Guest Contributor

Sex is a Feminist Issue: An Interview with Rev. Dr. Beverly Dale by Jera Brown

Sex is a feminist issue. Harmful perspectives on sex and our physical bodies have been used to disempower and invalidate the sexuality of women, LGBTQIA folks, and people of color. It runs through our theology and cultural traditions within the church.

I run a personal blog which speaks positively about sex and queerness. And when folks find it, frequently, their first questions to me is what other resources are out there that teach a better Christian perspective? I often tell them to start with The Incarnation Institute for Sex and Faith.

IISF offers “inclusive, science-friendly, sex-positive” educational programming for church leaders and lay people. Founder Rev. Dr. Beverly Dale, affectionately known as “Rev Bev,” is ordained through the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and currently teaches courses on sexuality and religion at Lancaster Theological Seminary.

The institute recently released a four-part web series, Reading the Bible with Sex-Positive Eyes, which includes the topics: “Introduction to Christian Sex Negativity: The Beginnings,” “Discerning Truth, Discerning Culture,” “Sex in the Bible: The Good, The Bad & the Ugly,” and “Sex: Whether, When, and How.”

I interviewed Rev Bev about the new series.

Continue reading “Sex is a Feminist Issue: An Interview with Rev. Dr. Beverly Dale by Jera Brown”

The Exclusion and Embrace of Trans-women within Feminist Spirituality by Kelly Palmer

Women-only circles have long existed within the Goddess movement, the Red Tent movement for example exists as an inter-faith, grass-roots movement for women only to come together to claim safe and sacred space. But too often ‘women-only’ in fact means ‘cis women only’. Trans women are not allowed. This has been the topic of much heated debate in recent years, culminating last year in the publication of ‘Female Erasure’ an anthology of essays on gender politics and feminist spirituality that has led to calls for the editor Ruth Barrett to be expelled from her thealogical seminary on grounds of transphobia. Barrett and many of her contemporaries openly call for the exclusion of transwomen from women-only Goddess circles and respond to criticism by saying that asking for ‘women born women only’ space is not meant to be antitrans but simply carving out a space for people with similar life experience – in the same way that people of specific ethnic minorities may gather, or LGBTQ people. Surely, they may say, the answer is for trans women to create their own spaces?

There are two problems with this. Firstly, trans women are in a significant minority, making access to groups of other trans women practicing Goddess spirituality difficult. If a local woman’s circle is their only means to practicing their religion with others, and they are excluded by this on the basis of their genitalia, this exclusion is incredibly hurtful and undermines not just one’s ability to practice a faith but one’s very identity and esteem. Secondly, it is not just local, personal groups that are practicing this exclusion, but large and public gatherings, making very public pronouncements that trans women are not welcome. They have been excluded from womens rituals at PantheaCon in 2011 and Michigan Womyns Music Festival has a policy of excluding trans women from the entire event.

Continue reading “The Exclusion and Embrace of Trans-women within Feminist Spirituality by Kelly Palmer”

A Better World is Impossible Today (#WETOO) by Adam F. Braun

At the end of the second Matrix film (Reloaded), Neo (the messianic figure, “The One”) is told by the Architect of the Matrix, itself a program in the system, that Neo was in fact the sixth iteration of messianic figures that the Matrix had itself created. In such a case, what hope is there when the System creates messiahs in order to produce a hope it allows—a hope it allows for the sake of reproducing itself through the exploited labor of others, who are able “to get by” because they have this same hope. A hope that a better world is possible.

In the midst of the young #metoo movement in Japan, this story emerges from one of its medical schools:

Japan’s government urged a medical university to promptly disclose the results of an investigation into its admissions process Friday after reports alleged it had altered the test scores of female applicants for years to deny them entry and ensure fewer women became doctors. Continue reading “A Better World is Impossible Today (#WETOO) by Adam F. Braun”

When Silence and Speech both Burn Too Much by Marisa Goudy

Read Part One of this post here.

I’ve been participating in Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin’s RISE Activist/Leader Bootcamp this summer. You may know this modern warrior priestess. She’s a lawyer turned corporate leadership consultant who broadcasts Resistance Live on Facebook.

In one training session, she spoke at length about the ways that women are silenced and how their voices are repressed. Nodding along, I remembered all the times I’d been accused of being “shrill” and warned not to “cackle.”

Though in high school I was voted “most likely to speak her mind” and I haven’t changed all that much over the years, my political and creative passions are held in check by my “good girl” programming. Continue reading “When Silence and Speech both Burn Too Much by Marisa Goudy”

What You Learn When Your Voice Shakes by Marisa Goudy

As I heard my voice rising over the half-eaten breakfast, something inside me began to splinter.

“We cannot effectively ‘open lines of communication’ with racists and fascists!” I exclaimed. It was followed by an impassioned speech (perhaps you’d call it a tirade) fueled by news of migrant families separated, my own helplessness, and other people’s tweets.

My family didn’t greet me with stunned silence. They’ve watched me get worked up over politics since well before I could vote. All of us are accustomed to the pervasive, ever-escalating outrage that’s been part of the new normal for the last year and a half. And when one of us gets loud (ok, it’s always me), nobody tends to get offended.

But, as I said, something cracked within me when I heard the brittle desperation in my own tone.

When I stopped talking, I heard the echo of my own voice

I know this part of me, the part whose words rise above everyone else’s. It’s harsh, frantic, and shadowed. It’s driven by disconnection, adrenaline, and fear.

This is the part of me that only knows how to react and exclaim, not how to consider and respond.

This is the part of me that tells you to bury your thoughts and prayers ‘til the end of the battle.

This is the part of me that loses track of personal, grounded truth in order to parrot collective indignation.

This is the part of me that forgets every spiritual truth and every bit of healing wisdom I’ve gained.

This is the part of me that retreats and leaves her weapons to rust, once again exhausted from all that seemingly fruitless fighting.

This is not the part of me that is truly empowered to change the world. This is not the part of me that is confident she’s contributing to the work of peace, justice, or divinity. This is not the part of me that is teaching my daughters how to create a livable, equitable society they want to live in.

That said, I forgive her. After all, she’s also the part of me that’s trying.

Yes, we need to raise our voices.
The passion often makes our voices crack.
Sometimes, those cracks show us our own fragility, fault lines, and beautiful sacred edges.

…Tomorrow, Part Two…

Marisa Goudy is a story healer and writing coach with a passion for everyday creative magic. Currently, she’s working on a book project called Sovereignty Lessons which invites women to “free the princess, crown the queen, and embrace the wise woman.” Marisa is fascinated by the Irish Sovereignty Goddess and how her many expressions in myth and contemporary understanding can guide us through 21st century life through life. A graduate of Boston College’s Irish Studies program and recipient of an MA in Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama from University College Dublin, Marisa lives with her husband and daughters in New York’s Hudson Valley. Visit her website to sign up for the free community writing practices sessions she holds regularly and for the #7MagicWords challenges that she offers at the turn of each season.

Medieval Torture Devices and the Goddess by Colette Numajiri

There is a campy dinner and tournament “castle,” Medieval Times, in our city in which you can eat and watch a fully- costumed period play complete with stunning Spanish horses in an indoor arena. Inside of this building, for a mere additional $2, there is a “torture chamber” attraction, a mini museum with a dozen or so of actual torture relics used in the Medieval Inquisition (or accurate looking replicas of them!) along with illustrations from the era.

In this collection they have what appears to be an authentic orifice-expanding “pear” and a “breast ripper” (see and read photo below) among other devices meant to inflict pain and often death to those with the misfortune to be accused.

The actual “Medieval Times” period was a horrific and bloodstained era when the NEW ORDER (the established Catholic and new Protestant churches) set out to “Christianize Europe.” They succeeded and became beyond wealthy by creating a WIDESPREAD FEAR of WOMEN, gaining power over more than half of the population and confiscating their money and land.

There is an hour long film funded by the Canadian government called: “THE BURNING TIMES” that tells the story of the people (85% women) that were brutally killed over a 300 year period in what was the WOMEN’S HOLOCAUST.

Continue reading “Medieval Torture Devices and the Goddess by Colette Numajiri”

A Silhouette of a Woman, the Menorah, and a Pillar of Light: Discovering the Origins of the Goddess in Judaism by Alaya A. Dannu

2.24.2017

During a meditation before bed, I saw an image of a candelabra similar to what Jewish people use for Hanukkah. It was yellow/gold in color, engraved/etched onto a surface. All at once I saw the imagery of a star, a silhouette of a woman, and a beam of light move from the base of the candelabra through the top and beyond.

In these moments, I did not understand the significance of or the relationship between these images. What did a feminine figure have to do with the Jewish candelabra? What is the name of their candelabra? I could not even recall the name of it. It was something I grew up knowing the name of, as it was an image that I frequently saw beside the kinara of Kwanzaa in my school-aged years.

Because I was sheltered from the Abrahamic religions, my mother opted for participating in Kwanzaa as a means to shield me from any potential bullying from my classmates, and to celebrate a part of my diverse heritage. It was already a problem for my peers and the adult staff at school that I chose to identify as a Jamaican-American or a mixed person, as opposed to African-American. To tell a group of African-American Christians or those with an Afro-centric view that I didn’t celebrate Christmas or Kwanzaa, or that my mother taught me to listen to my dreams and intuition, would only serve as a means to further isolate myself; and by extension, my little sister. So celebrate Kwanzaa we did, until I began high school.

Continue reading “A Silhouette of a Woman, the Menorah, and a Pillar of Light: Discovering the Origins of the Goddess in Judaism by Alaya A. Dannu”

Sacred Activism through Lucid Dreams: A Dream of Enthronement by Alaya A. Dannu

I am a Vajrayana Buddhist. I follow the Buddha Dharma via the Vajra path. My journey to the Dharma was through lucid dreams. I have not once had a human teacher, in this lifetime, to teach or guide me to/on this path. My teachers have been the Dakinis, the Mothers, or a variety of emanations of the Divine Feminine embodying many forms of wisdom. They are the ones that have provided me with the practices to engage and the ways in which I need to BE, in order to DO, in this lifetime.

“How do you know these dreams are not from your mind?”

Do you know how many times I have heard this question, from sangha members of less melanin? Did you know that it has always been a Western Buddhist that has challenged my experiences, yet those that follow the Buddha Dharma in Asia would always inquire about them from a place of curiosity?

Continue reading “Sacred Activism through Lucid Dreams: A Dream of Enthronement by Alaya A. Dannu”

The Forgotten Art of Integration by Kay Bee

It’s suddenly mid-July. I’m in the throes of managing my library’s Children’s Summer Reading Program. My own children are galavanting about through the swirling, time-bending vortex that is summer break. My grad school program starts in 22 days. Each sun-soaked hour seems to both last forever and zip past at the same time. The calendar is packed, the laundry & dishes are overflowing. We’re constantly running out of something. There are endless balls in the air at work, at home, within and around me. I worry I am going to fail to catch and release one (or more) at just the right time. There is so much in motion, I often feel poised on the brink of.… Well, I’m not even sure what of, but it certainly feels precarious more often than not.

My life is bountiful and blessed right now. It is also chaotic and anxiety-producing. And I’m trying to get a handle on myself somewhere within all that. I have learned, after just shy of a decade’s worth of practicing the Avalonian Tradition as a member of the Sisterhood of Avalon, that what I need right now is a little dash of Integration. Continue reading “The Forgotten Art of Integration by Kay Bee”

Interdependence Day by Mama Donna Henes

I was recently invited to address a gathering of resident chaplains in the pastoral care department of a major urban medical center. Specifically, they asked me to present the shamanic point of view of team building with an emphasis on creating alliances and community.

There is no such thing! From a shamanic point of view (as well as quantum scientific thought) separation is a false concept. It is redundant to think of reaching out to build teams, alliances, and communities, since we are already all connected, allied, joined together as one. The fact is there is no such thing as opposing sides.There is only one side: just us folks, all of us everywhere, trying to live life as best we can, much more alike than different. There is no us and them. There is only us. We — all of us who occupy this planet: organic and inorganic; living and not; past, present, and future —are the world. Continue reading “Interdependence Day by Mama Donna Henes”