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Feeling the Earth Move by Carol P. Christ

carol-p-christ-photo-michael-bakas Magnitude 5.2 earthquake Feb 6, 5:51 AM I awake to the sound of the windows and shutters rattling and the bed moving up and down beneath me for a few seconds.

Magnitude 5.4 earthquake Feb 6, 12:58 PM This is the first time I can remember two big earthquakes coming so close together.

Magnitude 4.9 earthquake Feb 6, 1:45 PM A friend calls to ask if I think the earthquakes are building up. “The big ones are rare” I say.

The first seismologist to weigh in assures us there is nothing to worry about, as this new series of quakes is not on a major fault.

Magnitude 5.1 Tuesday Feb 7, 2:24 Shake, rattle, and roll.

Magnitude 4.5 Tuesday Feb 7, 5:15 Awakened.

Magnitude 4.6 earthquake Feb 7, 21:35 PM Another jolt.

Magnitude 4.3 earthquake Feb 8, 12:53 AM The bed shaking and the windows rattling.

Magnitude 4.9 earthquake Feb 8, 3:38 AM Awakening again, feels bigger this time.

A second seismologist warns that the series of quakes could be building up to a big one like the 6.6 quake that caused significant damage to the island in 1865.

I become uneasy. My friend decides to move temporarily to a hotel at the other end of the island, farther away from the epicenter.

Magnitude 3.5 Feb 8, 15:31 I wonder if I should leave the village too.

I decide to sleep in my study, fearing the ceiling fan above my bed could fall on me.

Magnitude 3.6 Feb 9, 12:37 AM The couch makes less noise than the bed.

Magnitude. 4.0 Feb 9, 10:13 AM Louder than the one in the night.

Magnitude 3.6 Feb 9, 15:01 PM Not as big as the last one.

I sleep in my study a second night. No quakes.

In the morning I move my blankets and pillows back to the bed.

Magnitude 4.5 earthquake Feb 10, 10:55 AM. The house shakes.

Magnitude 4.3 Feb 10, 12:27 PM A sharp jolt gives me a slight whiplash.

Mithimna (also known as Molivos), Lesbos, where I live is at the top of the triangle that is Lesbos, about 11 miles from the epicenter of the earthquakes. Besides the larger quakes, there have been one or two smaller ones just about every hour during the past week.

There have been no major quakes for more than twenty-four hours. Is it over?

In the long run, it is not. The Anatolian fault runs from below Istanbul to just above Lesbos and out into the Aegean Sea. The Anatolian plate is being pushed westward by the Arabian plate and northward by the African plate. The Anatolian plate is being prevented by moving northward by the European plate. Many years from now the African plate will collide with the European plate and there will be no Mediterranean Sea.

The movement of the earth’s plates is a result of its molten core. “The planetary community has long accepted that as the Earth lost its internal heat, it would eventually settle into a quiescent stagnant state much like Mars.”

Like it or not, uncertainty and instability in the ground under our feet is part of what makes ours a living planet. This is the literal truth. Is it also a metaphor for our lives?

Update: After a quiet day on Saturday we had a 4.8 at midnight and a 5.2 at about 4 in the afternoon. 3.7, 3.6, and 3.5 on Sunday night and early Monday morning, rounding out a full week of tremors. NO it is not over.

(Note: Though there are cracks in the plaster in many of our buildings, including in my house, there has been no significant damage at this time.)

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Be among the first to order A Serpentine Path, Carol’s moving memoir. Carol’s new book written with Judith Plaskow is Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology.

Carol wrote the first Goddess feminist theology, Rebirth of the Goddess and with Judith Plaskow co-edited the path-breaking Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions.

Join the spring Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete by Feb 15. Save $200.

On Minimalism by Ivy Helman

untitled One of the concerns of ecofeminism is the modern materialistic mindset of capitalism. Materialism in capitalism instills not just owning many possessions, but it also inculcates the “need” to own the newest innovation. In addition, materialism advocates a throw-it-away mentality. In other words, it is often cheaper to buy a new shirt or computer than to have them repaired. Similarly, it is not enough to have a cell phone. Rather, one must have the newest and best one! The environment pays the price.

One attempt to deny the hold of materialism is minimalism. The minimalist movement seems to run the spectrum. From the ideals of less is more, there seems to be some competition between mindful consumerism and extreme self-denial. Mindful consumerism suggests that minimalism is a journey of recycling, reusing and repairing combined with well-researched, well-considered, as-ethically-produced-as-possible purchases when necessary. Extreme self-denial advocates owning almost no material possessions. While I strive toward mindful consumerism, I have serious concerns about extreme minimalism. Continue reading “On Minimalism by Ivy Helman”

You Can’t Debate Mutuality by Sara Frykenberg

I use words like “mutuality,” “listening,” and “love,” here as I discuss my understanding of feminist justice-making and eschew debate…I want to make it abundantly clear: I see these as powerful, often forceful and even angry tools. We listen to what oppressors say so that they cannot deceive with their “alternative facts.” We love forcefully…We counter violence—we do not debate it—with anger, humor, creativity and power, in order to redirect its energies into more mutual possibilities.

Sara Frykenberg Participating in the Women’s March on Jan. 21^st in Los Angeles fed my soul deeply. I didn’t realize how much I needed to protest in this way, how stuck I had been in grief and despair after the election, and the way that coming together as a community would help me to mourn. There’s nothing quite like standing together with hundreds of thousands of people who also care deeply with hope, humor, and real power. Marching helped me to find the energy to fight back. It refilled a reservoir, so depleted in 2016, much as the badly needed winter rain in my home state of California has helped to abate the severe drought. Continue reading “You Can’t Debate Mutuality by Sara Frykenberg”

This Is How Liberal Democracy Dies: Will We Let It? by Carol P. Christ

“This is apparently how liberal democracy dies. It vanishes very quickly with an Executive Order.”– Ska Keller

In a powerful yet softly-spoken speech to the European Parliament, Green Party Germany Representative Ska Keller explained that rights and liberties we we take “for granted” and consider “natural,” “normal,” and “guaranteed” can be taken from us in an instant. The America we took for granted, an America built on respect for immigrants and religious freedom, has vanished before our eyes. With the stroke of a pen, the President of the United States revoked it.

carol-green-party-2017 — Carol telling the Green Party Greece the US President is a malignant narcissist.

Like many others, I am in a state of shock. Has the dream of liberal democracy died in America? Will we be able to repair and reinstate it? Ska Keller reminds us that freedom can never be taken for granted, but must be fought for and defended every day. Thousands of Americans have taken to the streets and are flooding the phone lines of congress trying to do just that. Will we succeed? At this point the outcome is unknown. In recent days, I often feel frozen in place, waiting for the next piece of horrible news, taking heart from stories of resistance, and hoping against hope that the tide will turn. Continue reading “This Is How Liberal Democracy Dies: Will We Let It? by Carol P. Christ”

Women Made of Fire by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente

climbing-mountains-with-children_web This was going to be a post about my new life in South Africa; to say what it means for me the return to this country full of wonderful things to do, after an intense and grievous experience in 2015 that pushed me towards a totally introspective period in my life; I was willing to tell you how I managed to put myself together, come back, go out there to face my fears, gather the courage to speak my truth, look for clearance and healing in the same place and with the same people where I was wounded.

But that will be in the next post. Let me talk about my country.

I come from Chile, a country in the southern south of the world, poor in resources and rich in poets. I am Chilean by birth, and I took my first steps on shaking ground. I have survived 3 earthquakes, countless floods, a tsunami and a dictatorship.

I survived to be stronger, more faithful, more free and unbeatably resilient.

During the past 12 days, I have seen, as a distant and impotent witness, my country burning, overwhelmed by fire, in the greatest catastrophe of its kind in the history of the nation.

The fire has advanced more than 700 kilometers away from the first point of ignition, swallowing whole villages, with their houses, public buildings, animals and agricultural land.

I’ve spent these days with tight lips and enclosed in my thoughts, reading news on the Internet, thinking about my family, receiving audios that my sister records for me. My brother was injured protecting his house from the fire, my family is in the area of greatest catastrophe, currently declared “Area Zero.” My concern is huge because the fire is advancing over the city and the assistance seems to go three steps back … I believe in the power of prayer, but I also know the ferocity of nature because as a Chilean I am always expecting to deal with it. Continue reading “Women Made of Fire by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente”

Do You Know Why We Are Marching? by Marcia Mount Shoop

When we got into the car to go, I asked my twelve-year-old daughter, “Do you know why we are marching today?”

“To protest Donald Trump?” she replied.

I explained that some people may be going for that reason, but that was not the reason I was going.

“Are there any positive reasons you can think of for why we are marching?” I asked her.

She went on to name several things Donald Trump had said about women. “I guess those are all still anti-Trump things,” she said.

“I am marching because I am a mother, I am a sister, I am a daughter, I am a wife, and I am a survivor. That’s what I am saying if anyone asks me,” I told her.

10000-strong-in-asheville-january-2017

I had already thought through this question. As a pastor of a church with people who have diverse political affiliations I am committed to being able to minister to everyone in my congregation. I have served churches in which my political views are in the minority and I have served churches in which my political views are in the majority. Both have challenging aspects, but nothing that I have experienced previously in terms of partisanship feels like it relates to what is happening in the United States right now. Those old partisan dynamics were difficult to navigate—it took discipline, but not one ounce of moral compromise.

The decision to march was not a partisan one, it was a moral one, and it was a spiritual one. If I didn’t march it I would be listening to a frightening interlocutor—and his name is despair.

Party affiliations are not creating the alienation at the root of what is happening. The challenges are much more painful—and if I stay silent or still in the face of this situation I would not be doing my job as a pastor or a mother. Continue reading “Do You Know Why We Are Marching? by Marcia Mount Shoop”

“Girl . . . You’re Gonna Make It” by Carol P. Christ

https://vimeo.com/82884853

Why did this song,* this program, this woman mean so much to Oprah and Michelle, to you, to me?

Because Mary Tyler Moore was one of our first role models of cheerful independent womanhood.

Why does this song still bring tears to my eyes?

Because I had never learned that a girl could make it on her own.

Because I feared that I couldn’t and hoped that I would.

And guess what, I did.

Lots of us did.

With help from our friends.

Mary showed us that too.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show was broadcast on Saturday nights.

Many of us were home alone, watching faithfully.

We do not forget.

*The above version of the song is from the first season, the words “you’re gonna make it after all” were changed to “you’re gonna make it on your own” in season two.

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Be among the first to order A Serpentine Path, Carol P. Christ’s moving memoir of transformation. Carol’s other new book written with Judith Plaskow is Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology.

Carol is a leading feminist theologian and historian of religion who wrote the first Goddess feminist theology, Rebirth of the Goddess as with Judith Plaskow co-edited the path-breaking Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions.

Join Carol on a Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete in 2017. Save $200.

Photo Report from the Woman’s March, Los Angeles by Marie Cartier

marie

All Photos by Marie Cartier

womens-march-11-we-are-seeds — We Are Seeds

Continue reading “Photo Report from the Woman’s March, Los Angeles by Marie Cartier”

Way Too Nice by Esther Nelson

What an honor to have taken part in the Women’s March (Washington DC) last Saturday, January 21, 2017! The event made visible the enormous number of people willing to give their time and effort to stand up and march for justice in the areas of women’s reproduction, immigration, race relations, LGBTQIA, the environment, and health care. The most frequently-used chants that I heard during the march were: “Black Lives Matter” and the call and response “My body, my choice. Her body, her choice.”

There were “sister marches” in many cities across the U.S. as well as in cities and countries throughout the world. And the marches (as far as I know) were all peaceful. No arrests. Continue reading “Way Too Nice by Esther Nelson”

Triple Goddesses in the Celtic World by Judith Shaw

Judith Shaw photo Many neopagans and modern Goddess worshipers mistakenly equate the triadic nature of some Celtic Goddesses with the Triple Goddess concept first popularized by Robert Graves in his book, The White Goddess. Graves stated that Goddesses were frequently found in triplets as Maiden, Mother and Crone. But there is nothing found in the ancient stories of Celtic Goddesses to indicate that they were known as Maiden, Mother and Crone.