy of the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement. So I begin this account of… Read More ›
-
Goddess Politics and the Cauldron of Memory by Kavita Maya
‘Someone needs to gather the stories, to keep the cauldron,’ said the late Goddess feminist artist Lydia Ruyle during one of the last times we spoke, at the 2014 Glastonbury Goddess Conference. I had hinted at my concerns around conducting… Read More ›
-
Garden of Eden Retold by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir
Today, I came up with a less patriarchal Garden of Eden story: Endelyn (age 7): “When I think of my soul, in my name “fire-soul,” I think of a powerful wind.” Me: “That makes sense, since one of the names… Read More ›
