General – Page 145 – Feminism and Religion

Breathing a Big Sigh of Relief by Carol P. Christ

During the past few days I have begun to breathe again. As I exhale, tensed muscles relax and feeling comes back into my body. I realize that I have been holding my breath not only for the days it took for the election results to come in, but for the past four years. After a long wait, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were finally declared the next President and Vice President of the United States. Their ability to pass legislation now hangs in the balance in the two Senate run-off elections that will be held in Georgia on January 5.

The outcome of these elections is uncertain, but we can take hope in the fact that Stacey Abrams will be doing everything she can to turn out the vote. If you are thinking of donating to the Georgia Senate races, please contribute to Abram’s Fair Fight, which registered almost 800, 000 new voters over the past two years, in order to ensure that your money will be spent on an on-the-ground campaign to get out the vote and not just on advertising. Continue reading “Breathing a Big Sigh of Relief by Carol P. Christ”

Breathing Life into the Women of Chayei Sarah by Ivy Helman.

One of the basic tenants of feminist methodology in religion is the recovery of women’s history. There are many ways to approach such a task. In religions with sacred writings, one avenue for recovery may be reinterpreting them. This could come in the form of a critique. For example, traditional interpretations may overlook or undervalue women, who appear in the text, reaffirm sexist, patronizing, and/or misogynist viewpoints already found in the text, or develop new ones. In order to recover women’s history, feminists working with their sacred texts would then call out these interpretations for their sexism. They would correct phrasing, understanding, and even translations, when necessary.

In addition to critiquing, feminist interpretations of scripture could also be constructive. Religious feminists may highlight values, teachings, and images that affirm women’s lives. They may incorporate documented history into their interpretations as proof of expanded roles for women. That would then contextualize or negate later traditions that deny women such roles.

Continue reading “Breathing Life into the Women of Chayei Sarah by Ivy Helman.”

Feminist Parenting Part 3—Les Misérable Mothers, why is this so %$@# haaaaard?! by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

Life has been challenging lately – I’m sure you can relate. Normal emotional and financial stress are worsened by COVID-19 and the election— and I’ve often said that there’s nothing like motherhood for making us feel like failures… It’s as though our brains are incapable of seeing anything but the things we have left undone or done badly. And it is often excruciatingly hard to be a calm, patient parent when the kids start getting wild, or someone breaks something, or the <expletive> online form won’t <expletive> work on my <expletive> phone.

…Why is it so hard to feel “good enough?” Could it be because patriarchy benefits from making the female class feel constantly insecure and unworthy? Continue reading “Feminist Parenting Part 3—Les Misérable Mothers, why is this so %$@# haaaaard?! by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir”

The Crafting the Wisdom Loom By Mary F. Gelfand

Over 20 years ago, I randomly came across the following passage from Sonnet X by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour,
Rains from the sky a meteoric shower
Of facts . . . they lie unquestioned, uncombined.
Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill
Is daily spun; but there exists no loom
To weave it into fabric

I was just learning to spin and weave and so was struck by this passage. I’ve been contemplating Millay’s words ever since.

image of Loom — Photo by Nickolas Nikolic

Weaving is a fascinating process that the ancients in many cultures believed was a gift from the Goddess. Before the Industrial Revolution, clothing was valuable because of the sheer amount of both labor and skill necessary to create it—tasks that were primarily delegated to women. The process of collecting, cleaning, and preparing plant or animal fiber to be spun into thread or yarn is a lot of work. And all you have now is spun fiber. It still needs to be dyed and used to warp the loom—a tedious and time-consuming process. Next the weaving itself—dancing the shuttle in and out across the width of the warp—over one, under one, over two, under two—or some more visually appealing pattern which is also more complex to do. Finally, the woven fabric must be measured, cut, and sewn to make a garment.

Continue reading “The Crafting the Wisdom Loom By Mary F. Gelfand”

The Mask and the Mirror – Part 2 by Sara Wright

Artist Debra Fritts

When I asked Debra about this circle she said “the circle around the eye is symbolic of the moon, a nightly ritual of seeing the moon.” Curiously, women as ‘seers’ have an intimate relationship with the moon. Both eyes seem to be able to stare directly through the mask. The woman’s lips are parted; she is breathing but there is no sense that she is about to speak.

The length of the woman’s neck is accentuated by its distinct slate blue tones. This neck seems especially vulnerable – stretched perhaps to endurance. Suddenly it occurs to me that it is also a neck, like a chicken’s neck, that is ready for the chopping block. Has this woman lost her voice? Her ability to breathe? Is there a threat of being separated from her body? The suggestion of a body ends at the woman’s shoulders so we are left wondering…

Since our feelings and emotions reside in our bodies the suggestion here is that this woman may be without access to her body on an instinctual level. If so she is unable to protect herself. Blue is a color that is sometimes associated with death. In some Native traditions, like that of the Zuni and the Lakota Sioux blue is the color of the Underworld. Particularly touching is the pale four petaled flower to the lower right of the left half of the relief, a flower without a stem or root, or is this a wheel of some kind, one that is in motion – whirling – chaos? To my mind a number of aspects of this portrayal speak to the presence of death. Continue reading “The Mask and the Mirror – Part 2 by Sara Wright”

Vote, Vote, Please Vote! American Democracy Is at Stake by Carol P. Christ

Like many of you, I am weary this election season. In the early part of the Democratic primaries I was enthused. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and also Kamala Harris, and sometimes Amy Klobochar were articulating progressive political positions with which I agreed. Joe Biden, who eventually won, was not my candidate. Though I understood that defeating Donald Trump was the most important thing, I stopped following the campaign.

I have resisted writing this blog because I am so disgusted by Republican moves to suppress the vote, Trump’s attempts to slow the delivery of mail-in ballots, his declaration that mailed ballots are likely to be fraudulent (there is no evidence supporting this), and his unwillingness to say that he will accept the election results. The possibility that the election could be stolen or that Trump will refuse to leave office turns my stomach and frankly terrifies me because many of Trump’s white male supporters have guns and are willing to use them. Continue reading “Vote, Vote, Please Vote! American Democracy Is at Stake by Carol P. Christ”

Happy Thanksgiving by Barbara Ardinger

Will our families gather for Thanksgiving feasts this year? Will aunts and uncles and cousins come from near and far to sit around our dining room tables? Does anyone have a table that’s big enough for social distancing? As I write this before November actually arrives, it seems unlikely that we’ll have few traditional holiday events in our homes (or anywhere else) this year. Well, my friend, who cares? Let’s pretend our feasts will be just like they’ve always been.

Back before the turn of the century, I belonged to a group that met every month in my friend Sandy’s family room for companionship, study (we worked our way through two excellent books by Julia Cameron: The Artist’s Way and The Vein of Gold), celebrations of birthdays and other special events, and rituals honoring various goddesses. We also had potluck suppers. (That was when I found out I can’t even be in the same room with jalapeño chili peppers.) It was a friendly, caring group of about twenty-five women and a few men. Alas, many of these people have moved away, a few have died, and a couple have just disappeared. I miss this group. Continue reading “Happy Thanksgiving by Barbara Ardinger”

Two Rabbits and the Moon By Sara Wright

The Cottontail
watched me
climb
a steep hill
to meet her
at the Cross –
road.

She split the stone.
Datura delusions emerge
from this bloodline.
I stumble
down down down…
Her feet beat
a mourning drum
I’m in free fall.

Continue reading “Two Rabbits and the Moon By Sara Wright”

Healing Uphill

These are trying times for all sentient beings. We are all carrying the intensity and stress in our bodies and spirits. I feel it. You feel it. In fact, we are feeling it together—sharing an experience even though interpreting and understanding it in our own unique ways.

As a person of faith, I believe we are on a collective healing journey. As a feminist, I believe that journey continues to involve extended uphill challenges because of intersecting systems of oppression. And that is how I understand this particular moment in time—a healing journey in a difficult uphill section on the path. As a human collective we are healing uphill.

Healing uphill can feel like too much to bear sometimes. Healing uphill is the experience of having more and more challenges heaped on your back when you are already tired and struggling to keep going. Healing uphill is like trying to take care of yourself when you lose your job in a global pandemic and one of your kids gets sick and your landlord tells you that you are late on your rent and then your spouse comes home angry and blames you for all the stress and, well… you get the picture. Healing uphill is when you can’t seem to catch a break and things seem to just keep getting worse.

The Mask and the Mirror-Part 1 by Sara Wright

When I first saw this extraordinary clay round last spring I was immediately captured by the story being told. As I recall it was the second, and to me, the central image in a series of three that Debra Fritts created. To paraphrase Debra’s words these forms were hand built from Stoneware clay and underwent multiple firings with layers of oxides, under-glazes, and glazes during the spring of 2020. They expressed her daily thoughts and experiences. When I asked her about the order in which the pieces came into being she told me that it was hard to say because she built all three forms at the same time and then added the relief.

Debra is an incredibly gifted artist who lives in Abiquiu, New Mexico. She seems to have a pulse on Western Culture especially from a feminine standpoint that penetrates the hearts of many women and men. It is no wonder that she has become so well known and loved.

What follows is a personal exploratory analysis of this particular relief, a technique I learned many years ago from an art teacher I had in graduate school that helped me to articulate what I saw and felt when I gazed at a piece of work that I loved.

The focus of this exploration will be on this central piece. However, towards the end of this analysis I will briefly attempt to situate this relief in the storied frame of the series as a whole.

Continue reading “The Mask and the Mirror-Part 1 by Sara Wright”