Category: Activism

Speak the Truth about Conflict, Pain, and Suffering: It Is Not All Love and Light by Carol P. Christ

Nurture life.

Walk in love and beauty.

Trust the knowledge that comes through the body.

Speak the truth about conflict, pain, and suffering.

Take only what you need.

Think about the consequences of your actions for seven generations.

Approach the taking of life with great restraint.

Practice great generosity.

Repair the web

 

In Rebirth of the Goddess, I offered Nine Touchstones of Goddess Spirituality as an alternative to the Ten Commandments. The Nine Touchstones are intended to inform all our relationships, whether personal, communal, social, or political.

Ours is a broken world. We must speak the truth. Spirituality is not only about “love and light.” Goddess Spirituality, which I often call Goddess feminism, grew out of the feminist movement, which was born in the recognition that all is not well in the world. A central insight of Goddess feminism is that women need the Goddess because when we picture God as exclusively male, we create a world in which boys and men believe they are like God, while girls and women believe they are less than men and God.

In this world in which rape is an ordinary part of war, women are paid less than men for the same work, sexual harassment and sexual aggression are tolerated in workplaces, one in three women will suffer physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner and many of them will be murdered by an intimate partner. Feminism was born when women began to speak up about these injustices and many others. Continue reading “Speak the Truth about Conflict, Pain, and Suffering: It Is Not All Love and Light by Carol P. Christ”

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”

Will Donald Trump Go to Heaven? by Gina Messina

Having seen the image of a toddler crying while law enforcement questioned her mother, my daughter was filled with fear, anxiety, and confusion. After tearfully asking if she would be taken away from me, my nine year old followed up with the question, “Will Donald Trump go to heaven?”

It is true that the young girl was not a child who was being separated from her mother. Nonetheless, she has become the face of this time in history where American values no longer include “family values,” protecting children, or respecting human dignity. 

The business mogul who claims a Christian identity with a room full of bibles to prove it, has made oppression, injustice, and the general devaluing of life the core of his administration. While Jesus calls us to embrace the stranger, walk with the least of these, to be a loving neighbor, and work for the liberation of every person, Trump’s actions and policies violate every teaching. And so, my daughter’s question was not out of line. Continue reading “Will Donald Trump Go to Heaven? by Gina Messina”

Thus Saith Eve BOOK REVIEW by Katie M. Deaver

“I am the Queen of Sheba and I am not impressed.”  This is the first line of one of the monologues from chris wind’s book Thus Saith Eve.  This book features 18 stories of biblical women, and a 19th, Lilith, from Jewish mythology.  Each monologue offers a new interpretation and gives a voice to the women that we think we know.

In this book the voices and personalities of women such as Noah’s wife, Mary of Bethany, Zipporah, and Vashti are reimagined in an exciting and empowering way.  Each of the stories also features an appendix where the reader can learn more about the biblical or mythological context of the woman who is telling her story.

As in her other works, wind uses historical people, events, and understandings to build a truly wonderful source of feminist fiction.  In addition to being an extremely enjoyable and thought provoking read, the monologues can also be used for audition and performance pieces.  On her website wind explains that two of the monologues, “I am Eve” and “I am Mary” can be performed with specific musical selections in the background.  You can find those selections linked to her website above.

 

Continue reading “Thus Saith Eve BOOK REVIEW by Katie M. Deaver”

Walk in Love and Beauty: A Touchstone for Healing by Carol P. Christ

Nurture life.

Walk in love and beauty.

Trust the knowledge that comes through the body.

Speak the truth about conflict, pain, and suffering.

Take only what you need.

Think about the consequences of your actions for seven generations.

Approach the taking of life with great restraint.

Practice great generosity.

Repair the web

 

In Rebirth of the Goddess, I offered Nine Touchstones of Goddess Spirituality as an alternative to the Ten Commandments. The Nine Touchstones are intended to inform all our relationships, whether personal, communal, social, or political.

The second touchstone, “Walk in love and beauty,” derives from the insight that love and beauty are the great gifts of bounteous earth. Just recently at a meeting of the Green Party Greece, one of our representatives in Parliament, Giorgos Dimaras, said to me, “It all begins with love.” He understands that our Green Party principles of environmental sustainability, social justice, no violence, and participatory democracy are rooted in the prior value of love. If we do not love nature, then why would we care about saving it? If we do not love others, why would we care about injustice and suffering? If we do not love the world, why would we care about creating peace on earth? If we do love others, why would we care about creating ways to ensure that everyone’s voice is heard in our families, communities, and societies? Continue reading “Walk in Love and Beauty: A Touchstone for Healing by Carol P. Christ”

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”

Spinning the Fire, Shifting the Current by Chris Ash

Christy at the beachSeventy-two hours out of every week, I carry a hotline phone. While calls come in waves and some shifts are silent, my everyday and professional lives are peppered with reminders that evil doesn’t just pierce reality through acts of power, control, and violence – it seeps through in discrediting voices and disbelieving questions. It rolls into us off the well-meaning tongues of community members who’d rather protect the status quo than hold people accountable. It wraps its tendrils around us as we walk through each system we are forced to navigate – systems that are not set up to protect our vulnerable hearts and human dignity. Evil powers the backlash wave that tries to knock down every survivor who speaks out about gender, sexual, or intimate partner violence, and it also is in the fear we swallow when we choke down our own stories, press them down deeper, grasping to avoid yet another assault on our integrity, intelligence, and truth.

Evil stains our flags with the undeniable imprints of genocide, slavery, and continuing racial injustice and then demands that we wave those flags, smiling and allegiant, as The American Dream itself is held hostage, torn from its family, held in a cage. Continue reading “Spinning the Fire, Shifting the Current by Chris Ash”

Nurture Life: Ethics of Goddess Spirituality by Carol P. Christ

Nurture life.

Walk in love and beauty.

Trust the knowledge that comes through the body.

Speak the truth about conflict, pain, and suffering.

Take only what you need.

Think about the consequences of your actions for seven generations.

Approach the taking of life with great restraint.

Practice great generosity.

Repair the web

 

In Rebirth of the Goddess, I offered Nine Touchstones of Goddess Spirituality as an alternative to the Ten Commandments. The touchstones are not commandments delivered from outside the world, nor are they accompanied by the promise of reward in heaven or the threat of punishment in hell. Rather, the Nine Touchstones are based upon observation of the world and rooted in the insight that human and other beings are connected in the web of life. They are intended to inform all our relationships, whether personal, communal, social, or political.

As I review the Nine Touchstones two decades after I first intuited and reflected on them, I marvel at my younger self. When I write, I often enter into a kind of trance in which words emerge from a place in myself that lies deeper than my conscious rational mind. I do not know that I know something until the words take shape on the page, and even then, their meaning unfolds over time. Something like this must have happened with the Nine Touchstones. I was drawn to the Native American teachings expressed in several of the touchstones even though I did not fully understand their context or meaning at the time. I was drawn to maternal values without knowing that they are the basis of ethics in egalitarian matriarchal cultures. Continue reading “Nurture Life: Ethics of Goddess Spirituality by Carol P. Christ”

America’s Two National Goddesses by Barbara Ardinger

I bet almost no one knows this secret: the United States is being watched over by two goddesses! One of them stands on top of the Capitol dome in Washington, D.C. The other stands on an island in New York harbor.

The goddess standing above our congressional building is named Libertas, or Freedom. She’s a Roman civic goddess whose sisters are Concordia and Pax. Although the Romans hardly ever experienced freedom, civic harmony, or peace, they always kept their eyes on the possibilities. Libertas was sometimes merged with Jupiter, sometimes with Feronia, who was originally an Etruscan or Sabine goddess of agriculture or fire. In Rome, Feronia became the goddess of freed slaves. Libertas is shown on Roman coins as a matron in flowing dress and wearing either a wreath of laurel leaves or a tall pilleus, which is called a “liberty cap” and looks like a witch hat without the brim. And there’s also a bird—is it a raven?? She holds either a liberty pole (vindicta) or a spear, and in some paintings of her (she was a popular subject in the 19th century) there is a cat at her feet. Continue reading “America’s Two National Goddesses by Barbara Ardinger”

Ethics of Goddess Religion: Healing the World by Carol P. Christ

Nurture life.

Walk in love and beauty.

Trust the knowledge that comes through the body.

Speak the truth about conflict, pain, and suffering.

Take only what you need.

Think about the consequences of your actions for seven generations.

Approach the taking of life with great restraint.

Practice great generosity.

Repair the web.

 

In a recent interview on Voices of the Sacred Feminine on “Gratitude and Sharing: Principles of Goddess Spirituality,” Karen Tate asked me to review the “Nine Touchstones” of Goddess religion I offered in Rebirth of the Goddess as an alternative to the Ten Commandments. Tate expressed concern about the lack of social and political ethics in New Age spirituality and in some parts of the Neo-pagan movement at a time when ethical discernment and action is more necessary than ever.

Before discussing the ethical principles of Goddess feminism, it is necessary to dispel a common assumption that there can be no ethics in Goddess religion because ethics stem from a transcendent principle of justice that stands outside the world. Christian liberation theologians usually identify this transcendent principle with the commanding “Word of God” in the prophetic traditions of the Bible. They often assume that this word comes from outside ourselves and outside nature and as such is the only firm basis for ethics. Continue reading “Ethics of Goddess Religion: Healing the World by Carol P. Christ”