Category: Divine Feminine

Yes, There are Goddesses in the Bible – Part 2 by Janet Maika’i Rudolph


As I wrote in my last blog post, there are female deities and goddesses sprinkled all throughout the bible. They just aren’t obviously in plain sight.

One example is the Goddess and Her association with birds. Many ancient creation myths have stories about life emerging from a cosmic egg and the Goddess who carries and/or lays that primordial egg-of-life. Like the bird, women carry the eggs of life’s creation within our bodies. This has given rise to numerous cultural symbolisms that have come down to us associating the Goddess with birds. The dove is Venus’ hallmark. Mother Goose is the keeper of our cultural stories. It is the stork who brings us babies. As I will show below, divinity, or the biblical LORD is sometimes depicted as a bird, making this biblical description of god a female. Continue reading “Yes, There are Goddesses in the Bible – Part 2 by Janet Maika’i Rudolph”

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 one article put it:

Although body size and weight perception differ across race and ethnicity, women in western society are subject to images of women as not only thin, but also athletic and toned, with small waists, large buttocks, and large breasts, a body type that is largely unattainable.  Because of this ideal, all girls and women typically have weight concerns that ultimately shape body image, satisfaction, and appreciation. Continue reading “Women, like Goddesses, Come in All Colors, Shapes, and Sizes…by Vanessa Soriano”

Yes, There are Goddesses in the Bible by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

“Freud once asserted that mortals are not made to keep secrets;
what they would like to conceal oozes from all their pores.”
Psychoanalyst Theodore Reik[1]

It’s remarkable how much female imagery there is in the Bible hidden within its wording. The more I delve into its passages, the more that I have found these hidden/not so hidden sacred feminine images, even deities. I have begun a project of digging in and rooting out these little gems. When people think about the sacred feminine or female deities in the Bible the most well known is the Shekinah. The Shekinah is a lovely presence. The word means “dwelling” and usually represents “god’s divine presence” or a place where the divine resides.

The problem is that the Shekinah as a feminine essence of the divine is never stated explicitly, it is an interpretation of how the word is used.  I love the concept of the Shekinah but as an essence that upholds the entire weight of the feminine divine in the bible, I find it unsatisfying by itself. Luckily for me, Goddess Shekinah has lots of company. Sometimes they are indeed hiding in plain sight. Sometimes they hide in the translations. The passage I am presenting today has some of both going on. The following is the King James Version of Genesis 49:25. Jacob has been giving blessings to each of his sons and this is part of the blessing he gives to Joseph: Continue reading “Yes, There are Goddesses in the Bible by Janet Maika’i Rudolph”

An Outrageously Strange, Bizarrely Weird, Completely True Tale by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

The word apocalypse keeps coming up when I talk to friends about how our present times feel. We’ve all noted how cracks in our society are tearing open and fault-lines are rising to the surface. It is disorienting yet also potentially transforming. I realized I’ve felt this way before:

In January 1997, I became an apprentice to a husband and wife shaman team. They ran an old-style mystery school with regular weekend workshops in Maine and a 4-day in the summer. In August 1997, we met on forested private property that was far from any “civilization.”

Regular weekend meetings began after dinner which gave our small NYC area contingent plenty of time for a leisurely drive up the coast. In August, our teachers wanted us to arrive earlier. We arranged to take the Long Island Sound ferry to Connecticut to avoid the time-consuming drive around the city. About ½ way through our 1 ½ hour ferry ride, a shocking event happened. An elderly woman sitting near us dropped like a rock to the ground. Her daughter began screaming. No one could rouse her. The ferry returned to NY where an emergency crew tried and failed to revive her. She had literally died at our feet. By this time, I was not only thoroughly rattled, I was also deep into contemplating issues of life and death. Because of our delayed arrival in Conn, we began hitting evening rush hour along the major cities of our route. We did not arrive in Maine until well after dark. Continue reading “An Outrageously Strange, Bizarrely Weird, Completely True Tale by Janet Maika’i Rudolph”

The Messy, Wild Mystery that’s Stronger than Wrong by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

I am an annoying feminist. I annoy pretty much everyone about it, because I’m never NOT applying a feminist lens to every aspect of life: science (looking at you, Larry Summers), politics (Joe Biden is a rapist), art (objectification is NOT empowerment), culture (make-up is a prison), and, of course religion. I’m perhaps most annoying of all when it comes to religion. I annoy Christians by raving about Christ The Cosmic Vagina, and I annoy secularists by raving about feminist Jesus. I especially annoy my church friends and colleagues by refusing to use the (male) word “God” to talk about the Infinite Divine Mystery, much less male pronouns or oppressive symbols such as Lord, King, or Kingdom.

Yep, I’ve been cheerfully annoying the hell out of everyone for decades, drawing vagina art during male-centric worship services, changing lyrics on the fly, slipping female words and symbols into prayers and startling whomever sits near me… I am a feminist. Not the fun kind. Continue reading “The Messy, Wild Mystery that’s Stronger than Wrong by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir”

Answering the Call by Joyce Zonana

All along, I’ve believed that Malicroix had something important to offer English-speaking readers: an embrace of solitude, a profound connection with nature, a bold exploration of dream-states. And right now it seems to resonate with our current moment of introspection and reassessment of priorities.

202002_Zonana_JoyceVery early in Henri Bosco’s 1948 novel Malicroix, a young man, Martial de Mégremut, living placidly amid fruitful orchards in a tame Provençal village, receives a letter informing him he has inherited “some marshland, a few livestock, a ramshackle house” from a reclusive great-uncle, Cornélius de Malicroix. Against his family’s strenuous objections–with alarm they speak of “marshes, mosquitoes, miasmas”–Mégremut resolves to travel alone to the remote Camargue to claim his “wild” Malicroix inheritance. The house is on an island, and to reach it Mégremut must cross a rough river, at night, in a frail wooden boat piloted by a taciturn old man who meets him at dusk in the middle of a vast plain.

So begins a deeply internal quest narrative, an initiatory journey that forces Mégremut to come to terms with himself and with the elements–earth, water, wind, and fire–that are ever-present, sometimes terrifyingly so, on the island. For once he arrives, he learns that he must remain there alone for a full three months if he wishes to obtain the inheritance. Torn about whether to stay or leave, he finds that the decision to stay is made of its “own accord,” unconsciously.

Continue reading “Answering the Call by Joyce Zonana”

What We Lost When We Became Monotheists by Ivy Helman

imageThe Tanakh, Jewish scriptures, predominately call the deity king and lord and use the masculine pronoun.  These images evoke a certain level of power. Just how powerful the deity is in then multiplied when “he” is addressed as  “G-d of Gods,” “Lord of Lords,” judge, almighty, all-powerful, and warrior-like with vengeance, fury and flaring nostrils. Events like war, army invasion, disease, drought,  and famine are often described as divine punishments for wrongs done throughout the Tanakh.

All of these images bring forth a certain mindset regarding who the divine is and what “he” does.  Indeed, such images may well have been crucial in those ancient days when famine, drought, war, and disease  were ever present and, day-to-day survival was often extremely difficult. People sought understanding as to why they were suffering, and the workings of divine beings offered such explanations.   Continue reading “What We Lost When We Became Monotheists by Ivy Helman”

Matriarchies Are Not Just a Reversal of Patriarchies: A Structural Analysis by Heide Goettner-Abendroth

Matriarchies are not just a reversal of patriarchies, with women ruling over men – as the usual misinterpretation would have it. Matriarchies are mother-centered societies. They are based on maternal values: care-taking, nurturing, mothering. This holds for everybody: for mothers and those who are not mothers, for women and men alike.

Matriarchal societies are consciously built upon maternal values and motherly work, and this is why they are much more realistic than patriarchies. They are, on principle, need-oriented. They aim to meet everyone’s needs with the greatest benefit. So, in matriarchies, mothering – which originates as a biological fact – is transformed into a cultural model. This model is much more appropriate to the human condition than the patriarchal conception of motherhood which is used to make women, and especially mothers, into slaves.

Within matriarchal cultures, equality means more than just a levelling of differences. Natural differences between the genders and the generations are respected and honoured, but they never serve to create hierarchies, as is common in patriarchy. The different genders and generations each have their own dignity, and through complementary areas of activity, they function in concert one other. More precisely, matriarchies are societies with complementary equality, where great care is taken to provide a balance. This applies to the balance between genders, among generations, and between humans and nature. Maternal values as ethical principles pervade all areas of a matriarchal society. This creates an attitude of care-taking, nurturing, and peacemaking. Continue reading “Matriarchies Are Not Just a Reversal of Patriarchies: A Structural Analysis by Heide Goettner-Abendroth”

Spiritual without a Tradition and Feminist to the Core! by Carol P. Christ

In “Who Owns the Sacred?” Eline Kieft, who was raised Protestant and considers nature and the ancestors her teachers, noted that those of us who have left the Christian tradition but who have not signed on to another tradition are often demeaned; she writes:

any form of spirituality outside the five major religions is considered as empty, eclectic, post-modern consumerist product that lacks meaning and substance because of its diluted, selective ‘picking’ of traditions from other times and contemporary contexts.

I have heard this criticism from feminists and non-feminists alike.

Since 9/11, Christian feminists have questioned the widespread assumption that Christianity is the only true or important religion. However, recognition of religious diversity among Christian feminists is frequently limited to the 3 so-called Abrahamic traditions. More rarely Buddhists and Hindus are included. In either case, religious diversity is defined in terms of the 5 so-called “great”—and patriarchal–religious traditions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Ironically (or not!) the recognition of religious diversity among feminists serves to underscore the notion that the only legitimate feminists in religion are those who are working to transform patriarchal religions. Continue reading “Spiritual without a Tradition and Feminist to the Core! by Carol P. Christ”

Let’s Try Creativity This Year by Barbara Ardinger

As usual, I’m writing my post a couple weeks before you’ll be able to read it. I bet we’re all wondering in mid-December if 2020 is really gonna happen. Will we still be living in a civilization? Will there still be wild animals (outside of zoos)? Will trees and other plants still be growing? Well, my friends, if we all woke up last Wednesday and opened our eyes and it’s all still here……hooray!

Way back in 1998 I wrote a book called Goddess Meditations. It was the first-ever book devoted to guided meditations centered only on goddesses. No gods. No empty minds or asanas. Goddesses, some well known, others obscure, from many pantheons. One chapter in the book is “Chakra Goddesses,” in which I assigned a goddess to each of the seven major chakras. The goddess of the throat chakra—which rules clear communication, self-expression, and creativity—is Sarasvati. Here (with comments that pop out of my mind and into my fingers as I type) is part of what I wrote about communication.

Continue reading “Let’s Try Creativity This Year by Barbara Ardinger”