October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, though I imagine most of us are already relatively aware. One in eight women will have breast cancer. Pink is everywhere. It’s difficult to find a person who hasn’t been impacted by breast cancer… Read More ›
Ever since the election of You-Know-Who, I have been doing a lot of creative writing.
She Rises Goddess Feminist Activism Collective Writing Project: Call for Contributions She Rises: What … Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 3 Two books: The main book and a sectional booklet including poetry, prose, art, the like. Coeditors include Deanne… Read More ›
In Crete we are always being given gifts—fresh cherries, ice cold bottles of raki, yogurt swimming in honey, and so much more. Over the years it finally hit me that this spirit of great generosity is a living remnant of… Read More ›
When my doula clients would share with me that the pregnancy they were going through was not like the previous one, I often gently reminded them that they weren’t the same women anymore. Their bodies were starting from a different… Read More ›
On a trip to Ireland several years ago, I was fortunate to have been able to see the Sheela-na-gigs in the National Museum of Dublin. Two of these Sheelas including the one removed from the Seir Kieran Church of County… Read More ›
The solar eclipse has had me sensing deep alignment with earth, sea, and sky, with my sisters and brothers and Self. This, then, from my 1995 journal of my first Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete with Carol Christ, a trip still… Read More ›
Today I am finishing the last bit of the honey I hand-carried home from my most recent trip to Trentino. Sun yellow in color, it is made from the nectar of mountain flowers. Its label tells its origin—di montagna, of… Read More ›
One in three women worldwide experience Domestic Abuse at some point in their lives; I am one of them. There are many terms to describe what we experience: Gender Based Violence (GBV); Domestic Violence (DV); Wife Battering; Violence Against Women… Read More ›
Even though snakes never inhabited Ireland, as in the rest of the ancient world both the serpent and the dragon were ancient symbols of life, fertility, wisdom and immortality for the Celts. Ancient Celtic ornamental work is entwined with serpents and… Read More ›
In the early 1990’s I discovered the compelling story of Inanna, the ancient Sumerian Goddess, translated and retold in the book, Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth by Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Kramer. I was inspired to create a series… Read More ›
‘Rather than being a bleeding image of female disempowerment, Medusa may be read as…one of the most ancient European symbols of women’s spiritual abilities… [and] an empowering image of feminine potential.’ –Patricia Monaghan, O Mother Sun! (1994:244) The name Medusa… Read More ›
“I stand firmly between the worlds of who I am and who I shall become, celebrating my wholeness. I celebrate my Sovereignty and I do not fear my Shadow, for together they hold the seeds of wisdom: as they grow,… Read More ›
Before he told the story of how his people received the sacred pipe, Black Elk said: So I know that it is a good thing I am going to do; and because no good thing can be done by any… Read More ›
Our first ritual on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete is a death ritual in which we honor the memory of those who have gone before us. Like so many things on the pilgrimage, the death ritual evolved. I did not… Read More ›
Marija Gimbutas coined the term “Old Europe” c.6500-3500 BCE to describe peaceful, sedentary, artistic, matrifocal, matrilineal and probably matrilocal agricultural societies that worshipped the Goddess as the power of birth, death, and regeneration in all of life. Gimbutas argued that… Read More ›
I have recently watched one of these real life entertainment documentaries. This one was on plastic surgery. A woman went under the knife to enlarge her breasts. The female presenter, wearing sterile white, peeped into the operation theatre and, facing… Read More ›
In many ways, I’ve thought of the myriad Holy Women Icons I’ve painted as mediators, guides who accompany us, women who have shown us the way. Whether they enliven us to create, inspire us to sustain, or embolden us to… Read More ›
When I came to Goddess, I was in my mid-forties and I suddenly had this huge fire burning in my soul. I felt like I had missed opportunities to practice my “calling” for forty-five years. I finally knew what I… Read More ›
Like many other thousands of Americans, I watched the newest offering from the Star Wars legacy last autumn and was re-inspired to be an active part of the rebellion against oppression. Viewing the movie through my feminist lens I was… Read More ›
The following is a guest post by Mary Sharratt’s Welsh mare, Miss Boo aka Queen Boudicca The ancient Romans and Gauls knew something that many modern day humans have forgotten. Mares are divine. The worship of… Read More ›
Yesterday morning when I learned about the Open Letter to Attorney General Sessions: Join Us In Selma On the Right Side of History, I paused Joy Reid’s interview with William Barber II in order to search for the petition site…. Read More ›
In our book Goddess and God in the World, Judith Plaskow and I discuss and debate our contrasting and conflicting views of the nature of divinity and the cause of evil. In the passage that follows, I respond to Judith’s… Read More ›
On the morning of January 20, 2017, the world watched Donald J. Trump stand on Capitol Hill for inauguration as the 45th president of the United States. He did not stand alone. Timothy Michael Dolan, Catholic cardinal and archbishop of… Read More ›
As we wander together through the maelstrom of our world today, trying to keep our eyes open, our voices firm and truthful, our feet bravely taking one step and then another, may we reclaim our gift of future-envisioning boldly, outrageously,… Read More ›
“You may not remember, but let me tell you this, someone in some future time will think of us.” —Sappho I put on my boots and jeans, grab my priestess robe, pack a basket of ritual supplies, and meet four… Read More ›
Here we are, beginning a new year. Let’s hope it’s a good new year. I grew up in a working-class family in St. Louis. We were Calvinist and Republican. I’ve escaped from the last two, but I still claim my… Read More ›
And the new sun rose bringing the new year. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Passing of Arthur,” Idylls of the King It’s arbitrary, of course, this designation of January 1st as New Year’s Day on the Gregorian Calendar, but it’s also… Read More ›
This is a great day for me as I announce the publication of A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess. It is the first —but certainly not the last—book from the new FAR Press, directed by Gina Messina and Xochitl… Read More ›
There is a Greek myth that tells there were fourteen “halcyon days” in every year, seven of which fell before the winter solstice, seven after; peaceful days when the sea was smooth as a pond and the hen-halcyon built a… Read More ›
