Category: Ecofeminism

We’ll Have a Green Christmas… Together! by Tallessyn Grenfell-Lee

Many of us journey through Advent in a culture whose businesses frantically try to capitalize on the hope, peace, joy, and love promised by the season. Although many agree that consumerism contradicts the fundamental teachings of Jesus, I am not here to disparage every last Christmas tradition until we’ve pared our so-called celebrations down to nothing. Yet many of us wish our festivities could better reflect the heart of Jesus’ teachings and ministry. It’s harder to feel quite so celebratory once we understand the ways in which our choices affect our kindred – both human and otherkind, near and far.

Maybe the point is not to have some kind of pure, ideal Christmas. If we can acknowledge the imperfect world we live in yet at the same time lift up our communal journey toward greater healing and justice, we will feel the laughter and songs of the whole Earth intertwine with our own joys at Christmastime. When gifts to our loved ones also help others around the world, the warmth we feel at their own excitement grows deeper and more powerful when we can also sense the joy of our unknown kindred somewhere else. Our appreciation of festive decorations feels more authentic when we know our choices are helping reduce the impacts of climate change, or providing habitats for God’s little sparrows. Our traditions can bring us closer to one another, and help us feel the presence of our family – all of them – throughout the journey toward Christmas. Continue reading “We’ll Have a Green Christmas… Together! by Tallessyn Grenfell-Lee”

The Israel-Palestine Conflict and Ecofeminist Insights for Lasting Peace By Ivy Helman

ivyOn Thursday, November 29, 2012, the United Nations officially recognized the Palestinian Authority as a sovereign state and granted its petition for observer status within the international decision-making body.  Sixty-five years before the United Nations had approved a two-state solution for the region, UN Resolution 181, that officially ended the British occupation of the territory and sanctioned the possibility of two states.  It says:

“The resolution recommends that the United Kingdom (as mandatory power for Palestine) evacuate; armed forces should withdraw no later than August 1, 1948; independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem administered by the United Nations should come into existence;  the City of Jerusalem should preserve the interests of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faiths.united nations”

While the Palestinian Arab population disagreed with that solution, when British forces left on August 1, 1948, Israel declared statehood.  The United States recognized its statehood the same day.  Russia was soon to follow suit.

Continue reading “The Israel-Palestine Conflict and Ecofeminist Insights for Lasting Peace By Ivy Helman”

To Garden by Kathryn House

My work is transformed when I view the task at hand through verbs I learned through gardening: tend, nurture, sow, dig, weed, share, till, harvest, nourish, rest.

Yesterday was the autumnal equinox, which means that fall is officially here. Right on cue, the first leaves are changing from green to shades of gold and crimson. The air is crisp, and the nights are cooler. In the Northern Hemisphere, fall also marks the beginning of the harvest season. Tending a garden has certainly changed the way I think about food, but it has also given me a lens through which to reflect more broadly on community, justice, faith, and hope. I love that gardening invites me to consider a way of being that is governed by a rhythm all its own. This steady beat brings my tendency to rush without reflecting to a halt. Every garden is unique and every gardener has a different philosophy, of course. For myself and for the housemates with whom I have gardened over the years, these three raised beds have come to constitute a sacred space. A space of hospitality, of nurture and delight, they are a space around which we are reminded of finitude, of beginnings and endings, of gratitude. Continue reading “To Garden by Kathryn House”

Appealing to Values and Interests in Consumer Choices by Grace Yia-Hei Kao

“What the report also makes clear is that sweatshop labor is highly gendered. Between 71-85%…are women, the majority of whom are also under the age of 35.”

I was recently drawn into a facebook discussion about the ethics and efficacy of refusing to eat at Chick-Fil-A on account of its president’s public “we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation” opposition to same-sex marriage as well as the chain’s financial support of socially conservative groups.

I noted that consumers who boycott businesses generally do so because they believe that (1) continuing to patronize a place would be at odds with their core values, or that (2) their actions will “make a difference” by exerting financial pressure on the company to amend their ways. These two reasons could be related, though they often are not. People can act in accordance with their conscience without believing that they have accordingly instigated social change (n.b., just think of the earlier 2004 decision by the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. to selectively divest from certain companies in Israel), just as companies can be compelled to alter their policies by other means than by their clientele taking their business elsewhere.

Continue reading “Appealing to Values and Interests in Consumer Choices by Grace Yia-Hei Kao”

Painting Pachamama and Gaia by Angela Yarber

 Pachamama prevails.  Her body is one with the Andes and she births the caverns, canyons, and rivers that sustain the earth.  

This month, the indigenous people of the Andes celebrate a high holy season in Incan mythology, honoring their beloved Pachamama.  Pachamama is venerated as the earth goddess and during August, her followers give her payment (pago) with their central ritual of Challa.  So, I’d like for my monthly article about Holy Women Icons to celebrate this earthy goddess of Peru, along with a similar manifestation of mother earth, Gaia.  Thus far, the biblical dancer, the Shulamite, feminist scholar, Mary Daly, and literary figure, Baby Suggs, have been the icons with a folk feminist twist that I have discussed on Feminism and Religion.  Now, I’d like us to join with our Andean sisters in toasting the holy women icons of mythology: Pachamama and Gaia. Continue reading “Painting Pachamama and Gaia by Angela Yarber”

Soror Mystica: New Myth for a Changing Earth by Gael Belden

Once, when my life collapsed around me, as life is wont to do at times, I began creating clay images, placing them near the headwaters of watersheds around the United States. I called this project 100 Clay Buddha’s and it seemed at the time an incantation and a prayer for water, for the planet.  Later, I came to understand that I was also re-figuring my life, image by image, waterway by waterway.

I was also working at the time with particular koans, myths, and fairy tales because they speak not only to the personal, but to the collective –to the ways things have been over time. The hero’s journey monomyth, although genderless in its most distilled terms, seemed, though its imagery, to speak mostly to the theme of the outer quest (slaying dragons, returning from battle, and whatnot). I felt as a woman, however, my journey had to do with a descent into the Great Below and with that a dying into something new. Continue reading “Soror Mystica: New Myth for a Changing Earth by Gael Belden”

They Are Trying to Trick You by Xochitl Alvizo

These chocolates embody a truth — the truth that resources are valuable, that living ethically is not ‘cheap,’ and that cheap is an illusion…

Information is everywhere and is being collected about each one of us every minute of every day. If you are reading this post on your computer you have just fed the information gathering machine new information about yourself, your interests, your trends – and if you click on any of the links embedded within this post – all the more so. Welcome to the 21st Century.

In a way it sounds terribly “Big Brother-ish.” And maybe so, but I don’t think of it that way as that would be terribly overwhelming and perhaps even paralyzing. Instead, I simply see it as capitalism in full force. Capitalism depends on a consumer economy – the more we buy the more profit a small percentage of people make. And the consumption of goods is heavily reliant on marketing, which nowadays is being streamlined more and more so that it can to be targeted and personalized for each individual. In order to do this the powers that be need information about us – detailed information and lots of it! Here enter Google and Facebook – the great gatherers of all the personal information we freely give them. They gather information and share it with corporations so that these may in turn more effectively market products to us that we are more likely to buy. We are now in what is called the Google Age, the great servant of capitalism and our consumer economy.

So what does a feminist do in the face of such an overwhelming reality? I have a few suggestions of course. First, you remember that they are trying to trick you. Seriously, they are! Continue reading “They Are Trying to Trick You by Xochitl Alvizo”

The Crime of Being a Girl Scout: The Sin of Raising Strong Female Leaders by Michele Stopera Freyhauf

Cradle Catholic and Woman

Educated by the U. S. Vowed Religious

Support the U. S. Catholic Sisters

Support, Minister, and Live the Social Gospel

Theologian, Feminist, and Critical Thinker

Former Girl Scout Leader of Three Troops

Former Girl Scout

I am all of these things and more.  By the recent attacks by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, I am beginning to think I am the problem.  I seem to stand for everything the Vatican and USCCB seek to silence.  Is it because of my organizational ties with the U. S. Vowed Religious and Girl Scouts, or my writings as a Feminist and Theologian?  Maybe the answer is simply – because I am a woman.

According to the criticisms launched by the USCCB and the Vatican, I seem to be part of the problem rather than the solution.  Why is this so?  It was not until I started my journey in ministry that my idealistic “Catholic” bubble popped – not so much by me, but by those in ministry and leadership, by those that did not like laity to pose questions and think critically about their faith beliefs, and by  those that do not like people who do not fit within the preconceived mold of what a “good Catholic” should be.  This ideological construct is difficult enough when you are part of a Church community, but when you begin to embrace leadership as a woman, question teachings, exercise your canonical rights, your peers and even people you thought were your friends, no longer talk or associate with you. The betrayal is vicious and runs deep – it is behavior not becoming of a minister or one who professes the Catholic faith.

If the attack on you is not enough, these same people victimize your children through their words and behavior.  It is a difficult position for anyone to survive spiritually.  For children of the Church who bear witness to this hypocritical behavior, a journey begins – they search for meaning within the spiritual realm and become disgruntled with anything that resembles organized religion.  A place where one seeks community and spiritual nourishment becomes a place of oppression and starvation.  If attacking family is not enough, let’s start attacking groups that promote community – groups like the Girl Scouts of America.

So, what is the USCCB’s problem with the Girl Scouts of America?  Basically, this organization is under fire for suspected deviant thinking and positions that stand opposed to Church teaching. Continue reading “The Crime of Being a Girl Scout: The Sin of Raising Strong Female Leaders by Michele Stopera Freyhauf”

The Way We Are Created: Eco-feminist Explorations of Bodily Hair by Tallessyn Grenfell-Lee

In the last few years, I’ve been thinking a lot about hair. It’s hard to avoid thinking about it when you are the greyest, hairiest woman in your suburban, north shore town.  Myself and the other two ‘all natural’ women in town stand out like beacons among a sea of smooth, streaked, glossy manes of gorgeously cut and styled hair. And each spring, I stare at my shorts and tank top a little longer before wearing them around town. I’ll be perfectly honest – I don’t blame those slaves to fashion one bit. Although I try to avoid what I call the ‘crazy witch woman’ look, there’s no getting around it – smooth legs look slick, and dye smooths out those grey frizzies and takes a good ten years off your age!

So, it got me wondering – what does hair have to teach us as women of faith? Is there something unique about hair that causes us to fixate on it so much? And it occurred to me that hair actually symbolizes so much about our relationship with the Creation. We exist in an interconnected matrix of the living and non-living – as a matter of fact, we rely completely on the abiotic sphere, for life and as the matrix within which relationships occur.  Our bodies exemplify that relational paradigm; our living cells are inseparable from the non-living matrices of our skin, teeth, and hair.  From our living bodies emerges a non-living, interconnected medium, symbolic of the whole ecosphere.

Continue reading “The Way We Are Created: Eco-feminist Explorations of Bodily Hair by Tallessyn Grenfell-Lee”

GREEN SOLUTIONS TO THE GREEK ECONOMIC CRISIS: WE ARE THE 99%! by Carol P. Christ

A green solution to the economic crisis insists that people and the environment can be saved together. We must dare to envision prosperity in conjunction with sustainability, social justice, nonviolence, and participatory democracy.

A rational analysis would make it clear that the Greek people did not “create” the economic crisis. Yet the poor and middle classes are being asked to “pay” for it. There is massive corruption in the public sector in Greece. But this should not blind us to the fact that the Greek people do not bear the major responsibility for creating the crisis. Those responsible include: