Author Archives
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Women’s Speaking Justified: Reflections on Fell, Feminism and History by Liz Cooledge Jenkins
Moderator’s note: Today’s post has been paired deliberately with yesterday’s archival post by Mary Sharratt. Both pay homage to Margaret Fell in very different yet complementary ways. In the conservative evangelical church world—a world I was deeply invested in for… Read More ›
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Nettie’s Lament by Christine Irving
Reading Elizabeth Ann Bartlett’s beautiful post inspired me to share the following poem. I wrote it many years ago for my friend Lynette Eldridge to honor her love of the darker shorter days of winter. As a devotee of the… Read More ›
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For Love of This Life: Carol Christ’s Contribution to Ecofeminist Thought by Elizabeth Ann Bartlett
Journeying with students into the woods to dive deep into our spiritual connections with nature, I would invoke these words from Carol Christ: “There are no hierarchies among beings on earth. We are different from the swallows who fly in… Read More ›
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Strength by Chasity Jones Selenga
To be transparent, these last four weeks have unintentionally flown by and have been filled with great pain, sorrow, depression, loss, and grief to be honest. I can feel my own spirit at the beginning of a long healing process… Read More ›
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Happy Birthday, to a Woman Who Used a Crisis to Benefit Humanity by Cheryl Petersen
Born two-hundred years ago in 1821, Mary Baker was raised by a doting mother and strict father. By the age of twenty-eight, she endured personal crises typical to privileged white girls. Lost lovers and unfulfilled dreams. Mary wed her second… Read More ›
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Carol Christ Symposium ~ Call for Papers by Mara Lynn Keller ~ Deadline for Proposals this Week!
Carol P. ChristA Symposium in Celebration of Her Spiritual-Feminist Activism and Women’s Spirituality Scholarship “The Goddess is the intelligent embodied love that is in all being.” ~ Carol P. Christ Free Symposium via Zoom hosted byWomen’s Spirituality Graduate Studies Program California… Read More ›
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Leonora Carrington’s THE HEARING TRUMPET – Book Review by Sally Abbott
Long a fan of Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington, I was initially hesitant when the New York Review of Books reissued her 1974 novel, The Hearing Trumpet. I didn’t know what to expect when this extraordinary painter picked up a pen. To my… Read More ›
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We Are Not Oppressed Because We Remember pt. 3: Sowing Seeds and Braiding Hair by Chasity Jones
Today, once again, I got to touch the earth! While planting and constructing my indoor container garden, I thought about how my ancestors put seeds into their children’s hair so that in case they were taken away to live and… Read More ›
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A Tale of Dos Equis: Separating From My Husband by Caryn MacGrandle
After thirteen years filled with marital strife, I recently moved out. For financial and logistical reasons, we are staying married, focusing on our two children and have put into place a ‘3-3-3’ schedule. Three days, our daughters are with me. … Read More ›
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We are Not Oppressed Because We Remember Part 2 – Diaries of a young black woman by Chasity Jones
Read Part 1 here. One of the 18 characteristics of Africana Womanism is being a self-definer. This piece is a sliver of my process to do and be exactly that. I am striving to be a whole Black woman. I… Read More ›
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We Are Not Oppressed Because We Remember by Chasity Jones
Many questions are asked of us as a community, but the answers which are so complex that we should be commended for even attempting to answer, are heard- if they are not interrupted- but rarely understood. As a Black mother… Read More ›
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A Problem of Design by Laura Casasbuenas
When I was invited to create this post, a number of topics came to mind. But I decided to start our conversation with my response to the question: why do I write? I am a Colombian woman designer who promotes… Read More ›
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Sleeping Beauty: An ancient tale for these challenging times by Diane Perazzo
Fairy tales are intwined in our imagination and our spirituality. As Jane Yolan writes, one of the subtlest and yet most important functions of myth and fantasy is to “provide a framework or model for an individual’s belief system.” (1)… Read More ›
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Touch the Earth by Chasity Jones
I was recently asked how I reconcile being a Christian with also being a critic of Christian theology, traditions, and culture. I am asked this often and my answer is always the same. I have not found reconciliation and might… Read More ›
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An Untitled Poem for Unanswerable Questions by Eva Espinoza
Thinking about the discourse between spiritualists and victims of harmThinking about accountability and prison abolitionThinking about how white supremacy tells us people are disposableThat they–that we, don’t matterThinking about “don’t speak ill of the dead”Thinking about “honor your ancestors”Thinking about… Read More ›
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A Shared Bridge by Lou Hartmann and Diana
A fellow college classmate, Diana, and I wrote this poem together as we were inspired by the likes of Adrienne Rich and Sara Ahmed. We wanted to touch on the animosity between trans folk and cis women that often exists… Read More ›
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Grown Little Girl, Grow Little Girl by Chasity Jones Selenga
I have newly found myself a wife and in the throes of motherhood. In many feminist circles, I have encountered anti-family and anti-wifehood sentiments. The understanding is that to be a wife, and, to be a wife that chooses to… Read More ›
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The Gathering: A Womanist Church BOOK REVIEW by Mary Ann Beavis
Book title: The Gathering: A Womanist Church—Origins, Stories, Sermons, and Litanies Authors: Irie Lynne Session, Kamilah Hall Sharp and Jann Aldredge-Clanton Publisher: Wipf & Stock, 2020 Womanist theology is a form of theological reflection that centers on Black women’s experience,… Read More ›
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Be Strong and Resolute by Judith Plaskow
January 29, 2021 Dear President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Members of the 117th Congress, At a crucial moment of leadership transition in the history of ancient Israel, the Israelites were about to cross the Jordan River without Moses at… Read More ›
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The Sacred Face of Death by Eirini Delaki
The archetype of the Weaver is being widely activated. Thousands of women and men come forth to incarnate it by creating webs of spiritual awakening, by honoring ancestral ways of being, and by promoting practical and sustainable ways of living… Read More ›
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About Bridgerton: A Different Feminist Perspective by Christine Irving
First of all, I’m grateful to Bridgerton for providing several spirited conversations between my friends and me, not to mention the POVs penned recently in these pages. It was fun to take part in exchanges that did not highlight or… Read More ›
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A Thanksgiving Litany for Living through Fractious Times by Alla Renée Bozarth
All things being relative, rememberthat collective and individual historiesare cyclical but open-ended, and discernthe kind of moment you are in and part of. Remember how to make it betterby holding on to all that is dear in life,and becoming more… Read More ›
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St. Brigid to Brigid of Danu By Anne Fricke
Oh, bright flame of the dawn, You, who came before me and still breathe into the forge, whisper into the ears of poets, long after my bones have ground into dust upon the earth, I held your place claimed… Read More ›
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The Crafting the Wisdom Loom By Mary F. Gelfand
Over 20 years ago, I randomly came across the following passage from Sonnet X by Edna St. Vincent Millay: Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour, Rains from the sky a meteoric shower Of facts . . . they… Read More ›
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A Story to Inspire Hope by Elizabeth Chloe Erdmann
These days deep emotions seem to burst forth at unexpected moments. While in the car between visiting a pumpkin farm owned by friends and the local cider mill, I decided to pull out a crumpled paper with my brief presentation… Read More ›