I attend Czech classes twice a week. This time of year the courses focus on Christmas. I’ve attended three different schools over the last five years, and all handle Christmas similarly. Even though the Czech Republic is only marginally Christian,… Read More ›
If you have not yet realized that the Christmas story is a story of liberation from oppression, it is time to realize that. I like to dust off the patriarchy and mysogyny of scriptural writers to find the beautiful wisdom… Read More ›
If you have not yet realized that the Christmas story is a story of liberation from oppression, it is time to realize that. I like to dust off the patriarchy and mysogyny of scriptural writers to find the beautiful wisdom… Read More ›
“Have I had two roads, I would have chosen their third.” ― Mahmoud Darwish, In the Presence of Absence Now I tell myself that I’m street smart. I did the Jack Kerouac “On the Road” trip when I was 18, driving cross… Read More ›
This morning I went up to the village plaza in Abiquiu to watch the dancers parade around the church with their saint who is also honored at this village festival held every year at the end of November. This is… Read More ›
Matilda Joslyn Gage was an activist in the nineteenth century struggle for women’s rights equal to Susan B. Anthony, and a writer and theorist equal to Elizabeth Cady Stanton. That she is not remembered is due in large part to… Read More ›
Archy the Cockroach and Mehitabel the Cat were introduced to the world in 1916 by Don Marquis, a columnist for the New York Evening Sun. Marquis was more than a mere columnist; he was a social commentator and satirist admired… Read More ›
I’ve spent much of the past four years – since returning to the state of my birth after more than forty years’ intentional absence – trying to understand and make peace with a particular slice of southern culture that I… Read More ›
In the Jewish calendar, we’re just past the holiday season—the High Holidays, the harvest festival of Sukkot, and the concluding festival of Simchat Torah when the last verses of the Torah are read and the first verses are started again…. Read More ›
Imagine. A relationship. So painful. So needed. Never. What it needs. To be. Yet the Desire. For what. For what. Imagine. A relationship That’s not. Doesn’t exist. Isn’t. A relationship That strives To go. No where. A relationship Of fear…. Read More ›
I am the Sun – bringer of the warming light of day. I am Lightning – bringer of fire to Earth. I am Tlachtga who flew through the sky together with my father Mog Ruith in our glowing wheel. I… Read More ›
It is mid November and shiny crimson Pomegranates catch the discerning eye in food markets; even Walmart carries them! Why do these beautiful and very ancient fruits appear during this dark time of the year? One answer to this question… Read More ›
While researching Minoan Crete I learned that each autumn young girls once gathered blue violet saffron crocus to leave as an offering for the Wild Crocus Goddess as they prepared for adolescent female initiation rites. I was intrigued by the… Read More ›
On August 26, 1970, I borrowed an old VW bug from my mentor and summer employer Michael Novak to drive from Oyster Bay, Long Island to New York City to take part in the Women’s Strike for Equality march down… Read More ›
This is the third year in a row that I will be writing about wildfires in California and their impact on me and my community. This year, I don’t have any poetry. This year, I’m not afraid. This year, I’m… Read More ›
A couple of weekends ago, Nancy, one of my classmates from nursing school, organized what she called a “mini-reunion” at her home in New Jersey. Seven of us gathered together to well, reunite. Our graduating class (Muhlenberg Hospital School of… Read More ›
In response to Carol Christ’s latest post… She came on the wings of the Owl flew out of the crack of our imagining, swooped low over the underground forest hooing, hooing, hooing screeching and clacking – Haunting the night with… Read More ›
Fifteen years ago, I bought my dream home in Molivos, Lesbos, one of the most stunning villages in the world. Over the next two years I renovated a listed Neoclassical house that had been neglected for over thirty years, restoring… Read More ›
This week’s Torah parshah is Vayera (Genesis 18:1– 22:24). The parshah contains the the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the questionable hospitality of Lot, the incestual sexual relationships between a drunken Lot and his daughters, the revelation of Sarah’s pregnancy,… Read More ›
Modern Western culture despises aging. Aging women are held in particular contempt. Menopause is meant to be something embarrassing and uncomfortable. The pharma industry peddles hormones and other drugs meant to mask our symptoms. Few women see menopause as something… Read More ›
Disclaimer/Trigger Warning: This post includes content about rape, sexual assault, domestic abuse, violence. The recent, meaningful discussions on this forum about how so many of us feel broken due to our own personal histories have fortified and inspired me. I’ve… Read More ›
“The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy.”-bell hooks Like many academics, my “in the box” dream was to be a professor. The full-time, tenured kind. Like many queer feminist academics, I know that such dreams… Read More ›
(1) Today is my mother’s birthday and although she has been dead for more than a decade I still think of her almost every day. At the time of her death I had not seen her for twelve years. Not… Read More ›
Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf has reopened at the Public Theater in New York City to rave reviews. I first saw for colored girls in 1976 after my friend Carolyn Broadaway, who… Read More ›
Donald wakes up too early. Feeling confused and disoriented, he looks around the room. His bed has disappeared! He seems to be lying on the floor. Why? he asks himself, how’d I fall off my king-size bed? The floor (uncarpeted??)… Read More ›
I feel deeply fortunate to be able to travel regularly to southern Morocco. In Taroudant in the Souss Valley, and further south in the Anti-Atlas Mountains, my groups of students have the chance to discover women’s cultural traditions including music… Read More ›
This time of year, the general public tends to pay more attention than usual to witches. Much of it is lighthearted – halloween costumes and memes about where to park your broom. Some of it is spiritual – adherents of… Read More ›
I never considered myself one of those people who gets really “into” Halloween. But, as one might expect having an eight year old, especially an eight year old who celebrates her birthday shortly before the holiday, has made me much… Read More ›
White supremacy culture is on full display day in and day out in America. You don’t have to strain to see it—the President’s recent comparison of the impeachment proceedings to a lynching is the latest example. Of course, even such… Read More ›
I met a man on a rumbling train who had hooks in his hat. A fisherman, I thought with the usual dismay – brutal images of dying fish gasping for air exploded in thin air. Memories of my grandmother who… Read More ›
