Author Archives
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Lessons From Birch & Mother Earth—Grace, Resilience, and Rebirth by Mary Gelfand
When I moved to Maine from New Orleans 15 years ago, I was delighted to discover how many birch trees were on the property where I lived with my new partner. Previously I had had little contact with these beautiful… Read More ›
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Not yet time to join the ancestors…by Eline Kieft
Exactly a year ago on May 22th, I didn’t join the ancestors. I had a very close shave after an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy, and I was rushed into hospital for a life-saving operation. Ectopic pregnancy means that the foetus nested in my fallopian tube… Read More ›
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Matriarchal Politics The Vision of an Egalitarian Society (Part 2): Macrostructures by Heide Goettner-Abendroth
Regionalism In a new matriarchal society, “bigger” is not necessarily “better.” The smaller units of society, responsible for engendering person-to-person and transparent politics, are given preference. They must not become so big that people cannot see through them, and cannot… Read More ›
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Matriarchal Politics: The Vision of an Egalitarian Society (Part 1) by Heide Goettner-Abendroth
Matriarchies are not just a reversal of patriarchy, with women ruling over men – as the usual misinterpretation would have it. Matriarchies are mother-centered societies: they are based on maternal values: care-taking, nurturing, motherliness, mutual support, peace keeping and building… Read More ›
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Caprine Community by Laurie Goodhart
Two recent posts, Community Immunity by Natalie Weaver on May 6, and Carol Christ’s May 11 essay, Women Invented Agriculture, Potter, and Weaving…, have spurred me to focus and finally share something that I’ve meant to for a long time. … Read More ›
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Brigit and the Cailleach by Christine Irving
Today, I bring you an old old story from Scotland. It explains how and why winter became spring. Cailleach is another name for the Hag – the archetypal Crone. She represents winter. Brigit is the forever Maiden and stands for… Read More ›
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Gaia Delights: Sawbonna Resilience and the Pandemic by Margot Van Sluytman/Raven Speaks
In a recent interview about my current published paper and my life’s-work, Sawbonna, which is a model of both social and restorative justice, I was struck by how being locked down due to this global pandemic not only rips us… Read More ›
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Her Magic in the Stone Circle by Glenys Livingstone
My ancestors built great circles of stones that represented their perception of real time and space, and enabled them to tell time: the stone circles were cosmic calendars. They went to great lengths and detail to get it right. It… Read More ›
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The Poiesis of Celebrating Earth’s Seasonal Moments by Glenys Livingstone
Amongst Celtic peoples, the capacity to speak poetically was a divine attribute, regarded as a transformative power of the Deity, who was named by those peoples as the Great Goddess Brigid: She was a poet, a Matron of Poetry (along… Read More ›
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Forward, Upward, Inward: A Spiritual Response to Right Now by Rachel Hollander
Brother Francesco, known to the world as Saint Francis of Assisi, left us many sweet and lovely poems and songs. In “The Canticle of the Sun,” he wrote about the gifts of nature. Brother Sun, his light and radiance. Sister… Read More ›
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Reaching for New Language for the Sacred by Glenys Livingstone
The term ‘PaGaian’, which became the title of my work, was conceived in at least two places on the planet and in the opposite hemispheres within a year of each other, without either inventor being aware of the other’s new… Read More ›
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Fasting During Covid-19 by Jamilah Ali
“O you who believe, fasting is prescribed for you as it was to those before you, that you may (learn) self-restraint.” Quran 2:183“ This month of Ramadan 2020 is auspicious for me as it is my 30th year of fasting… Read More ›
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Hagar and Intersectionality by Marilyn Batchelor
I began to follow Kimberlé Crenshaw a little more than five years ago when I first learned of her theory of intersectionality as a more concise description of oppressions stemming from race, age, gender, sex/sexual orientation, religion and socio-economic status. … Read More ›
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Birthright by Christine Irving
I am a priestess of the divine feminine, ordained in the Fellowship of Isis. So how did I end up becoming ordained for a second time in the Christian Gnostic tradition? It seemed to me, that there were several paradoxes… Read More ›
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The Benefits of The Plague….and Trump by Karen Tate
You might be asking yourself, “Is Karen losing her mind?” Last post she’s asking us “Are Your Shackles Showing?” as she writes this morbid and scary piece reminiscent of movies where someone is being held captive by a serial killer,… Read More ›
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Corona: Reclaiming Sovereignty in a Culture of Addiction by Eirini Delaki
The moment we live right now is one of its kind in the history of humanity. There´s an expansive wave of uncertainty, fear of death, panic and, at the same time, an expansive wave of creativity, hope, compassion and unity…. Read More ›
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Are Your Shackles Showing? Hyperbole, Metaphor or Shades of Reality? by Karen Tate
Note: These Comments Might Trigger You You’ve been held in a windowless room for a long time. So long, you can’t remember how long it’s been. You have shackles on your ankles. Sometimes you can see beyond your sleeping pad,… Read More ›
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Insights on Sisterhood: An Offering to the Great Goddess by Eirini Delaki
I have been facilitating women’s circles in Europe since 2006. This has involved years of deep, challenging, thankful, and fun teaching and learning. During that time, I have collaborated with different facilitators in the fields of art and spirituality and… Read More ›
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Matriarchal Politics by Heide Goettner-Abendroth
Today’s blog is a sequel to: “Matriarchies Are Not Just a Reversal of Patriarchies: A Structural Analysis.” On the basis of modern Matriarchal Studies, we can develop the vision of a new matriarchal, egalitarian form of society. This is called… Read More ›
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Beth March and the Courage of the Gentle Giver by Cathleen Flynn
As someone who spent my prepubescent years watching director Gillian Armstrong’s “Little Women”, I was eager to see Greta Gerwig’s newly released version. Previously unexplored contours of each character, and of my changed perceptions, were made visible through this iteration…. Read More ›
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Matriarchies Are Not Just a Reversal of Patriarchies: A Structural Analysis by Heide Goettner-Abendroth
Matriarchies are not just a reversal of patriarchies, with women ruling over men – as the usual misinterpretation would have it. Matriarchies are mother-centered societies. They are based on maternal values: care-taking, nurturing, mothering. This holds for everybody: for mothers… Read More ›
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I’m Going Over the Cliff: How About You? by A Friend of FAR
It appears that I am getting a divorce. My husband and I have struggled – well, we have struggled – our entire eleven year marriage. We’ve had a lot to deal with: court problems with my first husband, lost jobs,… Read More ›
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Who Owns the Sacred? A Personal Search beyond (European) Indigenous Knowledge by Eline Kieft
For almost 35 years nature has been my sacred place. As an 8-year old, I started to pray to Mother Earth even though the protestant tradition in which I grew up only recognised ‘God the Father’. I went outside in… Read More ›
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A Sword Will Pierce Your Own Soul by Mary Jane Miller
On Holy Ground is a collection of icons for this age of climate change. The collection of iconography opens with an image of Mary of Swords inspired by the number seven. This sacred number is associated with intuition, mysticism, inner wisdom, and… Read More ›
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Charity Is Not Enough by Susan de Gaia
Gift giving is an important focus this time of year, along with reflection, reconciliation, and renewal. This spirit of charity is needed now more than ever. And yet, charity is not enough. Thousands of women, maybe even millions, re-experienced the… Read More ›
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The Cuisine Cards by Laurie Goodhart
With every wonderful, heart-wrenching, deeply researched, and inspiring post I read on F.A.R., I feel less inclined to share my own somewhat out-of-step contributions to this world. Nevertheless, I keep reminding myself that they are the things that I do,… Read More ›
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A Predator by Sheree La Puma
“Have I had two roads, I would have chosen their third.” ― Mahmoud Darwish, In the Presence of Absence Now I tell myself that I’m street smart. I did the Jack Kerouac “On the Road” trip when I was 18, driving cross… Read More ›
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The Caves Beneath My Roots or Psychological Spelunking by Darla Graves Palmer
I’ve spent much of the past four years – since returning to the state of my birth after more than forty years’ intentional absence – trying to understand and make peace with a particular slice of southern culture that I… Read More ›
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In the Beginning…by Lori Stewart
In the beginning the very beginning, not the patriarchal, colonial beginning In the beginning was the Word which may have been a grunt, a vibration, a thought, a feeling a woman or man or a non-binary being In the beginning… Read More ›
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Wealth In Imagination by Laurie Goodhart
Artwork and sustainable agriculture are the two threads of my professional life. They mingle fruitfully beneath the surface as I sift through remaining evidence of ancient worlds, trying to sense how people of lost cultures met basic survival needs and… Read More ›
