Category: Female Saints

Painting Fatima by Angela Yarber

 She performs ablutions, prays, and mends shoes for years, only to don her death shroud upon her back and place a symbolic tombstone upon her head.  With death cloaking her compassionate body, she begins to twirl, invoking the name of the Beloved within her heart.  She is a whirling dervish and her name is Fatima.  The daughter-in-law of the esteemed Sufi poet, Rumi, joins with the myriad other Holy Women Icons with a folk feminist twist that I write about each month:  Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia, Frida Kahlo, Salome, Guadalupe and Mary.

Fatima is best understood when placed in an historical context.  So, I begin with a very brief history of the whirling dervishes, while also offering glimpses into women’s roles in the Mevlevi Order.  The primary Islamic sect that proclaims that dancing is a way of connecting with the divine—for both men and women—is the Sufi Order.  Over eight hundred years ago, Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi inspired faithful Muslims to whirl in harmony with all things in nature.  The whirling dervishes of Turkey unite the mind, heart, and body, and help to usher peace into the world through their dance by dedicating their lives to service and compassion.  After Rumi’s death on December 17, 1273, his followers responded by whirling.  These followers of Rumi are known as the Mevlevi Order, or more popularly, the whirling dervishes.  Until around the fourteenth century women were included in the practice and leadership of turning.  As Muslims in Turkey became more and more conservative, however, women were forced to the sidelines and not allowed to whirl.  And even with the secularization of the country with the reign of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, women were still denied access to the turning path because Ataturk essentially made whirling illegal in an attempt to take away as much religion from Turkish life as possible.  Ataturk banned tekkes, or dervish homes, in 1925 as he secularized the state.  By the 1970s the Turkish government allowed turning once again, but only if it was a performance and not a prayer.  There were even reports of an old dervish being arrested because they saw his lips mouthing “Allah” as he turned in a theatre performance for tourists. Continue reading “Painting Fatima by Angela Yarber”

Painting Guadalupe and Mary by Angela Yarber

As we feminists struggle to elevate Mary and Guadalupe, we sometimes forget that speaking of birth and gestation is not always empowering or even essential to womanhood. 

It is early morning on the Hill of Tepeyak on December 9, 1531 when a wondering peasant named Juan Diego first caught a glimpse of her presence.  Diego sees a vision of a teenage girl surrounded by light; the young girl asks that a church be built on the hill in her honor.  After hearing her speak and seeing the light emanating from her presence, Diego recognizes her as the Virgin Mary.  He rushes to the Spanish archbishop who insists on a sign as proof of Diego’s vision.  The young girl instructs Diego to gather flowers from the top of the hill, even though it is past their growing season.  Upon climbing to the top of the Hill of Tepeyak, Diego discovers Castilian roses—a beautiful flower otherwise unheard of in Mexico—which the glowing young woman arranges in his cloak.  When Diego returns to the archbishop, he opens his cloak to reveal the miraculous flowers and they fall to floor; in their place was an image imprinted on the fabric of his cloak.  It was the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Guadalupe is one of Mexico’s most popular religious and cultural images and her icon, now on display at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, is one of the most visited Marian shrines in the entire world.  On December 12, countless Christians—particularly Catholics—celebrate her feast day.  Her feast day occurs within the four week celebration of Advent, which is the period of waiting, expectancy, and gestation before the birth of Jesus at Christmas. Continue reading “Painting Guadalupe and Mary by Angela Yarber”

Painting Salome By Angela Yarber

Each month I focus my article on one of my Holy Women Icons with a folk feminist twist.  Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia, and Frida Kahlo have reputations that match their lived realities relatively closely, so my paintings have attempted to reflect these realities.  The subject of this month’s article, however, has been misrepresented and misunderstood throughout the ages.  Her “name” is Salome and we read of her dancing story in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark.

If you carefully read Mark 6:17-29 or Matthew 14:3-11, you’re probably wondering why this article features an icon of someone named Salome.  There was no mention of anyone named Salome in the text.  Rather, in the Markan text both the dancing daughter and her mother are named Herodias.  In Matthew’s text, the daughter is nameless.  It wasn’t until later when Josephus, a Jewish historian, named her Salome and stated that she was responsible for the beheading of the John the Baptist.
Continue reading “Painting Salome By Angela Yarber”

Painting Frida Kahlo By Angela Yarber

As we begin the month of October and ghosts and skulls fill our homes, I am reminded of the holy days that await us.  Poignant to my own background, Dia de los Muertos beckons us to remember who has gone before us.  Dia de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday that is officially celebrated on October 31 and November 1 in a manner similar to the pagan Samhain holiday and the Catholic holidays of All Saints Day and All Souls Day.  It is a time for Mexican families to remember their lost loved ones, to celebrate their lives, and to pray on their behalf.

It is fitting that we remember the many Holy Women Icons with a folk feminist twist that have gone before us: Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, , Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia. These icons join with many others on display as my solo show at Woven Soul Gallery in Winston-Salem, NC.  As we prepare for Dia de los Muertos, the holy woman icon dearest to my heart is none other than the Mexican feminist and revolutionary artist, Frida Kahlo. Continue reading “Painting Frida Kahlo By Angela Yarber”

Fun With Bumper Stickers By Barbara Ardinger

I was driving through one of the more conservative corners of Orange County, California, a couple weeks ago and went past a very pretty brick church with a tall, proud steeple and signs in the front yard giving times of worship services. I have no idea what kind of church it was, but as I went past, a car pulled out of the driveway and began following me. It’s a public street, I said to myself. Looks like a tony neighborhood. No need to worry about being followed. So I neither sped up nor slowed down. At the red light, the car behind me pulled up beside me and the driver, a young man, looked at me. As soon as the light changed, he sped ahead, changed lanes, then slowed down just a little. As I pulled up behind him at the next red light, a hand came out of the driver’s window. A finger was aggressively elevated.

Good grief! How had I insulted this driver? The guy made a right turn, I stewed and fussed a couple of miles…and then it dawned. My bumper stickers. I have four on my car. PROTECT OUR MOTHER EARTH—SHE’S THE ONLYONE WE’VEGOT. THANK GODDESS. BRIGHT BLESSINGS. And my current political bumper sticker: IMPEACH THE SUPREME COURT. (This last, of course, is a comment on the Citizens United decision, which many people think is doing incalculable damage to the political process.) For years, my friends have been telling me that at any gathering, they can always tell I’m there by the bumper stickers on my car. Continue reading “Fun With Bumper Stickers By Barbara Ardinger”

How Joan of Arc Crashed Through My Pagan Heart by Marcia Quinn Noren

Born into a Lutheran family of academicians, from earliest childhood I questioned their divisive, anti-Catholic rhetoric and systemic methods of indoctrination. The punitive consequences of my rebellion against their worldview were swift, harsh and unrelenting. Separated emotionally from my mother, subjected to abuse by a narcissistic father who considered himself a warlock, I subconsciously adopted the warrior archetype as a means of survival. Steely armor encased my heart, hidden beneath a feminine veil. When the feminist voices of the 1970’s grew into a force that would not be silenced, for the first time, I felt less alone.

Actively seeking alternative spiritual resources throughout the years that followed, I found a road with many tributaries rising up to meet me, as though that ancient Irish blessing had touched my life with grace. Soothed by nature’s elements, I have always felt the presence of divinity in the earth and sky, in the company of animals and invisible beings. Through studying Hindu and Buddhist traditions, I learned the value of going into the silence. A glimpse of the divine feminine appeared when Quan Yin poured compassion into my soul from the vessel she carries. An immersion into the Western Mystery Schools brought the Hebrew Tree of Life into focus, and there I found a balance of yin and yang, male and female in the Kabbalah’s Sephiroth. Continue reading “How Joan of Arc Crashed Through My Pagan Heart by Marcia Quinn Noren”

Mary Magdalen’s Feast Day: Celebrating Goddess Incarnate by Elizabeth Cunningham

I believe the current resurgence of interest in Mary Magdalen does reflect a collective desire for the divine incarnate in a woman’s body. 

July 22nd. In the Village of St Maximin in the South of France, a (real) blackened skull with topped with  gold hair (that looks a bit like a battle helmet) is being lovingly paraded through the streets in celebration of Mary Magdalen’s feast day. Except for this annual airing, the skull resides atop a gold bust of the saint in a glass case in the crypt of the basilica. Just under where her heart would be is a small glass cylinder reputed to contain a shred of tissue from Mary Magdalen’s breast bone, the place where Jesus touched her on Resurrection morning warning her: Noli me tangere. Don’t touch me.  Not yet.

Incarnation is all about touch. Though most of us no longer venerate—or battle over—the relics of saints, there is something touching about our longing for the divine made tangible, vulnerable, human. Continue reading “Mary Magdalen’s Feast Day: Celebrating Goddess Incarnate by Elizabeth Cunningham”

Painting the Shulamite By Angela Yarber

Calling the Shulamite holy is my way of affirming female sexuality, the beautiful variety of the body’s shapes and sizes, and including the LGBT community in the canon of saints.

Several years ago, after experiencing the innate maleness and straightness of most traditional icons, I decided to give iconography a folk and feminist twist.  Biblical women, mythological figures, poets, artists, dancers, scholars, literary figures, and personal loved-ones graced my canvases and with a brush-stroke they were canonized.  Miriam, Sappho, Gaia, Jephthah’s daughter, Virginia Woolf, Tiamat, Mary, Baby Suggs, Isadora Duncan, Fatima, the Shulamite, Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, Mary Daly, Sophia, Sojourner Truth, and many of my friends and colleagues became “Holy Women Icons.”  It is these icons—these holy women—that will be the focus of my monthly articles in Feminism and Religion.

This month, the Shulamite is the center of our attention.  She is a dancer made famous by the erotic love poetry dedicated to her sensuous curves in Song of Songs:

Return, return, the Shulamite.

Return, return, and let us gaze on you.

How will you gaze on Shulamite in the dance of the two camps?

How beautiful are your sandaled feet, O prince’s daughter.

The curves of your (quivering) thighs like jewels crafted by artist hands.

Your vulva a rounded bowl; may it never lack wine.

Your belly a mound of wheat hedged by lotuses.

Your breasts like two fawns…

(Song of Songs 7:1-4 translation mine) Continue reading “Painting the Shulamite By Angela Yarber”

The Sainthood of Hildegard von Bingen by a Feminist-Friendly Pope? by Cynthia Garrity-Bond

While I celebrate the rise in status of Hildegard to official saint and soon to be Doctor of the Church, I cannot help but be suspicious of the Vatican’s motivations.  One only has to take in the last two months behavior of the CDF, sanctioned by Pope Benedict, to see the real intentions of this papacy—the continued subjugation of all women to clerical authority.

The past month or so has been a very busy time for the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith or CDF and their examination of women. First they (and this includes Pope Benedict XVI) decided American nuns are guilty of the sin of silence by not speaking out on abortion & homosexuality.  Their “radical feminist” ideology of standing with the poor and disenfranchised, while good, is not good enough for the CDF.  The firestorm of solidarity coming from both laity and religious surely caught the Vatican off guard.  Right?  Well, not quite.  This past week the CDF began its investigation of the Girl Scouts for their purported association with the likes of Planned Parenthood and Oxfam.  While both address the needs of the poor, it is the latter and its troubling advocacy for safe sex via condom use that initiated the inquiry. Keep in mine that in 2010 Pope Benedict retracted from his earlier position and bane on condoms, seeing instead their use as a “lesser evil” in the fight against HIV/AIDS.  The CDF angst is that the message of condom use might be too much sex-talk for impressionable young women.  Continue reading “The Sainthood of Hildegard von Bingen by a Feminist-Friendly Pope? by Cynthia Garrity-Bond”

The Feast Day of St. Brigid by Carol P. Christ

May we remember Brigid on her day in the fullness of her connection to bountiful and life-giving earth by setting a bowl of milk on an altar or special place in the garden on her holy day.  Who knows, a snake just might come to drink from it.

The Christian Feast Day of St. Brigid of Kildare, one of the two patron saints of Ireland, is held on February 1, the pre-Christian holiday known as Imbloc.  It is well known that St. Brigid has the same name as a pre-Christian Goddess of Ireland, variously known as Brighid (pronounced “Breed”), Brigid, Brigit, Bride, or Bridie.  The name Brigid is from the Celtic “Brig” meaning “High One” or “Exalted One.”  Brigid like other Irish Goddesses was originally associated with a Mountain Mother, protectress of the people who lived within sight of her and of the flocks nurtured on her slopes.

Imbloc marked the day that cows and ewes give birth and begin to produce milk.  It was also said to be the day when hibernating snakes (like groundhogs) first come out of their holes.  In northern countries, Imbloc signals the beginning of the ending of winter.  The days have begun to lengthen perceptibly after the winter solstice when the sun stands still and it seems that winter will never end.  At Imbloc spring is not yet in full blossom.  But if hibernating snakes come out of their holes, it is a sure sign that the processes of transformation will continue and warmer days will not be far off.  As Marija Gimbutas says, “The awakening of the snakes meant the awakening of all of nature, the beginning of the life of the new year.”   Continue reading “The Feast Day of St. Brigid by Carol P. Christ”