General – Feminism and Religion

FAR is on Hiatus

We are also offering you two videos to watch. The first one is an interview with co-weavers Janet Rudolph and Xochitl Alvizo which was done by Carolyn Boyd for Mago. A transcript is available here. The second one is from Caryn MacGrandle of the Divine Feminine App. It is about making a Divine Feminine Library and the effects of AI.

The Elder Berry Woman, part 4 by Sara Wright

Moderator’s Note: FAR will be on hiatus for the month of January. We wish you all a very Happy New Year.

Before we head into our hiatus we will post a four part serialized story from our long-time contributor Sara Wright. Today is the final installment. It is her personal wisdom story. Enjoy!

A few minutes later we continued our conversation under the rugged roots of a nearby pine. The Berry woman had tucked herself into the cracks of the tree’s bark!

“I saw the Mother Tree in my dream – she’s me, isn’t she?”

“Of course. I hope you noticed that she was very much alive, despite her wounding.”

All I had seen were the holes, the dried blood that poured out of her center. Now I imaged the whole tree in my mind, as if seeing her for the first time. She wore a silvery crown of graceful bare branches, and despite the oval black holes in her body she was elegantly dressed in gray ribbed bark. She wasn’t dying.

“You never saw her before – all you noticed were the holes, not a resplendent tree standing between her two sisters. You have a tendency to focus on what’s wrong and that limits your vision. Some of your favorite woodpeckers made those holes and raised children in them.” Woodpeckers create space for new beginnings…and most holes, even those that weep, do not kill the tree. Note that you have two sister trees and neither have holes. You are not alone!

The Elder Berry Woman, part 3 by Sara Wright

Moderator’s Note: FAR will be on hiatus for the month of January. We wish you all a very Happy New Year.

Before we head into our hiatus we will post a four part serialized story from our long-time contributor Sara Wright. This is part 3 of 4 parts. It is her personal wisdom story. Enjoy!

I thought of the 30 years I had spent celebrating monthly and seasonal changes through earth – based ritual. Every rite had one requirement that included some kind of letting go, surrender, or death of a quality/attitude no longer needed. I had learned that some types of ‘dying’ were part of an ongoing cyclic process requiring endless repetition. But in all these years I had not been able to feel my physical death as part of that round.

“Could it also be that dealing with the fear of death was partly developmental? Maybe I am just moving into this psychic region of influence now? At 70 I am starting to feel that one day, in the not-so-distant future I shall die.”

“What you just said is important. Dealing with dying on a personal level is to some extent developmental. The fact that you are starting to feel death looming as part of your future may seem frightening but is another positive development. You must be able to feel those feelings and one day the child must join you to reach a point of acceptance.”

“I am so tired of stupid fear,” I whisper.

The Elder Berry Woman, part 2 by Sara Wright

Moderator’s Note: FAR will be on hiatus for the month of January. We wish you all a very Happy New Year.

Before we head into our hiatus we will post a four part serialized story from our long-time contributor Sara Wright. It is her personal wisdom story. Today is part 2 of 4. Enjoy!

“I want to trust you Berry Woman, but I can’t let go of my fear.” I feel ashamed admitting the truth.

“You endured the legacy of abandonment, and this has given you great strength, but you have also been cut away from your ability to trust, and the safety of being Earthed. You are like a tree without a taproot, vulnerable to collapse in heavy winds and storms. If you can lean into me just for a moment you will feel a difference. Shut your eyes. Try it.”

I close my eyes. I breathe deeply, sudden images of hearts thrumming, soft skin next to mine… then I feel the warmth of my two little dogs. I am totally relaxed; I trust my dogs implicitly.

“That’s right, start with who you do trust – you are well aware that your dogs have been your most powerful teachers since childhood.”

I get it.

Start with what I have, not with what I don’t. I think about Nature whose benign presence is palpable in all but my most despairing moments. Isn’t this how the Berry Woman came to me? A big part of me must already trust her.

“Let’s leave the trust issue for now and move on to the second problem. You have no faith in your ability to persevere. You are strong but you must say no to the negative voices that undermine you, and to do that you must be able to listen to what they are telling you.”

The Elder Berry Woman, part 1 by Sara Wright

Moderator’s Note: FAR will be on hiatus for the month of January. We wish you all a very Happy New Year.

Before we head into our hiatus we are trying something a little different from what we usually do. For the next four days we will post a four-part serialized story from our long-time contributor Sara Wright. It is her personal wisdom story. Enjoy!

Preface:

I began this story 10 years ago, put it away unfinished, completed it 5 years ago just before Covid struck, and lost it. When did it suddenly surface? On the Eve of All Hallows. Three days ago.

Because the story is autobiographical it deals with my personal issues. However, there are universal elements that people may identify with… this tale attempts to deal with some of the questions and the problems associated with aging, fear of death, and dying. I would greatly appreciate feedback.

The Elder Berry Woman

I turned 70 a month ago, crossing an invisible threshold. With this birthday I reluctantly entered the first year of my ‘elder’ years. “Red Birds” awakened me at dawn. The two cardinals spent the morning hours chirping and hopping around the grapevines outside my bedroom window. I felt deep gratitude for these feathered presences that seemed to understand that this birthday was charged with a heaviness I couldn’t diffuse. My intimate relationship with these birds has been predicated on grief. These cardinals were reaffirming that Nature responds to the longings of the hungry heart.

I have reached the conclusion that aging is a subject that no one wants to touch in case it’s catching. We sprout platitudes. We pretend that age won’t rob us of our abilities or our autonomy. We “forge on” with military precision until we discover that even raking leaves can pull muscles, creating new inroads for pain like I did just last week. Others “soldier on” hiking or scaling mountains when feet, ankles, knees, and hips are starting to complain. Forced snow – shoveling strains back muscles sometimes to the breaking point, as does heavy garden work. In our culture this bull –like ego driven behavior is lauded while bodies weep. “Keep busy” pancaked women chime with false Barbie faces cracking under the strain of deadly smiles. “You’re only as old as you think.”

Goddess Architectures: How Cultures Shape Sacred Feminine Power

In this essay, I address a gap in goddess spirituality, between a rhetoric of celebrating the body, and lack of truly embodied practice. I reflect on the archetypal language commonly used in goddess spirituality, tracing its roots in Greek mythology and depth psychology while questioning its cultural limits.

By introducing the notion of “goddess architectures”, I explore how ecological, social and cosmological contexts shape symbolic structures, and how sacred feminine power can be named, distributed, embodied or obscured across cultures. Finally, I propose movement as a way back to lived experience beyond symbolic and linguistic frameworks.

Goddess Spirituality into the Lived Body

Over the past thirty years of researching and practising goddess spirituality, I noticed a persistent discrepancy. While this field speaks about honouring the body as sacred, in practice it often feels like rhetorical lip service. The language of embodiment is present, but remains disconnected from the body on many levels.

Fire and Ice – wintersolstice25 by Sara Wright

(written during and after the solstice passed)

I walked down
to rippling waters
listening….
Frozen mosses
trees and me
old snow
overflowing
anguish
gathered in a
Chalice of Light
my prayer
for us
my dog
and me
to flow under
fire and ice
or tolerate
soul murder
numbness,
soul murder
I cannot weep

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Another Bow to Hestia

This was originally posted on Jan 4, 2021

I am not big on New Year’s resolutions, but this year I have vowed to change one of my habits. I have always been house-proud and love using my artistic flair to decorate my home in beauty. I have had a cleaning lady most of the time for many years, so my homes have been relatively clean. The living room and dining room have always been ready to receive guests. But I didn’t always do the dishes or clean the surfaces in the kitchen right away, clothes I had worn often sat on chairs before I hung them up, and I didn’t make the bed every day.

Now that I think about it, this habit goes back to my childhood and teen-age years, when my not picking up things in my bedroom was a bone of contention between me and my mother. Joyce Zonana wrote recently about how she rejected her mother’s role as homemaker and “dutiful” wife when she was young. Only now during the Covid crisis, she writes, is she beginning to enjoy the traditional women’s work of cooking regularly and knitting.

When I was a teen-ager, I sewed all of my clothes (both because we didn’t have a lot of money and because, as I was very tall and very skinny, most ready-made clothes didn’t fit). I was a second mother to my baby brother. For me, those were the fun parts of women’s work. But I hated washing dishes and cleaning the house, and I did not learn how to cook. I suppose I recoiled from the repetitiveness of those tasks. I was also aware that my father ruled the roost, and though I would never have criticized him, I knew that one of my mother’s jobs was to please him. Laura Montoya’s meditation on her grandmother’s life in a recent blog reminds us that the failure of homemakers to meet their husbands needs or wants can lead to violence.

Preparing for the New Year by Rev. Mary Gelfand and Rev. Mark Gallup

Happy New Year!

Solstice Sunrise
by Joie Granbois, used with permission

In the northern hemisphere, we recently celebrated Winter Solstice – the time of year when the days begin to grow longer and the nights shorter as the Earth begins another orbit of the Sun. In some cultures, the beginning of a new year is determined by the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Other cultures, such as Hebrew or Chinese, track the beginning of a new year through the lunar cycles. In most of Western culture, the day we name as the beginning of a new year is not determined by the cycles of Sun or the Moon but instead by a seemingly arbitrary calendar devised by a Roman emperor and modified by a Renaissance pope. Go figure.

Nonetheless, the turning of the New Year is a powerful time. It is a good time to slow down, listen to our hearts, be in community, pray and create intentions for the coming seasons of our lives. What do we need to forgive? For what are we grateful? What do we desire to bless for the coming year?

Last year we created a New Year’s worship service for our Unitarian Universalist church here in New England. This simple service and ritual invites participants to spend a little time spiritually preparing for the coming new year. If you wish to engage with this simple ritual from home you will need a small totem to interact with. This could be a stone or a shell—a feather or a tree branch—a flower or a piece of jewelry. You might also wish to light a candle. Take a deep breath as we begin with Forgiveness.

Sedna, Inuit Mother of the Sea by Judith Shaw

During the depths of winter, the tension between sacrifice and the joy of rebirth peaks. From Pagan celebrations of the Winter Solstice to Christian festivities marking Christ’s birth, this darkest time of year in the Northern Hemisphere is recognized as a moment when darkness nurtures light, promising the arrival of spring. It’s the perfect time to explore the story of the Inuit Sea Goddess, Sedna, whose tale encompasses sacrifice, transformation, and metamorphosis.