I am all for the critical deconstruction of Disney Princesses, especially since now I see more of a commercial push for them as a collection than when I was growing up in the late 80’s. However, I too had a… Read More ›
Divine Feminine
Reclaiming Sacred Music by Mary Sharratt
Women Singing Earth by Mary Southard Here is a hymn of praise, a beautiful and intimate piece meant to be sung. Reader, I invite you to guess the author of this text and the sacred figure to whom this work is… Read More ›
The Mud and the Lotus: What India Is Teaching Me by Vanessa Soriano
About 5 years ago, I began a consistent yoga practice. Right around the same time, I started a PhD program in Women’s Spirituality at the California Institute of Integral Studies where I eventually wrote my dissertation on Women’s Spiritual Leadership. … Read More ›
Seeking Enlightenment? Let’s Try Endarkenment by Barbara Ardinger
In the version of the calendar I follow, February 1 is the true beginning of spring. That’s because early February is when we can see the light coming back. We know spring is really coming. February opens with a holiday/holy… Read More ›
The Feminine in God by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente
An expert traveler knows that the best part of leaving is coming back. I am happy to open another year writing here again, after a necessary break, since writing is the way I maintain my strong ties with my critical… Read More ›
Reindeer Spirit Animal – A Guide Through the Darkness by Judith Shaw
Reindeer have been important to humans since our early days as hunters-gatherers. Found in cave paintings throughout Europe and Asia, reindeer are depicted as soaring through the air, perhaps acting as intermediaries between the human world and the spirit world.
The Santa Goddess from The Goddess Project: Made in Her Image by Colette Numajiri
Frau Holda Poem Hail to Frau Holda, the beautiful and bright, Crowned and clothed, all in glistening Winter white. Ay seeking and searching, She sweeps o’er the land, Scourge for the slovenly, held firmly in hand. As Holda fares forth,… Read More ›
Honoring the Completion of the Year, by Molly Remer
“Beginnings and endings are so very sacred, to give honor to all that has transpired, every experience, every joy, every pain, is a doorway to the magical. Hold your entire year between your hands, every day, every thought, every breath…. Read More ›
Celebrating the Winter Solstice by Barbara Ardinger
Even though Jesus was born during the reign of Augustus, first Roman emperor, the empire didn’t celebrate that birth until three centuries later when his birth date was moved to mid-winter to match the birth date of the sun god… Read More ›
Sophia, Goddess, and Feminist Spirituality: Imagining the Future by Carol P. Christ
Though represented by its detractors as an incursion of paganism into Christianity, and presented as an integrally and intrinsically Christian phenomenon by its supporters, the truth about the Re-Imagining Conference and movement is that it was a product of a… Read More ›
The Four Phases of the Feminine Way by Lache S.
For so long I’ve been wandering in the maiden stage, but now I am a mother, to myself, since I’ve made hard decisions to loosen or cut ties with people who have not always acted in my best interest in… Read More ›
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,… Read More ›
Pachamama – August 1st – A day to Honour the Great Mother Goddess
In Andean traditions the entire month of August is devoted to Pachamama. Pachamama is the Supreme Goddess honored by the indigenous people of the Andes including Peru, Argentina and Bolivia. She is referred to as both the physical planet Earth… Read More ›
Reflections on the First Harvest by Deanne Quarrie and Belladonna Thomas
The harvest season of the first fruits is here. It is a time to be thankful for the labor and struggles needed for the harvest. We are at the height of the heat of the summer season. Our greatest wish… Read More ›
Women Can Change the World by Judith Shaw
These are dark days for those of us who believe in democracy, social justice, environmental stewardship/protection, and connectivity. A rise in authoritarian rulers – from the U.S. to pockets of Europe to Turkey and beyond – are threatening the values… Read More ›
Finding Heavenly Mother with Rachel Hunt Steenblik by Caryn D. Riswold
Feminist theologies are filled with queries and questions about the divine feminine. Whether women need the Goddess. If She really is. Where herchurch might flourish. I have my own complicated views about the subject, and continue to be enriched by… Read More ›
Brigid from The Goddess Project: Made in Her Image by Colette Numajiri
She is the reason BRIDES wear white, swan-like wedding gowns. Brides veil themselves like the Goddess herself, Whom all Bridegrooms honor, until revealing Herself to Her chosen groom. Tiny flowers and shamrocks are said to bloom in Her wake, She… Read More ›
Inner Garbage (Fear) vs. Inner Goddess (Love) by Vanessa Soriano
I’m sitting on my meditation pillow for the thousandth time searching for clarity. Initially, going within feels like traversing a jungle; swinging from one thought branch to another. I’m itching for some peace and I’m almost certain this isn’t the… Read More ›
“The Burning Lava of a Song” by Joyce Zonana
Aurora’s autobiographical narrative is a passionate paean to poets as the “only truth-tellers, now left to God”; she celebrates them as agents for personal and social transformation. As we come to the end of this National Poetry Month in the U.S., where truth is under siege, it’s worth recalling Aurora Leigh and its daring exploration of poetry, gender, divinity, and social justice.
Sophia from The Goddess Project: Made in Her Image by Colette Numajiri
“Happy are those who find wisdom. . . . She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. . . Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a… Read More ›
Death is a Gift, and Christ is a Hag by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir
My father is dying, and I am haggard with grief and exhaustion. Over a month of frantically arranging child care, driving to the ICU in the middle of the night, fighting to protect my Dad from neglect and malpractice, chasing… Read More ›
Where Did She Go? A Slothful Seeking of the Divine by Cynthia Garrity-Bond
A week ago today was my birthday. I’m the same age as my mother when she died of a stroke some twenty-eight years ago. This past year has been marked by the deaths of close friends and family; most recently my… Read More ›
Goddess Spirituality and Women’s Leadership by Jessica Bowman
As a public school administrator, and a human, I feel tremendous grief for the tragedy generated in the latest school shooting. The impact is devastating and disastrous. Immediately after such a calamity is the public outcry for change and the… Read More ›
Queen Esther from The Goddess Project: Made in Her Image by Colette Numajiri
Queen Esther An orphan child, who became a well respected queen, Esther, the Queen of Persia, was a woman of integrity, Wisdom and courage, a beautiful woman, truly supreme, favored by God, She had a awareness of dependability, steady strong,… Read More ›
Esther’s Choice — And Ours by Joyce Zonana
The Book of Esther tells a story in which women’s power is not so much repressed as asserted. The king who banishes one queen finds himself submitting to the will of another. Numerous women writers of various ethnic, religious, and racial backgrounds in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries have found inspiration in the stories of both Esther and Vashti’s disobedience to an autocratic king.
To Love the Earth and Fear the Forest: My Paradox as an Ecofeminist by Tallessyn Zawn Grenfell-Lee
I am privileged to live near a wood where I can walk with my family, my dog, or alone – when I have the courage. I fear the woods, see; not because of physical danger from humans or wild animals,… Read More ›
Great Goddess, Mother Goddess, Creatrix, Source of Life by Carol P. Christ
The symbol of the Goddess is as old as human history. The most ancient images of the Goddesses from the Paleolithic era are neither pregnant nor holding a child. In Neolithic Old Europe the Goddess was most commonly linked with… Read More ›
The Thirteen Attributes of Shekhinah: A Prayer for the High Holidays by Jill Hammer
On Rosh haShanah and Yom Kippur (the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement), and on the festivals throughout the year, traditional Jewish liturgy includes the Thirteen Attributes of the Divine. Exodus 34:6-7 is the first to mention these… Read More ›
Bridging Beyond Binaries: Painting Gloria Anzaldúa by Angela Yarber
One of the great joys of being an artist and writer is working on commissions, enlivening in paint, canvas, and word the stories of revolutionary holy women who have emboldened and inspired the one commissioning the Holy Woman Icon. Gloria… Read More ›
Every Moon Is Different by Kate Brunner
When my doula clients would share with me that the pregnancy they were going through was not like the previous one, I often gently reminded them that they weren’t the same women anymore. Their bodies were starting from a different… Read More ›
