Category: Feminism and Religion

Holy Women Icons Online Retreats by Angela Yarber

I’ve shared before that the non-profit my wife and I created, the Holy Women Icons Project, is in the process of creating a small intersectionally ecofeminist retreat center on Hawai’i Island. The Holy Women Icons Project seeks to empower marginalized women by telling the stories of revolutionary holy women through art, writing, and special events.

Both the art and writing side of the project have been a monthly part of Feminism and Religion since 2012 as I feature the story of one of my holy women icons, along with the icon I’ve painted depicting them. As I paint revolutionary holy women from history, scripture, and myth, I also write about their lives; in addition to painting and writing, the bold witness of these women has inspired and grounded many of the retreats I lead in churches, seminaries, women’s and LGBTQ centers. Now the time has come for us to try and fulfill our dream of creating a home for this work, a little off-grid retreat center where people can come on retreat to create, sustain, and empower (by paying to attend or receiving scholarships from grants, but more on that later).

We were thrilled to film the first step of this process—building our family’s “tiny house”—with the television show Tiny House Nation. Since then, we’ve been working tirelessly to get our acre of land ready to build more housing for those on retreat, and to find funding sources to make it possible. Anyone who runs a non-profit or works in sustainable construction knows this is no easy (or affordable) task. We’re realizing that this far-flung dream may take longer than we’d envisioned due to lack of funding. We have some fabulous monthly patrons through Patreon, and we’d surely welcome more tax-deductible patronage or donations! Other than this, though, it’s the scrappy work of my wife and I to try and make this whole intersectionally-ecofeminist-off-grid-Hawai’i-retreat-thing a reality. Continue reading “Holy Women Icons Online Retreats by Angela Yarber”

Beginning Conversations about the Body at Ease by Stephanie Arel

A topic that continually perplexes me, both personally and professionally, concerns the connection, or harmonization if you will, between our cognitive capacities and our physical expression and comfort, between thinking and feeling. Yoga, dance, working out, meditating, and other modalities which explicitly bring body and mind together often achieve their goal at the point of practice, and while these disciplines have residual effects, how do they have staying power?

For instance, how do we maintain rootedness in the body when we are caught off guard – for instance, by traumatic affect? When we are faced with information about reality that disturbs us – the truth about a relationship or a physical illness – how do we stay physically present? Or when we (I) spend an inordinate amount of time immersed in activities that are essentially not embodied despite the efforts at theorizing such embodiment – reading, researching and writing – what happens to the body?

Sustaining a mind/body (and spirit) connection is a little tricky. Some psychologists would call this connection a kind of attunement (between a dyad) that fosters a form of affective regulation. This means that subjective experiences, correlating thoughts, physiological responses, and the bodily expressions these provoke come into alignment but not in the manner of repression or suppression, rather as a form of accord or modulation that brings us to our best adult selves and enables decision making that supports our most core self. Capable of achieving this? I think it’s an art. Continue reading “Beginning Conversations about the Body at Ease by Stephanie Arel”

The Definition of Strength, Gaslight Edition by Vibha Shetiya

13327613_10208448645447348_6913754683590458893_nRecently when I was feeling low and a little devoid of hope, a friend of mine paid me a fabulous compliment: “Things will get better. You’re a very strong person.” I know it was a real compliment and not an underhanded cutting remark. You may be surprised as to why I am referring at all to the latter. After all, it’s straight forward – having strength and fortitude are admirable qualities and how could one possibly even think otherwise. But you may be equally surprised to know that there are very special circumstances under which the word “strong” gets to acquire extended meanings of: “devoid of feelings,” “someone who needs zero support,” “a social insult.”

Take the time when I got divorced several years ago, undoubtedly one of the most difficult periods of my life, compounded by the fact that I found myself despondently alone. Continue reading “The Definition of Strength, Gaslight Edition by Vibha Shetiya”

Sometimes I Think I Am a Voice Crying in the Wilderness … by Carol P. Christ

Just last week I was dumbfounded when an acquaintance told me that his philosopher partner calls a woman leading a workshop on labyrinths “a tree hugger.” “What,” I wanted to say, “is wrong with being a tree hugger? Are we not all interdependent in the web of life? Why should we imagine that trees or the cells of trees have no feelings at all?” But the tone of contempt and dismissal in the man’s voice told me that I would only be creating another “fuss,” the kind that can make me persona non grata among the ex-pats in my village.

Moreover, I could not have made my point simply. I would have had to discuss Plato’s assertion that the mind of man is destined to rise above the body and nature and modern science’s conclusion that nature is mere matter for man to use as he chooses. I might have needed to cite Susan Griffin or indigenous worldviews. This could have been a very long discussion indeed. Continue reading “Sometimes I Think I Am a Voice Crying in the Wilderness … by Carol P. Christ”

A Healing Home of Dreams by Joyce Zonana

I had few expectations before my visit in the winter of 1999 to Cairo’s Rav Moshe Synagogue, also called the “Rambam.” I only knew it to be an obscure synagogue and yeshiva associated with the renowned twelfth-century theologian, sage, and physician, Moses Maimonides.

I left Egypt as an infant with my parents in 1951. Now I was finally back, hoping to experience the place that had shaped my family. Accompanied by a Muslim Egyptian friend, I walked the streets my parents had walked, attended services in the elegant downtown synagogue where they’d been married, tasted the familiar foods of my childhood, listened with delight to the melodious sounds of Egyptian Arabic. But seeking the Rambam was little more than a whim, sparked by a few lines in a Guide to Jewish Travel in Egypt. “Not on any tourist itinerary,” the brief blurb stated about the derelict synagogue in ‘Haret al Yahud, the city’s medieval Jewish quarter, far from where my parents had lived. Still, I had to go.

Continue reading “A Healing Home of Dreams by Joyce Zonana”

Woman and Nature: Our Bodies Are Ourselves by Carol P. Christ

This earth is my sister; I love her daily grace, her silent daring, and how loved I am how we admire the strength in each other, all that we have suffered, all that we have lost, all that we know. We are stunned by this beauty, and I do not forget: what she is to me, what I am to her.

These words are from Susan Griffin’s Woman and Nature which I often recommend as one of my favorite books. Over the years I have read this passage and others from Woman and Nature aloud with my students, and we have always been moved, most  of us to tears. More recently these words have become the center of the “Morning Blessing” on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete.

In the epigraph to the book Griffin writes,

These words are written for those of us whose language is not heard, whose words have been stolen or erased, those robbed of language, who are called voiceless or mute, even the earthworms, even the shellfish and the sponges, for those of us who speak our own language . . .

Continue reading “Woman and Nature: Our Bodies Are Ourselves by Carol P. Christ”

Is This How Patriarchy Began? by Carol P Christ

In my widely read blog and academic essay offering a new definition of patriarchy, I argued that patriarchy is a system of male dominance that arose at the intersection of the control of female sexuality, private property, and war. In it, bracketed the question of how patriarchy began. Today I want to share some thoughts provoked by a short paragraph in Harald Haarmann’s ground-breaking Roots of Ancient Greek Civilization. Haarmann briefly mentions (but does not discuss) the hypothesis that patriarchy arose among the steppe pastoralists as a result of conflicts over grazing lands. As these conflicts became increasingly violent, patriarchal warriors assumed clan leadership in order to protect animal herds, grazing lands, and the women and children of the clan. Continue reading “Is This How Patriarchy Began? by Carol P Christ”

Internal Strife – External Conflict by Oxana Poberejnaia

As Po said in “Kung Fu Panda”: “I’m gonna get myself some Inner Peace… Inner piece of what?”

This basically lays out a path of spiritual work for most of us. We aim for peace, yet somehow we feel that we must do something in order to achieve it – rather than just be peaceful.

Another joke that captures this paradox perfectly is:

“My son started doing meditation. Well, that’s something. At least he’s not sitting around doing nothing.”

Sitting around doing nothing seems to be the worst sin in our society. Buddhism is quite radical in this regard. The path to Enlightenment leads through sitting around and doing nothing. Anything and everything else that we do to keep ourselves busy is determined by society, hence impermanent, hence not the truth. Continue reading “Internal Strife – External Conflict by Oxana Poberejnaia”

Shariah is not a Law by Esther Nelson

I will never forget the day Nasr Abu Zaid (1943-2010), an Islamic Studies scholar and teacher extraordinaire, told me, “Shariah is not a law.”  In spite of his assertion, many people—both Muslims and non-Muslims—are convinced that Shariah is synonymous with archaic legal rulings that are at odds with democracy and modernity.

 

What is Shariah, then, if not a law?  When we see or hear the word Shariah, the word “Law” almost always follows.  Shariah literally means a path—a well-trodden path such as animals use on their way to a watering hole.  Shariah, then, can be understood as something that when embraced has potential to give life and sustenance.

 

Muslims believe that the Qur’an was revealed to Prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel circa 600 C.E.  That revelation—Muslims believe it to be God’s actual speech—took place over a period of approximately twenty-one years. The Qur’an contains Shariah (path) in the form of information, narrative, and poetry.  Since Shariah is essentially a path that leads to life, the critical question centers on how Shariah can be appropriated, leading us to the water that sustains.

Continue reading “Shariah is not a Law by Esther Nelson”

On Our Beit Midrash: Kavannah, Writing and Study by Ivy Helman

studyKavannah is a Jewish concept meaning intention or motivation, perhaps most associated with Hasidism.  Hassidism teaches that prayer and the fulfillment of mitzvot connects one more with the Holy One if the right state of mind is cultivated before participating in said activity.  While going through the motions (prayer, mitzvot, etc.) is important and still technically fulfills the mitzvot, it is not as spiritually beneficial to the individual as is doing those tasks with kavannah.  Praying and fulfilling mitzvot within a certain mental space more fully connects you to the divine.  Judaism is not alone regarding this religious insight.  Clearly there is something to it.

Hasidic teachers often inspire and encourage their adherents to find a way to enter into the right mood before starting prayers or performing mitzvot.  What works for you may not work for me and vice versa.  The same is often not the case within community.  Continue reading “On Our Beit Midrash: Kavannah, Writing and Study by Ivy Helman”