I’m giving you a twofer this month: a poem and a ritual. I’m writing this a few days after the latest mass shooting in Texas by a crazy white man and a few days before the next debate by Democratic… Read More ›
Goddess
Harriet Boyd Hawes, Marija Gimbutas, and the Religion of Ancient Crete by Carol P. Christ
One of the projects I am working on these days is an essay on the religion of ancient Crete for a series of books on various aspects of the Minoan site of Gournia. Harriet Boyd excavated the Minoan town of… Read More ›
We Are Not Alone: Embodying and Re-enacting Ancient Wisdom by Carol P. Christ
A few nights ago, on the way to dinner, two friends and I passed by a small church near the old fortress in Ierapetra, Crete. The liturgy was broadcast via microphone and a crowd of people gathered outside the church…. Read More ›
Happy Birthday Isis: Isis Isis…Ra! Ra! Ra! by Karen Tate
I wanted to pull myself away from the ugliness out there and take time to honor the Egyptian Goddess, Isis, as Her birthday is recognized to be in the latter part of July. My husband, Roy, and I formed the… Read More ›
My Near-Death Experience, Or How I Met the Goddess Face to Face By Barbara Ardinger
Oh boy oh boy oh boy—another June 17 has passed (I’m writing this on June 18) and I’m still here. Every year, this is my day to be careful. And to keep breathing. I have two specific associations with June… Read More ›
Outtadeway-O: A Found Goddess of Public Transportation (well, you asked for Her last month) by Barbara Ardinger
Tall, hearty. sometimes pushy, and usually very loud, Outtadeway-O is easily able to propagate and multiply Herself so that we can find Her in crowded airport terminals, at bus and subway stops, and just about anywhere people are traveling from… Read More ›
Advocating Respect for Goddess by Susan de Gaia
I served as general editor for the recently published Encyclopedia of Women in World Religions: Faith and Culture Across History (2018/19 ABC-CLIO). It was an honor and a pleasure to work with a hundred and thirty wonderful scholars, many with… Read More ›
Birds, Their Song Stills My Heart by Deanne Quarrie
Bluejay I see you perched on the tree checking the perimeter for cats lurking. The feeder below, inviting you down but you, ever cautious, make sure that none are about. Suddenly the sparrows swarm in, eagerly eating the seed offered…. Read More ›
The Gift by Sara Wright
We drifted through the green hungrily absorbing plant souls, each twig, flower, and tree has her own story to tell… Such a joyful way for me to spend a ‘mother’s day.’ Being with him when family extends sharp claws… Read More ›
The Legend of Arawello, the Somali Goddess by MaryAnn Shank
I did not intend to find her. In fact I wasn’t even looking. But there she was, soaring before me, on my last night in Baidoa. This majestic Somali woman reached high into the heavens, engulfed in a glorious wraparound… Read More ›
The Highly-Effective, Never-Fail, Magical Parking Space Word by Barbara Ardinger
“In the beginning was the Word.” Yes, we’ve all read that. Although I’m not sure precisely what that Word was—does anybody know?—I’m pretty sure that Word started the process of creation. It was an active Word. A powerful Word. A… Read More ›
Hekate, Goddess of Liminality and Intermediary by Deanne Quarrie
Let me share with you the Goddess most honored as the Goddess of liminal time and space. It is our beloved Hekate, Great Goddess of the Three Ways, bridging Earth, Sea and Sky as we travel between worlds. In modern… Read More ›
Seed Bearer by Sara Wright
Yesterday old eyes stung – fierce white heat – blurred vision. Singing love songs, I scattered seeds in furrows raked smooth, tucked tufts under stone… Imagining a Wildflower riot! Bittersweet orange, blue and gold winding through rice grass – sage… Read More ›
Tree-Hugging Is About Trees and So Much More Than Trees by Carol P. Christ
Not too long ago I heard someone deride members of a seminar who were building labyrinths in the olive groves of Greece as “a bunch of tree-huggers.” I bristled! I probably first heard of the Chipko tree-hugging movement which is… Read More ›
The Mud and the Lotus: What India Is Teaching Me by Vanessa Soriano
About 5 years ago, I began a consistent yoga practice. Right around the same time, I started a PhD program in Women’s Spirituality at the California Institute of Integral Studies where I eventually wrote my dissertation on Women’s Spiritual Leadership. … Read More ›
The Goddesses Ereshkigal and Epona and Their Help in My Grief by Anjeanette LeBoeuf
In November, my paternal grandmother passed. She was five days away from her 93rd birthday. As I was/am going through the grieving process, I started to actively recall all the studies I have done regarding death and grieving practices across… Read More ›
Eve is the Hero of the Garden of Eden, Part 2 by Janet Rudolph
The serpent in the Bible is treated as Eve’s partner in crime, a malevolent seducer who is responsible for humankind’s expulsion from paradise. But did you know there are serpents who figure positively in the Bible? There are serpent priests,… Read More ›
Creatrix Mundi: Speculating The Godma by Isabella Ides
What does it mean to approach the idea of a Godma, a mother-of-all, as an act of the imagination, as a pure act of speculation? I particularly love the word speculator: one who is mining for the diamond, one who… Read More ›
“Old South Asia” and “Old Europe”: New DNA Research Suggests Tantalizing Relationships by Carol P. Christ
When European scholars began to study Sanskrit they were surprised to discover linguistic similarities between Sanskrit and Greek and Latin. Old Persian was found to be even closer to Sanskrit. Scholars thus began to speak of related groups of Indo-European… Read More ›
2019: Hopefully a Happier New Year by Barbara Ardinger
We’re nearly a week into the new year. I almost wish I were a prophet and could predict with assurance that 2019 will be better than 2018—less filled with hate, name-calling, lies, and all-round trumpery (pun intended: “trumpery” is “worthless… Read More ›
The Lost Is Found by Carol P. Christ
Since I wrote “Claiming the Power to Choose to Our Lovers” and “Choosing to End Love” in the spring, my beloved and I came back together and parted again, not once, but twice. At the end of the summer, believing… Read More ›
The Santa Goddess from The Goddess Project: Made in Her Image by Colette Numajiri
Frau Holda Poem Hail to Frau Holda, the beautiful and bright, Crowned and clothed, all in glistening Winter white. Ay seeking and searching, She sweeps o’er the land, Scourge for the slovenly, held firmly in hand. As Holda fares forth,… Read More ›
The Gifts of Life: Do We Remember? by Carol P. Christ
Strawberries shaped my view of a world full of gifts simply scattered at your feet. A gift comes to you through no action of your own, free, having moved toward you without your beckoning. It is not a reward, you… Read More ›
My Original Uncultured Mother by Deanne Quarrie
In the earliest of times, I believe humans did not see themselves as separate from all that was around them. All of life was interdependent. I see this in my own practice today. When we are born, we are born… Read More ›
Let Us Proclaim the God Who Bleeds Now by Carol P. Christ
we need a god who bleeds now we need a god who bleeds now a god whose wounds are not some small male vengeance some pitiful concession to humility a desert swept with dryin marrow in honor of the lord… Read More ›
Women’s Ritual Dances and the Nine Touchstones of Goddess Spirituality-Part Three by Laura Shannon
In Rebirth of the Goddess, Carol P Christ offered Nine Touchstones of Goddess Spirituality as an alternative to the Ten Commandments. The Nine Touchstones are intended to inform all our relationships, whether personal, communal, social, or political.[1] In this series… Read More ›
Women’s Ritual Dances and the Nine Touchstones of Goddess Spirituality-Part Two by Laura Shannon
In the first part of this article, I looked at how Carol P Christ’s Nine Touchstones of Goddess Spirituality from Rebirth of the Goddess are related to traditional women’s ritual dances of the Balkans. After more than thirty years of… Read More ›
Challenging Christian Feminists to Re-Imagine the Goddess by Carol P. Christ
From the 1993 Re-Imagining Conference: Our mother Sophia, we are women in your image: With the hot blood of our wombs we give form to new life. With the courage of our convictions we pour out our life blood for… Read More ›
When the Gods Retire by Barbara Ardinger
Come with me in your imagination to an old land, a Demi-Olympus, a fabled and possibly invented land to the north of Mount Olympus, home and throne of the fabled Olympian gods. It is to this Other Olympus that the… Read More ›
Women’s Ritual Dances and the Nine Touchstones of Goddess Spirituality-Part One by by Laura Shannon
In Rebirth of the Goddess, feminist theologian Carol P Christ offered a list of ‘Nine Touchstones of Goddess Spirituality’.[1] She revisited the Nine Touchstones in an interview with Karen Tate on Voices of the Sacred Feminine titled ‘Gratitude and Sharing:… Read More ›
