Feminism and Religion – Page 20 – Feminism and Religion

Biblical Poetry, Continued by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

This is the 4^th in a series of work I have been doing to translate passages of the bible into poetry that strips out the patriarchal overlays. You can read the previous ones here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

In this installment I have picked out some passages I really like but that I feel their power and beauty have been deeply hidden. I seek to reveal those hidden wisdoms.

To review; my usage of the 2 main names of divinity:

YHVH or LORD, I translate as Vibration.Being

EL or god, I translate as All-Potential Powers.

I discuss my reasons for these translations in my prior posts referenced above.

Genesis 3:6

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
and that it was pleasant to the eyes,
and a tree to be desired to make one wise,
she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat,
and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
KJV (King James Version)

and the woman saw that the function of the tree
is for nourishment and that he is yearning to the eyes
and the tree was a craving to make calculations
and she took from his produce and she ate
and she gave also to the man with her and he ate
Benner Mechanical Translation[i]

When the woman saw the tree, she recognized herself
She recognized and remembered beauty and wisdom
She took its seeds within her in knowing wholeness
She gifted its seeds to her husband in knowing wholeness
MPV (Mystic Pagan Version – my own translations)

Note for Genesis 3:6 – the word for “food” in the KJV version of this passage is “maakal” (Strong’s 3978). The word used for to eat is “akal” (Strong’s 398). Both are built on the root word “kl” which means complete or whole and traditionally refers to how food or nourishment makes us whole.[ii] I would add that in the context of spirit, it is that essence or element that we fill ourselves with to achieve a sense of wholeness.

Genesis 49:25

Even by the God of thy father,
who shall help thee;
and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above,
blessings of the deep that lieth under,
blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:
KJV

from the mighty one of your father,
he will help you,
and with Shaddai [my breasts] he will respect you,
presents of the sky from upon
the presents of the deep sea stretching our underneath
presents of the breasts and bowels.
Benner

The All-Potential Powers of your ancestors
Who watches compassionately over you
With nourishment from the dripping milk of the cosmos
And blessings from the misty cauldrons of the goddess Tiamat
Blessings of the breast, and the loving womb
MPV

Notes on Genesis 49:25: this passage had to have been a very old pre-biblical blessing. We don’t often see blessings that are clearly given by female divinity figures, or in this case, a divinity that has breasts and womb. Even in the conservative, male-centric King James Version the blessing is of the breast and the womb. The word for breasts is “shad.” To take this theme a step further, the phrase El Shaddai or Shaddai appears 48 times in the Bible. In English, El Shaddai is usually translated as “God Almighty” and Shaddai as “Almighty.” Sometimes they are translated as “God, the One of the Mountain.”[iii] Both are almost always referred to in scholarly discussions with the pronoun “he.”

I have put the following two passages together because they speak to the same theme. One is a Psalm and the other a Proverb. I really like them because they both speak to the condition of our hearts. As some of you know I am an alaka’i of Aloha International. That is a spiritual guide of Huna or Hawaiian Adventure Shamanism. I love the lessons of Huna which foremost and foundationally remind us to keep a loving and open heart. Aloha not only means hello and good-bye, it means “the breath [ha] we all share,” and it means LOVE. Picture this, the Hawaiian people greet and part from each other which a statement of connection and love. The first principle of Huna is “the world is what you think it is.” The lesson behind this is that what is in our hearts will shape our experiences and ultimately our world. I believe that this is the lesson behind these biblical passages. (I have also included the New International Version for Proverb 4:23 because I think it is particularly beautiful.)

Psalm 37:4

Delight thyself also in the LORD;
and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
KJV

Cherish thyself in harmony with Vibration.Being
And gifts will be returned as per the radiance of thy heart.
MPV

Proverbs 4:23

Keep your heart with all diligence,
For out of it spring the issues of life.
KJV

Above all else, guard your heart,
For everything you do flows from it.
(New International Version)

Treasure your heart in lovingkindness,
For it is the wellspring of your life.

MPV

[i] https://www.ancient-hebrew.org

[ii] Benner, Lexicon; 146-147.

[iii] The Jewish Study Bible; 37.

Bio

Janet Maika’i Rudolph. “IT’S ALL ABOUT THE QUEST.” I have walked the spirit path for over 25 years traveling to sacred sites around the world including Israel to do an Ulpan (Hebrew language studies while working on a Kibbutz), Eleusis and Delphi in Greece, Avebury and Glastonbury in England, Brodgar in Scotland, Machu Picchu in Peru, Teotihuacan in Mexico, and Giza in Egypt. Within these travels, I have participated in numerous shamanic rites and rituals, attended a mystery school based on the ancient Greek model, and studied with shamans around the world. I am twice initiated. The first as a shaman practitioner of a pathway known as Divine Humanity. The second ordination in 2016 was as an Alaka’i (a Hawaiian spiritual guide with Aloha International). I have written three books: When Moses Was a Shaman, When Eve Was a Goddess, (now available in Spanish, Cuando Eva era una Diosa), and One Gods. In Ardor and Adventure, Janet.now available in Spanish. Cuando Eva era una Diosa

Embodied Knowing, by Molly Remer

You are your own
sacred space.

Your feet are always
on temple ground.

One of the key factors to me that differentiates feminist spiritual paths from many dominant religious traditions and frameworks is the recognition and acknowledgement of the body as a source of wisdom, a source of pleasure, a source of learning, and a source of knowing. Not viewed as unclean, dirty, or as something to be mistrusted or transcended, we can return to our bodies again and again, dropping down into our bellies, bones, and blood, returning to center, and returning home to ourselves. Those who embark into thealogy quickly realize that it is a spirituality better lived than analyzed. My own experience of my goddess-oriented path is an intensely embodied one. I am here on this earth, in this body, my feet on the ground, my eyes on the sky, listening, feeling, and sensing. This, to me, is sacredness in motion, this is the Goddess right in front of me, she is witnessed in the very fact that my pulse beats in my wrist and that my eyes alight on those three crows coasting lightly into the treetops.

Sara Avant Stover, writing in the Book of SHE says: “Our bodies aren’t indentured servants here to labor for us until we take our dying breath. They are sacred chalices . . . . Our bodies always tell the truth and hold the information we need to thrive” (p. 43).

And, one of my favorite quotes of all comes from Camille Maurine in Meditations Secrets for Women who writes: “Your body is your own. This may seem obvious. But to inhabit your physical self fully, with no apology, is a true act of power.

At one time, I would have focused my attention primarily on women and encouraging women to trust their bodies, to listen to their bodies, and to honor their bodies. I’ve come to see that a goddess-centered approach to ethics, values, and embodied spiritual experience includes all people who have a body. In my heart of hearts I would like all people to value their bodies, honor their bodies, trust their bodies, and listen to their bodies. I think if this was true, the fundamental way in which we relate to, treat, and care for one another would change and the feminist values of cooperation, compassion, and empathy would come to form the foundation of society. Every single one of us begins life within someone else’s body. We enter the world through someone’s body. And, we have a body that interacts with other bodies for our entire lives. This is altogether simple, obvious, and profound. Our bodies are our seats of reality, of being human, of being present in the world. A life firmly rooted in concept of the body as sacred, no longer allows room for violation of or harm to others.

Carol Christ writes in Rebirth of the Goddess: “The rituals and symbols of Goddess religion…[bring] experience and deep feeling to consciousness so that they can shape our lives; helping us broaden and deepen our understanding of our interdependence to include all beings and all people; binding us to others and shaping communities in which concern for the earth and all people can be embodied.”

When I talk to other people about self-trust and building self-trust, I often encourage them to check in with their bodies for a physical response to a decision, idea, choice, or happening. Where does it land in your body? What do you feel inside when you think about making this decision or taking this action? Does your body respond with a “yes” or a “no” when you think about this idea? For me, the sensation comes in my chest, around my heart—a lightening or expansion or a contraction or heaviness. This is not what all people will experience, perhaps you feel the answer in your belly, in your head, around your jaw. Perhaps you feel it as a color, sensation of warmth or coolness, or as a “rightness of being.”

I must also acknowledge that many people have experienced some form of physical trauma or abuse in their lives and that these experiences can complicate our relationships with our bodies, our sense of intuition, and our trust in ourselves. If your body has been a site of violation, it may be more difficult or complex to connect to this body-based sense of “knowing” or intuition that I reference and I do not wish to oversimplify what can be a complex and multilayered personal experience of embodiment.

In the books A Deeper Wisdom: The Twelve Steps from a Woman’s Perspective by Patricia Lynn Reilly and the The Book of SHE, there arises a theme of the body as home, and I would like to offer some questions today based on this theme:

What is your inner “house” like?
Does something need tending?
Where do you need to clear something out?
If you mentally walk through your body, what do you see?
What is your body as home like for you? How re-sourced is it?
What needs attention within you?
Do you have a sense of your inner and outer ground?
What do you feel in your belly, right now?

I have been leading a process this year called #30DaysofGoddess and one of the things I suggest on some of the days is to offer a “body prayer.” Since people have asked for additional guidance with what that means, I sat on my yoga mat one morning and let a body prayer emerge. After I moved through the motions, I typed it out and I offer it to you now (as well as prayercard version of it). May it nourish you.

A Body Blessing:
Fold your hands
in front of your heart,
feel your palms warm
and your pulse beat.
Kiss your fingertips.
Raise your hands and
cradle your face with love
and then,
move one hand
to the top of your head
and one to your heart.
Pause.
Cross your arms over your chest,
one hand on each shoulder
and sway back and forth gently.
Kiss your palms
and lay them upon your belly.
Run your hands down your legs.
Wiggle your toes.
Fold your hands in prayer pose
and bring them back to your heart-level.
Breathe deeply
and then open your hands.
Gaze into them.
Envision the day’s potential
nestled there.
What do you see
in your own cupped palms?
Kiss your fingertips again
and whisper what it is you
need to hear.
Say:
thank you.

Note: I do have a companion video about the body as home here.

Molly Remer’s new book Walking with Persephone is now available for pre-order from Womancraft Publishing. Her prayerbook, Whole and Holy: a Goddess Devotional was published in November. Molly has been gathering the community to circle, sing, celebrate, and share since 2008. She plans and facilitates women’s circles, seasonal retreats and rituals, mother-daughter circles, family ceremonies, and red tent circles in rural Missouri. She is a priestess who holds MSW, M.Div, and D.Min degrees and wrote her dissertation about contemporary priestessing in the U.S. Molly and her husband Mark co-create Story Goddesses, original goddess sculptures, ceremony kits, mini goddesses, and more at Brigid’s Grove. Molly is the author of Womanrunes, Earthprayer, Sunlight on Cedar, the Goddess Devotional, She Lives Her Poems, and The Red Tent Resource Kit and she writes about thealogy, nature, practical priestessing, and the goddess at Patreon, Brigid’s Grove, Feminism and Religion, and Sage Woman Magazine.

More Biblical Poetry by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

This is the 3^rd in a series of Biblical poetry where I am “translating” verses of the Bible. You can read the first two here: Biblical Poetry and Biblical Poetry, Part 2.

One of my primary purposes of doing this work is to strip away patriarchal veneers that have been layered upon original teachings. I reach into ancient pagan knowledge in order to reclaim what I believe to have been lost.

Below is each verse in 3 versions. First is the King James Version (KJV) for familiarity, the second is Jeff Benner’s Mechanical Translation (Benner) which uses a consistent translation for each word. I use his translations to get a better sense of how the words originally fit together.[i]

Biblical Poetry, Part 2 by Janet MaiKa’i Rudolph

Last month, I wrote about a new project I have been playing with which is to re-write biblical verses as spiritual poetry rather than follow along with stricter translations (although truth be told, my translations have never been strict). My main goal is to strip away the layers of patriarchy that grew up around universal, earth-based, mystical lessons. In my last blogpost I wrote about why I translate El (god in English versions) as All-Potential Powers. You can read it here: https://feminismandreligion.com/2021/04/15/biblical-poetry-by-janet-maikai-rudolph/

I have written before about my translation of YHVH as mother/father creator. You can read that here: https://feminismandreligion.com/2019/03/05/eve-by-any-other-name-by-janet-rudolph/

YHVH, the sacred 4 letter tetragrammaton, is always translated as LORD in the bible. It is truly a wondrous name with many layers of meaning which the English one-word term LORD doesn’t capture. I find that the English translations of these two words – LORD and god – are dull and without sacred energetic aspects. In ancient times, the words used to depict divinity in general, and YHVH specifically, were meant to be intoned and chanted.

Beltane and Greek Easter: Mary and the Goddess by Laura Shannon

Today, May 1, we celebrate Beltane, the Celtic festival between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. Starting tonight, we also celebrate Greek Easter, with its ritual drama of life and death.

In the Western Church, Easter never falls as late as May, but in the Orthodox calendar, Easter and Beltane more or less co-incide every few years. It’s a reminder of connections between Christian and pre-Christian traditions, both in the archetypal cycle of life, death, and regeneration, and in links between the Christian Mary and the pre-Christian Goddess in her various names and forms.

REVELATIONS: The Mysticism of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe

My new novel REVELATIONS is drawn from the lives of two medieval mystics who changed history—Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, two very different women whose paths converged and who, I believe, have much to teach us today.

Women’s spiritual experience is a theme that keeps coming up in my novels. Perhaps some of you have read my novel ILLUMINATIONS, about the visionary abbess, composer and polymath, Hildegard von Bingen.

As a spiritual person myself, I’ve always found it frustrating how women have been side-lined and marginalized in every established religion in the world. Yet from time out of mind, mystic and visionary women of all faith traditions have offered radical resistance. They have subverted institutional patriarchal religion from within and found their own direct path to the divine by plunging into the deep mysteries of the soul on a path of inner revelation. Julian of Norwich called God Mother and devoted her life to writing about the Motherhood of God. Similarly, Hildegard of Bingen wrote about her visions of the Feminine Divine. This isn’t a modern feminist interpretation. It’s right there in the original texts.

Like us today, Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe lived in a time of pandemic and social upheaval, yet both women bore witness to the divine promise that ultimately all shall be well.

Feeling Weary about US Politics by Carol P. Christ

Carol by Honegger cropped

Like many of you, I was anxious and angry during most of the Trump administration years. I watched MSNBC avidly, hoping against hope that a) he could be stopped or b) he would be impeached. Now that he is gone, it would be nice to be able to take a “breather” (I wasn’t breathing regularly during the Trump years), a break from thinking about US politics all the time, but sadly, the political situation in the United States continues to require attention.

President Biden has pleasantly surprised me with his progressive domestic agenda and his decision to remove troops from the heretofore endless war in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, he has proposed an increase in the military budget. Dwight David Eisenhower, who warned of the increasing power of “the military-industrial complex” as he left office, must be turning over in his grave.

Most worrying of all is the fact that so many Americans voted for Donald Trump, believe that the election was stolen from him, and support white supremacy, while the Republican party refuses to deviate from the Trumpian worldview.

As if it could not be any worse, police killings of innocent black men by white officers and mass killings by young white men with easy access to automatic weapons are proliferating. Moreover, Republican-inspired voting restriction legislation is once again threatening the foundations of our democracy. Continue reading “Feeling Weary about US Politics by Carol P. Christ”

Biblical Poetry by Janet MaiKa’i Rudolph

This blogpost is about biblical verses and uncovering the magic and spirit behind its words. Why, you might ask, is this a project that belongs on a blog dedicated to feminism?

I believe it does because it helps us to strip away the many layers of patriarchy with its attempts to hide and/or change original teachings. Remember; these stories were originally oral wisdom teachings of the “folk.” They weren’t written down until the Babylonian exile, hundreds if not thousands of years removed from their origins. And who was doing the writing? Priests, scribes, and prophets, all with their own agenda. Even the earliest writings we have, the Dead Sea Scrolls, were still written in patriarchal times.

The Way of the Mystic

Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are coming out of a long pandemic winter and entering a new season of waxing light, hope, and growth. Yet these continue to be turbulent times. Even with the progress of the Covid vaccine, none of us truly knows when life will ever return to “normal.”

Like us today, the medieval mystics Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, the heroines of my new novel REVELATIONS, which will be published on April 27, lived in a time of pandemic and social upheaval, yet both women bore witness to the divine promise that ultimately all shall be well.

During a near-death experience, Julian received a series of divine visions and spent the next forty years unpacking them in her luminous theology of an unconditionally loving God who is both Mother and Father. Julian offered radical counsel to Margery Kempe, a failed businesswoman and mother of fourteen, who was haunted by her own visceral mystic experience. With Julian’s blessing, Margery walked away from a soul-destroying marriage and became a globe-trotting pilgrim-preacher and rabble rouser. Though these two women might seem like polar opposites—Julian, the enclosed anchoress, and free-roving Margery experiencing her visions in the full stream of worldly life—they complement each other. Together their lives and work form a Via Feminina, a distinctly female path to the divine.

The women mystics have always fascinated me. I identify very powerfully with Hildegard of Bingen, the heroine of my previous novel ILLUMINATIONS, as well as with Margery and Julian as spiritual women facing the roadblock of an institutional, male-dominated religion that side-lined them precisely because they were women. But instead of letting this beat them down, they found within their own hearts a vision of the divine that mirrored their female experience. I believe it’s no mere coincidence that both Hildegard and Julian dared to create a theology of the Feminine Divine, of God the Mother. All three women seized their power and their voice to write about their encounters with the sacred, preserving their revelations to inspire us today.

In our modern world, when many traditional religious institutions are crumbling, we can follow in these women’s footsteps and seek the divine—however we perceive the divine—within the sanctuary of our own hearts. This is the birthright no one can take from us, our eternal refuge. This is the Way of the Mystic.

Learn more about Margery and Julian as I discuss these mystics in a series of free virtual events.

My virtual tour kicks off with a very special Literature Lover’s event, sponsored by Valley Bookseller and Excelsior Bay Books in Minnesota. You can watch the video above. I am in conversation with acclaimed author, Elissa Elliot .

For a deep dive into Julian of Norwich’s spirituality, I am teaming up with Christine Valters Paintner of Abbey of the Arts to offer a Virtual Mini-Retreat on May 13, Julian’s Feast Day. You can learn more and register here.

To stretch body and mind in a creative virtual retreat that combines Yoga, women’s spirituality, and writing women back into history, please join me and Stephanie Renee dos Santos for SHEStories + Saraswati Flow on May 15 – 16.

REVELATIONS may be pre-ordered through any of the links below. As a midlist author, I am profoundly grateful for every single purchase.

PRE-ORDER AUDIOBOOK: Amazon / Audible | Kobo

Read an EXCERPT.

Mary Sharratt is on a mission to write women back into history. Her acclaimed novel Illuminations, drawn from the dramatic life of Hildegard von Bingen, is published by Mariner. Her new novel Revelations, about the globe-trotting mystic and rabble-rouser, Margery Kempe, will be published on April 27. Visit her website .

THE DIVINE DRAMA AND THE UNIVERSALITY OF DEATH* by Carol P. Christ

In Greece the liturgies of lent and especially of the week before Easter are known as the “divine drama,” in Greek theodrama. This may refer to the “drama” of the capture, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus and to the suffering of God the Father and Mary.

However, it is important to recall that the drama in ancient Greece referred to both the tragedies and comedies, most specifically, those that were performed in the theater of Dionysios in Athens. While we have been taught that the Greek tragedies celebrated “downfall of the hero” due to his “tragic flaw,” it is important to remember that Dionysios was the original protagonist of the Greek tragedy: it was his death and rebirth that was first celebrated.

Some have argued that the Greek tragedies should never be “read” alone, for they were always “performed” in tandem with the comedies, which were followed by the bawdy phallic humor of the satyr plays. The tragedies end in death and irreparable loss. But if the comedies and satyr plays are considered an integral part of the cycle, death is followed by the resurgence of life.