Goddess feminism – Page 2 – Feminism and Religion

In Our Right Minds: On the Sacred Feminine, the Right Brain and Restoring Humanity’s Natural Balance by Dale Allen

TODAY • BOOK LAUNCH ON AMAZON! Launch Discounts underway now!

There’s something about a book. I make a lot of things: podcasts, videos, a film, a musical production, paintings, lots of articles for publications, but this… this feels huge to me. A book. A book that represents 25 years of my life as a spokesperson and champion of the feminine side of humanity – a part of all us.

Here’s the official Press Release:

Veteran of corporate and commercial communications, host, interviewer, and filmmaker Dale Allen has now released her new book, In Our Right Minds. This new book is an in-depth exploration of the sacred feminine and its power to heal humanity as a whole. Sharing her profound journey of exploring the goddess archetype, the author combines science, art, and history for a transcendent literary journey.

Miriam Speaks by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

Intro: I have been working on a project inspired by Charlene Spretnak and her book Lost Goddesses of Early Greece. I am writing biblical stories through the eyes and words of the women. The scribes who wrote down the tales of the bible, wrote mostly from men’s point of view. And they had their own which was to destroy evidence of the Goddesses. I tell Noah’s story through Naamah, his wife. Abram and Sarai’s journey to Egypt through the eyes of Sarah. Exodus in Miriam’s voice. In my telling, Miriam went to Midian with Moses and, while there, experienced the Burning Bush and worked with Moses’ wife Zipporah to protect knowledge of the Goddesses. Below is an abridged version of this section of Miriam’s tale.

I look around at your world today. You, yes you, are my descendants. My beloveds. I mourn for what you’ve lost. No, I am angry, how could things have gotten this bad? I dare you, I dare any of you to challenge my work. We did everything we could. It should not have taken this long to find our clues. But then I see the job the scribes did. It was better and more thorough than even we, who saw so much, could have imagined. I look around at this precious earth we bequeathed to you and see how damaged it is.

Making Room for Reverence by Kelly Applegate-Nichols

While the Goddess spirituality movement runs alongside the women’s and feminist spirituality movements, I am certain the Goddess herself looks on with wonder and pride at Her creations. I am sure that it pleases Her to see women so devoted to self-sovereignty, and the fierce determination to get out from under the lash of patriarchy, to stand as women together, united in our passion for a better world.

While I know in my heart that we are continually held in the mind of the Goddess, I am called to wonder, how often is She in ours?

Though we make great strides together in our common goal of freedom and peace, some of us seem to be less at peace than ever before; there seems to be an undercurrent of loneliness, of disconnection. Lately, I’ve been thinking, it is at least possible that the thing that keeps us up at night is less about the state of the world, and more about the sometimes tenuous connection with our Mother. We may be so focused on self-empowerment that we have forgotten that there is another power, a “higher power” if you will. And She wants to commune with us.

Listening to Our Landscapes, by Molly Remer

Today the hawk is back, tail feathers lit gold and black by a bright and welcome sun. It stays only a moment before tilting out of the tree and continuing on its way, but this moment is enough to spark a sense of joy and wonder in my chest, the awake kind of glee that fuels and feeds me, that inspires and holds me. This feels like the Year of the Hawk to me, of clear focus and intentional commitment. I watch it glide away between the trees and take a deep breath of release and freedom. I re-center myself into my body and reconnect to the sacred What Is. I am open to clarity. I am open to trust. I am present with this day’s unfolding.

Snake Priestesses of Crete as Earthquake Oracles? by Laura Shannon

Knossos Throne Room showing edge of lustral basin at left. Photo: Laura Shannon

A few weeks ago I was on Crete, having coffee with an archaeologist friend. She happened to mention something strange. Crete has always been a seismic zone, with lots of earthquakes, yet remarkably, in Minoan times, no one was killed in collapsing buildings; they were never taken by surprise.

We pondered this – it seems astounding. They must have had some means of warning. Perhaps the serpents sacred to them could have given them some sign?

Initiation and Descent, part 2 by Terry Folks

Part 1 was posted yesterday, you can read it here.

Stage Nine – Reward (Seizing the Sword) – Healing the Mother/Daughter Split

Some contemporary versions of the Heroine’s Journey have the heroine or hero seizing the sword quite dramatically. She takes possession of the treasure ‘sword’ as knowledge, experience, or greater understanding. My reward was more subtle but deeply profound. It took Her awhile to help me understand but eventually I stopped fighting and leaned into Mother Mountain. When I was calmer, when I became still, stopped trying so hard … when I finally surrendered I was able to ask Her why.

Why Mother Mountain? Why COVID? Why now?

Her response was as clear as though She was speaking in my ear:

“It was the only way we could meet each other. Every step you have taken up to now has led you to this sacred moment.”

I wept.

My Pilgrimage to Crete – September 2023, Part 2 by Terry Folks

Part 1 was posted yesterday.

Stage Four – Mentor Appears

Joseph Campbell spoke of ‘mentors’ appearing to help the sojourner, and what Maureen Murdock called the gathering of allies. In my hybrid of these two archetypal journeys, there may be several mentors – human, power animals, divine guides or a combination. She could be a wise elder who helps the heroine prepare for the journey or gives her a gift for later use. In my case the wise elder was my 93 year old mom who became one of my mentors. When I expressed my excitement and fears, she said what she always says when I – one of her seven children – am facing a challenge: “Go get’em Tiger!” She also offered financial support so I could take time away from my psychotherapy practice.

Two other mentors showed up in what Carl Jung called my ‘active imagination’: Carol Christ and Marija Gimbutas. Both have transitioned so my active imagination conjured their support as divine intervention. I reread Carol’s reflections and teachings on the pilgrimage, and watched the videos she made as inspiration. I felt her invitation. I was ready to change.

My Pilgrimage to Crete – September 2023, Part 1 by Terry Folks

Carol Christ’s Legacy honored by Laura Shannon, and the Ariadne Institute

Adventure by Autumn Skye with permission of artist

When I teach the Heroine’s Journey in my Sophia Women’s Wisdom Group, I draw on Joseph Campbell’s idea of the mono-myth, an archetypal story that resonates with every human across time: The Hero’s Journey. I combine Campbell’s ideas with pieces of feminist Maureen Murdock’s heroine’s journey to recognize the unique pathway of the feminine. I call this my hybrid heroic journey. If you are not familiar with Maureen Murdock’s work, I invite you to see how she brought her feminist eye to Campbell’s iconic Hero’s Journey in her book The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness. After her conversation with Joseph Campbell six years prior to his transition, Murdock felt he missed “that the focus of female spiritual development was to heal the internal split between woman and her feminine nature” (p. 2). In my hybrid heroic journey, that split in the early stages is internalized negative masculinity. The rejection of our feminine nature may appear differently in each woman’s life but it is often characterized by treating ourselves how we imagine men perceive us.

My recent Pilgrimage to Crete was astonishing; my epiphany, gradual. As I share my adventure, imagine stages of your own heroine’s journey wherever you are in that cycle. I hope that by sharing this series, you will experience a real life example of Dion Fortune’s definition of magic: ‘The art of changing consciousness at will’. Starhawk, Truth or Dare, 1988.

My Goddess by Mary Gelfand

Birth of a Galaxy, by Willow Arlena, https://www.mysticlifedesign.com/

My Goddess is unconfined
–unbound
–unlimited
–unrestricted.

My Goddess exists beyond
–the images of Her created by men
–the words describing Her written by men
–the laws coercing Her, enacted by men.

Fear and Need in the Absence of Mother God, part 2 by Caryn MacGrandle

Yesterday’s part 1 post quoted from the book, The Malleus Maleficarum

Witches Well in Edinburgh, Scotland, …the Roman numerals for 1479 on one side and 1722 [years when witch persecution was most prominent]

The book wasn’t just a message for women but for all. The tenets that formed the backbone of colonial culture:

Paddle your own canoe.
Success comes with hard individual effort when you stay within the lines that we draw.
And if you fail? Well, that’s on you.
Maybe you will get another shot if you are lucky, work relentlessly and act as you should.
And never ever forget that your worth is defined by the number of 0’s in your bank account.