While I am sure this articulation is on an “inspirational” meme somewhere, my thoughts coalesced to form it while I was looking at the mid-afternoon blue sky in a moment of rare optimism. Too often can I become confused and… Read More ›
Body
Rhetoric of a Talking Body by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente
I have been thinking lately in the female body: object of foreign narratives and appropriations to their geography Who decides what is right to say about a woman’s body? The correct answer is the most logical: The same woman… Read More ›
How do you feel about me now? by Natalie Weaver
How do you feel about me now? I was talking to an old friend the other day, and when I asked how he was, he said, “I’m getting by.” “Getting by? Not tearing it up, not taking ‘em down, and… Read More ›
Resisting Shame and Choosing to Live through the Loving Eye by Stephanie N. Arel
This week, I finished reading The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory by Marilyn Frye, a text I had not encountered in my studies of feminism (in literary theory, psychology, philosophy, or theology) until now. In some ways, I… Read More ›
Sexuality and Spirituality: Convergence or Alienation? by Stephanie Arel
I just finished reading for review The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality, edited by Donald L. Boisvert and Carly Daniel-Hughes. Targeting an undergraduate audience, the text explores ways that religion, gender, and sexuality intersect and interact in a variety… Read More ›
Bikini Season by Sarah Kiefer
I grew up in a suburban town stuck in the middle of rural Indiana. I drove through corn fields to get to school and on more than one occasion I did have to crawl through my sun roof to get… Read More ›
Call Me the Devil, If You’d Like by Natalie Weaver
Call me the devil, if you’d like. I have just completed the three-hour retreat at the church to prepare my son for his first communion. It was a long morning, to be sure, but during that time I decide I… Read More ›
Health Care Woes by Anjeanette LeBoeuf
I was struggling to figure out a piece for this month’s post and what I kept coming back to is my healthcare journey and the uncertainty of the last year. My childhood does not contain memories of not supported medically…. Read More ›
Reflections on Trauma, Part I: Pink Pussyhats by Stephanie N. Arel
I have been thinking frequently about trauma, about what perpetuates suffering and what supports the arduous journey of transforming traumatic experiences, especially in the aftermath of traumas of human design. The violation of bodies lies at the heart of such… Read More ›
In Memoriam: Katelyn Nicole Davis by Stephanie Arel
On December 30, 2016, Katelyn Nicole Davis, a 12-year-old girl from Cedartown, Georgia filmed her suicide by hanging from a tree in her front yard. Recorded live, the video has gone viral. Alarmingly, a young girl’s succumbing to death logged… Read More ›
A Letter to Those I’ve Lost by John Erickson
Out of all of these things, the one thing that has kept coming to my mind is G-d. What is he (or she) thinking? I feel like I’m back in one of my Old Testament classes discussing the harsh and cruel G-d that thrust so many horrible things onto their believers. Maybe, the worst part about the election isn’t Donald Trump, but it is the realization that G-d may be dead after all.
Supporting Embodiment: Societal and Jewish Views on Body Modification by Ivy Helman
Embodiment is a feminist principle which has, as its basis, two fundamental criteria. First, humans require their bodies to live. We must acknowledge that our existence is tied to our bodies. This fact grounds us in this world. Here, and… Read More ›
Women’s Bodies—Feeling the Hate by Esther Nelson
Warning friends, the first four paragraphs of this post includes quotes/references of some of Donald Trump’s misogynist rhetoric. I never bothered to watch Donald Trump’s television show “The Apprentice.” The teasers advertising the TV program were enough to keep me clicking through… Read More ›
The Community Bardic Exercise Revisited: Body, Land, Tribe Poetry by Kate Brunner
Two years ago, I hosted a Devotional Poetry themed Community Bardic Exercise which turned out to be heaps of beautiful, inspiration-filled fun. Inspired by Elizabeth’s latest post, I’d like to revisit this venture today. Consider this an invitation, an opportunity, or… Read More ›
Hard Work without Getting Anywhere by LaChelle Schilling
When my students read about the Buddhist concepts of non-resistance, non-attachment, and living in the present, one of the first protests I end up addressing is how these ideas seem to negate progress, goal-setting, or success. What my students don’t… Read More ›
“You Look Trim” and Resisting the Tyranny of Thinness by Xochitl Alvizo
I caught myself reinforcing the norm. The ever present default of focusing on women’s body size and prioritizing their weight gain and loss. I did this with a colleague/friend of mine. After not seeing one another for most of the… Read More ›
Continued Adventures in Somatic Spirituality: Navel-Gazing by Kate Brunner
Some months ago, I came across a brilliant comment online from a stranger in reference to the offhanded disparaging of practices of deep introspection as “navel gazing.” Her reply to the criticism of self-reflection as a self-absorbed waste of “navel… Read More ›
A Maternal Perspective Towards the Body by LaChelle Schilling
Separatism and dualism do not usually serve me. I understand that denying unity and reducing the multi-prismatic complexity of existence muddies up our vision of reality and can sometimes clog up the channels to compassion. So knowing that this perspective… Read More ›
Body Sovereignty: Tracing the Relationship Between Feminism & Fat by Sydney Bell
Acknowledging and responding to feminine divine energy is an inherently radical, feminist act. With age my feminism and spiritual path have become inexorably intertwined and I have become more comfortable and confident in my identity as a daughter of the… Read More ›
Loosening the Weave: Leaving Space for Mystery by Kate Brunner
Yesterday morning, I sat in a sunrise fire circle on a ridge above my new Rocky Mountain home. Two years ago on the same day, I stood before a loom in a reconstructed Iron Age roundhouse in Wales. And in… Read More ›
What Will the Faith Response to Zika Be? by Katey Zeh
In the face of the Zika epidemic the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued new recommendations for individuals at risk of contracting the virus either through mosquito bites or through sexual contact with an infected person. If someone has traveled… Read More ›
What Traci West Taught Me about Dominant and Excluded Voices by Elise M. Edwards
In my previous post, I mentioned a book I am writing about how theological and ethical considerations in architectural design can define good architecture. In that post and in ones to follow, I am acknowledging the feminists and womanists and mujeristas… Read More ›
After the Body, the Land by Kate Brunner
After we learn to let our bodies tell our stories, after we embrace somatic spirituality, after we become one with these bodies that move us to action, that power the physical acts that manifest our spiritual work as feminists, what… Read More ›
A Crone’s Life, an Embodied Experience by Deanne Quarrie
In January of 2013, I wrote an article here for FAR called Embody the Sacred. In it I wrote, “If we are to fully embrace living a magical life it is important to remember how to live in our bodies… Read More ›
Body of Nature by Oxana Poberejnaia
In the medieval European philosophy, woman’s body was seen as a vessel filled with sins, while man was regarded as a more spiritual being. This is one of the reasons why the concept of body is reassessed in feminist studies… Read More ›
Seeing Through My Nipples by Karen Moon
This article is inspired from my Facebook group’s book study of Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, specifically Chapter 11: Retrieving a Sacred Sexuality. I confess that I had never before heard of the term ‘seeing… Read More ›
Breastfeeding and the Abject? by Sara Frykenberg
The trappings of motherhood are all too powerful reminders that, as Catherine Keller reminds us in her book From a Broken Web, mother goddesses have to be continually slain for patriarchal heroes to be born. Indeed, she suggests that conceptions of Western selfhood are based upon this symbolic matricide—so it is no wonder that breast milk might be considered abject…
When I Dance I Am I Greek by Carol P. Christ
When I first moved to Greece I spoke of being attracted to a culture in which people express their emotions easily and do not hold on to anger. In the part of American culture I know, the opposite is often… Read More ›
Broken Mirrors, Broken Bodies, and Sophia Wisdom by Angela Yarber
Freshly cleansed, I stood naked in front of a foggy full-length mirror. I had just taken my first hot, indoor shower in nearly two months. I’ve been volunteering in a National Forest all summer with my wife and toddler; it… Read More ›
Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right by John Erickson
Kim Davis does need a lot of things but saying of suggesting that she needs a haircut, a makeover, or even to lose weight, makes you and those that continue to repeat it no better than she is; to state such statements doesn’t purport the ideal that #LoveWins, which took over social media just mere months ago, but changes the whole narrative to symbolize that sexism and hate are more important than love and equality.
