Ecofeminism – Page 4 – Feminism and Religion

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Why I am Running In The Greek National Parliamentary Elections On May 6

This post was originally published on April 30th, 2012. Perhaps some of us may be inspired to run for office next!

Carol P. Christ, a founding mother in the study of Women and Religion and Feminist Theo/a/logy, has been active in anti-racist, anti-poverty, anti-war, feminist, pro-gay and lesbian, anti-nuclear, and environmental causes (in that order) for many years. All of these issues have informed her teaching, her scholarship, and her politics.

Greece is in the throes of a terrible economic crisis. National elections were called last week and will be held on Sunday May 6.

I am one of the 5 candidates for the Greek Parliament on the Green Party ticket in electoral region of Lesbos. We are a small country of only about 10 million people. The Lesbos district includes about 100,000 people. It is truly amazing that I as an immigrant have been asked to run. It is also amazing that though most of our politicians are corrupt, our electoral system has not yet been completely bought. No polls are allowed during the last 2 weeks of the election. The final poll indicated that the Green Party will have a voice in parliament for the first time on May 7. No Green candidate from Lesbos is likely to become a member of parliament, but all of the votes we gather will be counted towards the party’s total representation. Unfortunately two right wing fascist parties are also likely to get seats, and no party looks poised to gain a ruling majority. What will happen next is anyone’s guess.

Ecofeminist Petra Kelly was one of the founders of the European Green Party of which we are part. Due in part to her good work, the Green Party’s goals include: sustainability, social justice, nonviolence, and participatory democracy. Not a hard platform to run on! Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Why I am Running In The Greek National Parliamentary Elections On May 6”

Heart Drum by Sara Wright

I listened to
my heart
murmuring
softly
her voice
a viscous fluid
slow moving river
changing course
from right
to left
pumping molten minerals
over bones
tunneling around limbs
amazement
overcomes me
Whole Earth
holds heart songs
my dogs and me
whistling turkeys
scolding nuthatch
twittering titmouse
cheeping chickadee
browsing deer
astonishment lingers
I am treasuring the
sweet sounds
of this heart
thrumming through
heartbreak
submerged
in a flow
of wonder…
the kind of
awe that moves
mountains of stone
a raging body
waterlogged
by grief
– how can it be
this heart
continues
to pulse
drumming
to Nature’s rhythm
while a
crimson soul
breaks open
over and over
keens
drowning
in losses
too deep?
Twin chambers
pulse in my breast
expanding contracting
as they continue
thrumming
Life’s Drum.
Trees, birds
dear friend
(you know who you are)
My Beloved
Healer
Thank You
All
With every heartbeat
my gift to you is
the promise of
Embodied Love.

Archives from the FAR Founders: Grounding My Love by Xochitl Alvizo

This was originally posted June 6, 2019

I love living in a second-story apartment. Having a view of Los Angeles, of the palm trees, the expansive sky, the distant mountains, and the city lights of downtown, makes life feel bigger, more full of possibilities. In the struggle of transitioning my life back to L.A., the view from my second floor apartment helps make me feel ok in the world. I’m in love with Los Angeles – the land, its topography, its sky, its desertness – and even its traffic. Beside the fact of sometimes being made to arrive late somewhere, I don’t mind being in our famed L.A. gridlocks – I don’t mind being in the slow moving flow of cars. I kind of enjoy being among the thousands of other folks sharing the collective experience of trying to get someplace. Traffic becomes for me a leisurely time when I get to do nothing else but enjoy the city.

Evergreen – Part 1 by Sara Wright

I forgot the
‘Original Instructions’
until She nudged me
Black Bear
Chloe
Green Shoot
alive or dead
She lives on
like the Evergreens
she evolved
with, climbed
to safety
from those
who would harm.

Reweaving the Great Round: A Winter Solstice Story by Sara Wright

The scent of balsam wafts through the room as I cut the boughs to make my annual wreath to honor all trees, those that still stand, those who are slaughtered. My intention each year is twofold – acknowledge my love for these sentient beings and to participate in the unfolding of the Great Round. Other intentions vary from year to year until recently when a prayer for protection from the dark forces that permeate the psyches of so many peoples of this earth becomes a yearly part of this winter ceremony, even as a multitude of others suffer intolerable losses.

Today’s American culture creates endless non-religious festivals to celebrate the entrance into this winter season that are totally devoid of meaning beyond consumerism – buy more ‘stuff’ – chop down more trees. These devourers can never be satiated because the chasm is too wide and deep.

MOTHER OAK by Dale Allen

We sat on the in the leaves, my daughter and I, in the warm autumn sun under the Great Mother Oak. Here and there fallen leaves danced lightly in the breeze. It felt good to be directly connected to the ground, bent knees and bare feet on the land. We leaned back and looked up at the tree in all her glory. She was still filled with yellow green leaves… her canopy so high that from up there, she can “see” the other neighborhood trees with many years like she has.

She has been here in this place since the end of the 1700s or the beginning of the 1800s. She was here with the first European settlers of this place. Her mother had been here before that, with the last generations of the people who were of this land for 15,000 years or more: the Paugussett People. We could feel this history. We could feel the tree’s mother. And then, from beneath the ground where their energy remains steady, we heard the voice of the Paugussett. They thanked us for acknowledging their presence. They said that they can feel our profound love for this place where we live, here in Black Rock, Connecticut… our love for the trees, the leaves, the flowers, the osprey, the red tail hawks, the fox, the squirrels, the rabbits, the insects, the shore, the waters of coastal Connecticut (Long Island Sound), the shells, the sand, the sparkles, the historical homes, the families, the new babies. We love this land. We love our home. And the Paugussett saw this love. The Mother Oak saw this love.

Morning Prayer For December by Sara Wright

Walk lightly
pay keen attention…
practice gratitude
but not at the expense
of truth
take sparingly
share

an Underground Web
writes the Story
but my roots
belong to earth
at the crossroad –
I choose
‘both and’

Listen to
feathered voices
keep breathing deep
into the forest floor
feel that luminous Light
hidden beneath my feet
Balance fear and pain
with turkey flight.

Samhain and the Waters of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, part 1 by Susan Foster

Moderator’s note: While Samhain is past for this year, we are still in the section of the Celtic calendar which makes this blogpost, and its part 2 which will be posted tomorrow, relevant.

Samhain is an ancient Celtic festival, in fact the most sacred celebration in the Celtic year. Samhain is the New Year of the Celtic calendar. It is one of the eight holidays of the Celtic year—the solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarter days—all of which mark the turnings of the seasons. Samhain is a time when the harvest had been completed; all the grains and late-maturing vegetables have been gathered in; the fields have been cleared, the old cast off, the fields lying fallow over the cold and dark of winter in order to make room for the eventual springing forth of new life. The New Year, begins in darkness at Samhain, is a reminder that all life emerges from the darkness, that death precedes rebirth. It is a time when the veil between the worlds of the dead and the living thinned, so that the presence of those who have gone before us is more clearly felt or even seen. It is a time to remember the ancestors as well as those newly departed—to grieve our losses, to let go so that we can move forward.

Samhain is the precursor of our Halloween. It was brought to this country by Irish immigrants during the potato famines in the 19th century. They brought their Celtic customs with them, but by that time Samhain was known as Hallows Eve, since the Irish were good Catholics. It struck a responsive chord with the American people, who called it Halloween. They adopted many of its customs, including lighting candles in gourds or pumpkins and dressing in costume. Today Halloween is celebrated as a spooky and fun time, observed with trick-or-treating and mischief-making, but originally it was a solemn holiday—a time to commune with the beloved dead, to honor the ancestors with food and drink, and to acknowledge death as part of a never-ending cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Green Solutions To The Greek Economic Crisis: We Are The 99%!

This post was originally published on May 28th, 2012

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:

the international money interests (the 1%) who at this very moment are charging 26% interest on the Greek national debt and “hedging” their “bets” (betting for and against a complete collapse of the Greek economy) and hoping to “win” (make money on their bets) in either case;
the international military industrial complex (which US President Eisenhower warned might one day control the world) that is selling more arms to Greece per capita than to any other country in Europe;
the industrial interests in the larger countries in Europe which viewed the eurozone as an open market to sell their products (thus raising the GDP in industrialized countries like Germany);
European leaders who promote the interests of their own players in the international financial, military, and industrial marketplace above the good of the whole;
the Greek governmental elite (the 10%?) who have pocketed bribes and stolen money from public coffers;
and finally the Greek people (the 99% or the 90%) who have participated in or benefited in small ways from a corrupt system. Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Green Solutions To The Greek Economic Crisis: We Are The 99%!”

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Is the Prophetic Vision of Social and Ecojustice the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree?

This post was originally published on Aug. 26th, 2011

Carol P. Christ earned her BA from Stanford University and her Ph.D. from Yale University. She is a founding mother in the study of women and religion, feminist theology, women’s spirituality, and the Goddess movement and work has revolutionized the field of feminism and religion. She has been active in anti-racist, anti-war, feminist, and anti-nuclear causes for many years. Since 2001 she has been working with Friends of Green Lesbos to save the wetlands of her home island. She drafted a massive complaint to the European Commission charging failure to protect Natura wetlands in Lesbos. In 2010 she ran for office in Lesbos and helped to elect the first Green Party representative to the Regional Council of the North Aegean. She helped to organize Lesbos Go Green, which is working on recycling in Lesbos.

My hope for the new blog on Feminism and Religion is that it can become a place for real discussion with mutual respect of feminist issues in religion and spirituality.

I agree with Rosemary Radford Ruether who argued in a recent blog “The Biblical Vision of Ecojustice” that the prophets viewed the covenant with Israel and Judah as inclusive of nature. Indeed in my senior thesis at Stanford University on “Nature Imagery in Hosea and Second Isaiah,” in which I worked with the Hebrew texts, I argued that too. I also agree that the dualism Rosemary has so accurately diagnosed as one of the main sources of sexism and other forms of domination comes from the Greeks not the Hebrews. I agree that Carolyn Merchant is right that nature was viewed as a living being in Christian thought up until the modern scientific revolution. I agree with Rosemary that it is a good thing for Christians to use sources within tradition to create an ecojustice ethic. I am happy that there are Christians like Rosemary who are working to transform Christianity. Finally, I am pleased to admit that I have learned a great deal from her.

Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Is the Prophetic Vision of Social and Ecojustice the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree?”