In this blog post I’d like to take you with me on a recent visit to the special exhibition “Arts and Prehistory”* in the Museum of Mankind (Musée de l’Homme) in Paris.** Like the Feminine Power in London exhibition I… Read More ›
Body
Re-Anointing the Body by Eline Kieft
How ‘at one’ are you with your body, and what reasons might there be if your body-sense got separate(d) from your soul-sense? This piece starts with the difference between feminine and masculine spirituality, and introduces a few reasons why living… Read More ›
From Footbinding to Abortion and Beyond – This Has to Stop! by Janet Maika’i Rudolph
My husband, Marty, is a retired podiatrist. He worked in pockets of New York City that were poor and largely immigrant. When he first started his practice, he treated women from China whose feet had been bound. Despite being officially… Read More ›
Scars Of The Body by Mary Gelfand
Despite the distances involved, throughout my adulthood, I regularly visited my parents. As their home was small, I often found myself seated at the kitchen table with my mother while my father watched TV in the adjacent living room. During… Read More ›
From the Archives: Women’s Bodies and the Bible by Janet Maika’i Rudolph
Moderator’s note: This marvelous FAR site has been running for 10 years and has had more than 3,600 posts in that time. There are so many treasures that have been posted in this decade that they tend to get lost… Read More ›
Carol P. Christ’s Legacy: “LOVE PATRIARCHALISM”—ITS UNDERSIDE IS HATE
Moderator’s Note: We here at FAR have been so fortunate to work along side Carol Christ for many years. She died in July this year from cancer. To honor her legacy as well as allow as many people as possible… Read More ›
Last Tuesday Night by Marcia Mount Shoop
It’s been just over a week. Last Tuesday night to be exact. That’s the night the four of us huddled around our beloved companion of sixteen and a half years and said goodbye. Buck became a part of our family… Read More ›
Feminist Parenting About Sexuality Part 4: What to tell my daughters by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir
In this blog series, we have discussed: —The importance of admitting how painful this subject is —Reminders that I am NOT saying all men are bad or maleness is bad, because men and maleness are truly inherently beautiful and divine… Read More ›
Loving Venus, a poem by Marie Cartier
Dedicated to Carol Christ, 1945-2021, who taught so many of us how to love the Goddess She is called “Nude Woman” and currently livesin her natural museum house in Vienna.Nude woman. She is art, but she is not in an… Read More ›
Meditation in July – Weekend of July 4th by Sara Wright
I offered up morning prayers at dawn this July morning to the song of cardinals, rose breasted grosbeaks, and just barely rippling waters. The air was sweetened by water. Peace filtered through the green – seedlings, lichens, mosses, grasses, ferns,… Read More ›
Embodied Knowing, by Molly Remer
You are your ownsacred space. Your feet are alwayson temple ground. One of the key factors to me that differentiates feminist spiritual paths from many dominant religious traditions and frameworks is the recognition and acknowledgement of the body as a… Read More ›
¡La Vida es la Lucha! – Women in the Colombian Protests by Laura Montoya
*Trigger Warning – Reference and description of distressing violence against women at the hands of police* Alison Melendez was 17 when she was sexually abused last week by a group of Colombian policemen. She was captured for allegedly being part… Read More ›
Singing Is a Sacred Power by Carolyn Lee Boyd
A moss-soft ballad sung from a mountain top to the sunrise. A parent’s lullaby to soothe a newborn to sleep. Thousands of voices rising together to banish injustice from our planet. A single wavering melody infusing inspiration into a moment… Read More ›
Anorexia Nervosa Take 2 by Esther Nelson
This past year (2020) has been a year of tremendous upheaval and unwelcome change for most of us due in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s the second time in my life (first time I was in my 40s)… Read More ›
Living with Cancer Treatment by Carol P. Christ
At the end of July 2020, I was diagnosed with stage 3 aggressive cancer. As of this week, I will have been receiving a very high dose of chemo (5 hours on the drip every 3 weeks) for 6 months,… Read More ›
The Body is a Nation by Sara Wright
“The body is a nation I have not known. The pure joy of air: the moment between leaping from a cliff into the wall of blue below.”* Oh, the pure joy of being weightless – I leapt to the stars,… Read More ›
Crow and the Pornographic Gaze by Sara Wright
Once she believed that it was her fault they came on to her, that she owed them something… They owned her? Secretly the girl was pleased because any kind of attention was better than none, or being so “different” –… Read More ›
Feminist Parenting, Part 2 — What are Children? Are Children Human? by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir
The first thing I do in parenting courses is ask students their most basic beliefs about children. Students are startled by this opening slide, “what are children?” The obvious, knee-jerk response to the question, “Are children human?” is “Of course!”… Read More ›
Mourning with the Goddesses, Now More than Ever by Carolyn Lee Boyd
We may all remember 2020 as the year when we could no longer look away from death. Our western culture has hidden death away in hospitals and funeral homes for generations. However, in these past months we have all… Read More ›
Re-Visioning Medusa: Part I by Sara Wright
All through my childhood a self-portrait, painted by my mother hung above my parents’ bed. I was fascinated by this image of the stern face of my very beautiful mother with her long wavy chestnut hair. In the painting my… Read More ›
Women, like Goddesses, Come in All Colors, Shapes, and Sizes…by Vanessa Soriano
I wish I could have gotten this phrase tattooed on my arm when I started the serpentine journey into womanhood. Like most of us, growing up, all I ever saw in media were thin female bodies with impossible proportions. As… Read More ›
Post-Hysterectomy Reflections: Not All Women Bleed by Ivy Helman
Around the age of 8, or maybe 10, I learned my aunt had had a hysterectomy. I remember visiting her house either shortly before or after the operation. I can’t remember which, and it doesn’t really matter. At the time,… Read More ›
“What If We Touched Ourselves Lovingly Every Day?” by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir
I watched her hand stroke along my arm, so gently, so lovingly. Her voice whispered, “I love you, Trelawney. I love you, Trelawney.” The soft, tender caress felt poignant, healing, magical. I wept with gratitude. It was my own hand… Read More ›
They Too Are America by Karen Leslie Hernandez
George Floyd. It has been a week. But, not really just a week. Months. Years. Decades. Centuries. 1,253 black human beings have died at the hands of law enforcement in the United States since 2015. And we just keep watching…. Read More ›
Trauma Healing in Collective Crisis by Laura Shannon
My previous post on this site, Trauma Healing through Communal Dance, on February 1, told of a traumatic event and its lingering effects, including insomnia, brain fog, nightmares, tearfulness, migraines, anxiety, and fear. Now I’m hearing reports of similar symptoms… Read More ›
Hobbled by Joyce Zonana
My hobbling has made me aware, in a new way, of my vulnerability. When I walk down the street, I notice that very few people actually seem to notice my constraint. And this makes me feel even more vulnerable. I’ve been afraid to take the subway, afraid to be in crowds, uncomfortable even when I am alone at home. I worry about another break, a fall, a misstep—banging into something, or having something drop on my foot.
And I think, with deeper compassion, about my friends and acquaintances—and all the people I don’t know—who bravely endure even greater, often invisible, challenges.
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 ›
The Holy of Holies and the Umbilical Cord: The Evolution of a Ritual Object by Jill Hammer
In the Jewish calendar, we’re just past the holiday season—the High Holidays, the harvest festival of Sukkot, and the concluding festival of Simchat Torah when the last verses of the Torah are read and the first verses are started again…. Read More ›
Adoring God in Labor by K Kriesel
The day before the 2019 Nevertheless She Preached conference at First Baptist Church of Austin, TX my own Catholic church’s young adult ministry hosted Eucharistic Adoration. Although I’ve enjoyed Adoration dozens of times, several factors made this evening different. I… Read More ›
Bent on Kindness by Esther Nelson
Recently, with some fear and trepidation, I underwent spinal surgery. When the surgeon visited me the day after my operation, he assured me that the procedure was a success, even though it will take several weeks to ascertain whether or… Read More ›