Category: General

The Play of Emotional Insecurity and Pull by Elisabeth Schilling

It is not easy navigating the world with fragile boundaries, self-worth, and a potential history of manipulations. I often seek wisdom in spiritualities and unfamiliar religions because I need a substitute for the childhood traditions I have abandoned as a raft mid-stream. I am attracted to fashioning another raft, this one not pre-fabricated but gathered over some time by reaching for branches and tendrils. I am never confident about my assessments concerning relationships, and I mostly avoid going very deep with people anyhow or keep my head down so as to go unnoticed or divert the interest of others because I don’t yet know how to have healthy relationships that entail elements of balance or stay more-or-less in the middle way. It is awkward and fumbling to do life on one’s own, and I am hardly a victim. I completely admit that healing is within my purview and I simply have not tried hard enough, or that I just need to accept that no relationship is perfect and one cannot exactly have pleasure without pain, and so allow my body to sink into the underwater worlds and be taken by the sensory suctions of sea urchins and stings of jelly fish. Perhaps a relationship can also be one of peace and calm passions where those involved keep their attachments in check. I guess that is possible. 

Continue reading “The Play of Emotional Insecurity and Pull by Elisabeth Schilling”

Forgotten Female Surrealists by Mary Sharratt

While Frida Kahlo is arguably the world’s most famous woman artist, most women in the surrealist movement have been overlooked. But Frida’s sister surrealists now seem to be experiencing a long overdue resurgence, with recent international exhibitions showcasing Leonora Carrington, Meret Oppenheim, and Dora Maar. The 2017 documentary film, Out of the Shadows, focuses on Penny Slinger. (For more on Slinger and her work, check out her spookily accurate Dakini Oracle.) American art photographer Lee Miller is the subject of The Age of Light, Whitney Scharer’s boldly feminist debut novel which sold to Little Brown and Company for seven figures, following a fierce bidding war.

far never anyoneThough I was familiar with these artists, Rupert Thomson’s novel, Never Anyone But You, reveals two extraordinary women I’d never heard of—Lucie Schwob aka Claude Cahun (1894 – 1954) and Suzanne Malherbe aka Marcel Moore (1892 – 1972). They met as teenagers and fell irrevocably in love, beginning a passionate relationship which would endure until Cahun’s death. In a twist of fate no novelist could invent, Moore’s widowed mother married Cahun’s divorced father and the two secret lovers became stepsisters, enabling them to live together without suspicion in an age when lesbian relationships were taboo. Moving to Paris in the 1920s, they adopted androgynous pseudonyms and became involved in the newly fledged surrealist movement. In 1937 they left Paris for Jersey. Later, when the Germans occupied the island, the women created an anti-Nazi propaganda campaign. They were arrested and sentenced to death, but the war ended before their executions could be carried out. Continue reading “Forgotten Female Surrealists by Mary Sharratt”

Thus Saith Eve BOOK REVIEW by Katie M. Deaver

“I am the Queen of Sheba and I am not impressed.”  This is the first line of one of the monologues from chris wind’s book Thus Saith Eve.  This book features 18 stories of biblical women, and a 19th, Lilith, from Jewish mythology.  Each monologue offers a new interpretation and gives a voice to the women that we think we know.

In this book the voices and personalities of women such as Noah’s wife, Mary of Bethany, Zipporah, and Vashti are reimagined in an exciting and empowering way.  Each of the stories also features an appendix where the reader can learn more about the biblical or mythological context of the woman who is telling her story.

As in her other works, wind uses historical people, events, and understandings to build a truly wonderful source of feminist fiction.  In addition to being an extremely enjoyable and thought provoking read, the monologues can also be used for audition and performance pieces.  On her website wind explains that two of the monologues, “I am Eve” and “I am Mary” can be performed with specific musical selections in the background.  You can find those selections linked to her website above.

 

Continue reading “Thus Saith Eve BOOK REVIEW by Katie M. Deaver”

The Pub Church, Boston by Xochitl Alvizo

At times I am invited to speak about The Pub Church. When I lived in Boston, I was part of a church that met in a pub. A church in a pub is not a typical form of church, obviously; so, people curious about or interested in forming an alternative form of church invite me to speak about it. The invitation is usually for me to share how I started The Pub Church – and that is how people first think of it, that it was started by one person, which was definitely not the case. So, in those moments, I stumble as I try to disabuse people of that idea and try to find the best way to enter the topic of how a new church starts, a topic about which I have strong opinions (more on that later). The Pub Church, Boston grew unexpectedly out of its context. It began with three friends venturing to the local pub to eat fish and chips on Fridays and ended in an experience of community that caused someone to reflect, “why can’t church be more like this?” Continue reading “The Pub Church, Boston by Xochitl Alvizo”

On Chronic Illness and Justice by Ivy Helman

29662350_10155723099993089_8391051315166448776_oFor almost four years, I’ve been living with the long-term effects of an inner ear lesion.  The lesion is long gone but its side effects are not.  Throughout the day, I feel a combination of unsteadiness and sudden, unpredictable sensations of movement.  On better days, the unsteadiness is almost non-existent and the feelings of movement are minimal.  On worse days, I’m troubled with a type of brain fog that makes it hard to concentrate as well as disrupting unpredictable sensations of being on a boat that can’t pick one direction in which to move.  It’s frustrating, tiring and demoralizing.

Summer is the season of worse days.  There is really nothing I can do to feel better.  Even staying well-hydrated and taking it easy often doesn’t steady the boat.  So, instead, I often continue my life as normal.  Then, I lay in bed at night and hope sleep comes soon. Continue reading “On Chronic Illness and Justice by Ivy Helman”

Following My Dreams by Natalie Weaver

Dreaming has always been a huge part of my life.  When I was a little girl, I would run to my mom in the morning, before I was even completely awake, and tell her what I had been dreaming,  It would seem very important, I mean, desperately, terribly important, to share whatever journey I had been on.

I would have repeating dreams; dreams with choose-your-own-adventure options; dreams with strange symbols and images and words.  I must have known that my dreams were valuable in a particular way to my waking mind, my manner of knowing, and even my concepts of reality because quite early on in my life I started to try to understand what dreaming actually was.  I remember getting a book called Far Journeys (or something like that) about lucid dreaming.  I remember learning about dream paralysis, which was a cause of great relief, since I occasionally experienced it and had to overcome the sense of terror it created.  I developed an early and avid interest in dream symbolism and psychology.  I was relieved when I finally learned the name Carl Jung.  In short, dreaming was central to my total experience of mind. Continue reading “Following My Dreams by Natalie Weaver”

Haiku Getaway by Esther Nelson

One of my undergraduate professors was (and still is) a haiku enthusiast.  When I took his Zen Buddhism course, students were required to write haiku throughout the semester.  He encouraged us to focus on the natural world as we struggled to come up with three lines of seventeen syllables, arranged in a five-seven-five pattern.  I eventually discovered lots of pleasure creating a haiku poem—crisp, even stark—using words with a precision I found beautiful.

I recently spent some time in North Carolina (from the Outer Banks to Asheville), treating myself to a short vacation after finishing up the Spring semester.  In spite of good intentions, I have failed over and over again to keep a detailed journal while traveling.  On this trip, I made a vow to write at least one haiku a day.  I kept that vow.

Writing haiku daily forced me to be mindful of my surroundings, reflect on my experience, and then use carefully-chosen words to capture the moment.  That mindfulness created a glue of sorts, anchoring me in time and place.  To my delight, have found this trip lingering in my memory in ways that other trips have not. Continue reading “Haiku Getaway by Esther Nelson”

America’s Two National Goddesses by Barbara Ardinger

I bet almost no one knows this secret: the United States is being watched over by two goddesses! One of them stands on top of the Capitol dome in Washington, D.C. The other stands on an island in New York harbor.

The goddess standing above our congressional building is named Libertas, or Freedom. She’s a Roman civic goddess whose sisters are Concordia and Pax. Although the Romans hardly ever experienced freedom, civic harmony, or peace, they always kept their eyes on the possibilities. Libertas was sometimes merged with Jupiter, sometimes with Feronia, who was originally an Etruscan or Sabine goddess of agriculture or fire. In Rome, Feronia became the goddess of freed slaves. Libertas is shown on Roman coins as a matron in flowing dress and wearing either a wreath of laurel leaves or a tall pilleus, which is called a “liberty cap” and looks like a witch hat without the brim. And there’s also a bird—is it a raven?? She holds either a liberty pole (vindicta) or a spear, and in some paintings of her (she was a popular subject in the 19th century) there is a cat at her feet. Continue reading “America’s Two National Goddesses by Barbara Ardinger”

Protecting the Children, Jesus Christ Superstar Style by Marisa Goudy

“Where is my mother? I am thirsty.”

My four year old is crooning quietly to her dolls. She is making sense of the crucifixion through play, asking her Disney princesses to stand in for Jesus, the Marys, and “the bad guys.”

Whatever she’s working through has more to do with the voice of John Legend and the cast of Jesus Christ Superstar In Concert than it does with a reading of the gospels. My children were raised with an eclectic mix of goddess spirituality, “all gods are one god” thinking, and occasionally attending a holiday mass. Thanks to this soundtrack, however, they’re suddenly saying things like, “Mama, I really love Jesus!” and “can I be Mary Magdalene for Halloween?” Continue reading “Protecting the Children, Jesus Christ Superstar Style by Marisa Goudy”

Priestess at the Crossroads by Joyce Zonana

In order to transform what is happening at the Mexico/U.S. “border” (and elsewhere) we must first break down the borders within our heads—all the borders in all our heads. Mr. Trump tells us “If you don’t have Borders, you don’t have a Country”; my response today is: “Who needs countries? Who needs genders? Who needs races or competing religions? What we need is Coatlicue.”

jz-headshotAs so many of us recoil in horror at the Trump administration’s cruel attempts  to enforce an impenetrable border between the U.S. and Mexico, I find myself struggling to understand what he and his supporters mean by “borders,” and why they are so invested in maintaining them. The administration’s vicious immigration policy, recently epitomized in a brief tweet on June 19th, 2018—Juneteenth, the day in 1865 when slaves were finally freed throughout the U.S. at the end of the Civil War—“If you don’t have Borders, you don’t have a Country” has sent me back to Gloria Anzaldúa’s visionary 1987 book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza.

Grounded in her experience as a queer mestiza raised in the Texas/Mexico borderlands, Anzaldúa’s bilingual, cross-genre manifesto argues for the transformative role of the mestiza, no longer “sacrificial goat” but “officiating priestess at the crossroads”:

Continue reading “Priestess at the Crossroads by Joyce Zonana”