Guest Contributor

Women’s Autonomy and Well-Being v. the Patriarchy by Elizabeth Ann Bartlett

A recently leaked draft of the US Supreme Court’s opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization suggests that the court is ready to overturn Roe v. Wade. Most people know the legal consequence of Roe, but few know the grounds for the decision. The focus was on the “important and legitimate interest” the state has in preserving and protecting the health of the pregnant woman. Defining “health” broadly, Justice Blackmun wrote:

The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent. Specific and direct harm medically diagnosable even in early pregnancy may be involved. Maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future. Psychological harm may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxed by child care. There is also the distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is the problem of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it. In other cases, . . . the additional difficulties and continuing stigma of unwed motherhood may be involved. (410 U.S. 113, 1973)

Psychological, physical, familial, social, present and future health of the woman are all to be taken into consideration. I would add to this the spiritual well-being of the woman, for this is a deeply personal spiritual decision as well.

The Egg by Annelinde Metzner

Art by Deb Pollard Materials: Watercolor, markers, and vintage pearl button on paper.

In 1989 I was 37 years old. My body’s sacred work, centered around eggs, hormones and fertility, strongly governed my everyday existence. I’m sure that influence is strong for all women of that age, mothers or not, body conscious or not. I was directing a large women’s choir in Asheville, Womansong, composing and arranging for the women’s voices, as well as leading ritual-like rehearsals in a seated circle on the floor (pretty sure I can’t do that any more!) where I would often read my latest poems.

Now I know that the egg of our own existence was carried in our mother’s wombs while in our grandmother’s bodies. I can see how my imagination in 1989 would go further and further afield, to women’s relations with all the egg-bearers, flora and fauna, of our amazing Earth. Quite a family we are!

Finding Andraste in the Norfolk Landscape by Claire Bullion

Goddess Andraste is the embodied spirit of all of nature in Norfolk, England. We know She must have been a Goddess of Sovereignty to the Iceni tribe because Queen Boudica called on her to protect the people and their lands when they were invaded and brutalised by the Romans in 60AD.

Boudica may have been a Priestess of Andraste, possibly as Queen she was an earthly embodiment of the Goddess, or at least chosen as leader by Andraste. Able to perform ritual, she was probably trained as a Druid.

INTERBEING by Elizabeth Ann Bartlett

“Every life bears in some way on every other.”

-Susan Griffin, A Chorus of Stones

This line from Susan Griffin’s profound investigation into the ways our lives are interwoven through war has been echoing in my mind frequently in recent days, as we find our hearts breaking and outraged by a distant war. In the depths of our compassion, we ache with the suffering of families huddling together in bomb shelters, a birthing woman and her baby dying on a stretcher after a maternity hospital is bombed, the poignant strains of a Chopin etude played by a woman on her piano – the only thing to survive her bombed out home.

This truth of Griffin’s words echoes throughout ancient wisdom traditions — in the indigenous recognition that all our relations — animals, plants, water, earth, stone — are kin; in the African concept of Ubuntu — “I am because we are;” in the Buddhist precept of interdependent co-arising, which Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh called simply “interbeing.” As he described it:

white femininity: whitemalegod’s secret weapon By Christena Cleveland, PhD

For the first several weeks of my walking pilgrimage, I debated whether to visit the famous Black Madonna of Orcival. It wasn’t the walking distance that deterred me; She lived in a gorgeous Romanesque cathedral nestled in a charming medieval mountain town only fifteen miles away. Rather, I was hesitant to visit Her because I knew that, after a thousand years of being Black, She had undergone a mid-twentieth-century “renovation and restoration” process that whitened Her skin. I knew from photos that Her once gorgeous melanated skin was now a ghastly beige-ish pink. The incredible Black Madonna of Orcival now appears to be a white woman.

The Darkness by Annelinde Metzner

As a composer and poet, I’m interested in cultural perceptions and assumptions that influence beliefs. In monotheistic religions as well in some types of more recent spiritual thought, the assumption has been to equate Darkness with evil and Light with good. “Love and light!” we hear often, or maybe “I’m surrounding you in light.” But this assumption feeds a form of prejudice that infuses all of society. The mind hears “darkness” and associates it negatively with Earth, female, skin color, dirt.

In Memoriam: Thich Nhat Hanh by Elizabeth Ann Bartlett

Yet another of my great spiritual teachers has died. Buddhist monk, peace activist, author, and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh died on January 22nd at Tu Hieu Temple in Hue, Vietnam. I have found wisdom in so many of his books, but it is his The Miracle of Mindfulness that has become almost a daily guide. I discovered it sometime in my four-year wait for a new heart after being put on the transplant list following my second cardiac arrest in my 30s. In that time of living with the ever-present fear of sudden cardiac death, it probably saved my life, and certainly my sanity and spiritual well-being.

My Goddessy by Dale Allen

I am passionate about sharing the image, essence and energy of the sacred feminine. Having presented this material to thousands of men and women at universities, conferences, corporations, expos and theaters across the US, Canada, from Kauai to Dubai, to the Parliament of the World’s Religions, and twice to the UN Commission on the Status of Women, I have humbly witnessed its healing effect. (I return to UNCSW on March 21, and welcome you to join this free online event, which you can find here.

When I first encountered the word, “Goddess,” I didn’t like it. Using it felt strange, and I wondered why I should bother. The word “Goddess” felt uncomfortable and unnecessary.

From the Archives: Buddhist Misogyny Revisited – Part I by Barbara McHugh

Recently, I wrote a novel about the Buddha’s wife disguising herself as a man to join his religious community. When I showed the manuscript to a Buddhist friend, whose knowledge and practice I respect greatly, he expressed apprehension that it violated the basic myth of Buddhism. I assumed he meant that my storyline of gender deception strays too far from the versions of the Buddha’s life as recorded in the traditional canon, which adherents regard as the Buddha’s inviolable teachings. The last thing I wanted to do was to misrepresent these teachings.

What does it mean “to violate a myth”? If I had portrayed the Buddha as a psycho-killer or wife-beater, I could appreciate this charge, but I had presented an enlightened Buddha whose values were in alignment with standard scripture and the mores of his day. The change I made was to tell the story from a woman’s point of view, and to do so, I modified some of the traditional legends and created new material to make my choices plausible. Predictably, my modifications came up against many of the stories’ misogynistic elements.

For instance, in the canon, the Buddha initially refuses to admit women to the monastic order. Eventually his attendant Ananda persuades him, but then the Buddha adds 104 extra rules for nuns, eight of which (the Garudammas) clearly put women in an inferior position. One rule states: “A nun who has been ordained even for a hundred years must greet respectfully, rise up from her seat, salute with joined palms, do proper homage to a monk ordained but that day.” The Buddha also told Ananda that thanks to the admission of women, the Dharma (the teachings and practices of Buddhism) would die out after only 500 years.

An Experience of the Aphrodisia by Olivia Ciaccia

A warm summer sun smiles down upon the British coastline, the low tide reflecting jewels which are wash up and dispersed upon fine sand. A welcome breeze dances around a gathering of Goddess devotees encircling a small bonfire. Amongst them stands a banner and statue depicting and imitating Botticelli’s Venus and bouquets of roses. Just before the sun sets, those gathered lovingly collect these assembled artifacts, holding them aloft, and begin to process barefoot towards the sea.

Aphrodite-Venus’s banner and sculpted face shines in the low afternoon sunlight. As the procession slowly steps, weaves, and dances, towards the sea to the beat of a drum, the sun reaches further behind the hills, casting a long shadow upon the beach. The Goddess’s image dances with them, banner swaying and statue bobbing with the dance of its carrier. By the time the procession reaches the sea, the sun has dipped behind the now black silhouette of the hills bathing the beach ahead in dusky oranges and brilliant blues. At the shoreline, a priestess steps forward and turns the Goddess’s statue to face the procession, which has now fanning out into a semi-circle.