Exploring the F-word in religion at the intersection of scholarship, activism, and community.
Howling wolves on a winter’s night sets the human heart aflame with fear – their legends are terrifying. Yet there is another side to Wolf. Deeply relational by nature, wolves are highly intelligent animals, excellent hunters and devoted to family. Human connection to wolves dates back to at least 20,000 BC in Southern Europe, where cave paintings of wolves have been found.
Continue reading “Wolf – The Call of the Wild by Judith Shaw”
As usual, I’m writing my post a couple weeks before you’ll be able to read it. I bet we’re all wondering in mid-December if 2020 is really gonna happen. Will we still be living in a civilization? Will there still be wild animals (outside of zoos)? Will trees and other plants still be growing? Well, my friends, if we all woke up last Wednesday and opened our eyes and it’s all still here……hooray!
Way back in 1998 I wrote a book called Goddess Meditations. It was the first-ever book devoted to guided meditations centered only on goddesses. No gods. No empty minds or asanas. Goddesses, some well known, others obscure, from many pantheons. One chapter in the book is “Chakra Goddesses,” in which I assigned a goddess to each of the seven major chakras. The goddess of the throat chakra—which rules clear communication, self-expression, and creativity—is Sarasvati. Here (with comments that pop out of my mind and into my fingers as I type) is part of what I wrote about communication.
Continue reading “Let’s Try Creativity This Year by Barbara Ardinger”
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 candidates. But you know what? I’m getting real tired of politics and…well, what’s going on around us. Tweets. Bullets. Fires. I’m a liberal, but I’m deciding that there must be a better definition of “conservative,” one that has nothing to do with politics. The OED defines “conservation” as “the action of conserving; preservation from destructive influences, decay, or waste.” Further down: “conservative: a preserving agent or principle.”
Back in the late 80s and into the 90s, I taught a class I called Practicing the Presence of the Goddess, which evolved into a ritual circle. As far as I know, most of the women in the class are still spiritual feminists (though the term hadn’t been invented then), a couple have died (cancer is an awful thing), and one is fading into dementia (but she still remembers our class). Among other assignments, I asked them to read Carol Christ’s splendid book Laughter of Aphrodite (1987), and once we went as a group to hear Marija Gimbutas speak on her newest book The Civilization of the Goddess (1991).
Continue reading “Let Us Now Practice Her Presence by Barbara Ardinger”
I first wrote this spell in 1994 when a certain Member of Congress from Marietta, Georgia, took out his Contract On America. I sent the spell out on the internet and know that it was used. I rewrote it to put in my book, Finding New Goddesses, but decided that it’s much too serious a spell to put in a book of humor, so the spell stands alone again. I have used it successfully, though carefully, on several occasions, and so have other people. The purpose of this spell is to bind, not to do harm. It’s neither “black magic” nor “white magic,” but simply useful magic.
Now, in mid-2019, I’m giving serious consideration to renaming the spell: Eye of Donald. But no—if I did that, we’d lose the reference to Macbeth, Act IV, scene 1. If you’ve read or seen “The Scottish Play,” you know that Macbeth is, among other things, filled with hubris. So was the fellow from Georgia, and he’s since fallen on the sword of his hubris. The current occupant of the White House? I think he’s hubris personified. So we need the reference to Macbeth. Continue reading “Eye of Newt, a Binding Spell by Barbara Ardinger”
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 Isis Ancient Cultures Society and the Iseum of Isis Navigatum, in Los Angeles, sometime ago and for more than a decade, in Her name, we sponsored Moon Circles to promote diversity, Salons to teach, and we put out a quarterly newsletter when you still had to fold and mail them – remember that? But the premier events every year were the Isis Birthday Tea and the Isis Navigatum or Festival of Isis, every March. Our aim was to reconstruct Isis rituals in a modern context and make them relevant for today.
We put on the Isis Tea in prestigious locations like aboard the Queen Mary and the Isis Navigatum in various public locations including The Japanese Gardens, in the San Fernando Valley, and on the beach on Point Dume, in Malibu, California. So detailed were our events, sometimes the public joined us thinking we were a movie crew and our organization was written about by a anthropologist/folklorist citing the detail and depth of the material culture of contemporary Isian devotees.
Continue reading “Happy Birthday Isis: Isis Isis…Ra! Ra! Ra! by Karen Tate”
My daily practice isn’t what I’d like it to be these days what with working two jobs, raising three teenagers, and going to grad school. I am clocking about 60 hours of work and school every week, which doesn’t leave very many spare hours for formal ritual, prayer, or meditation.
During previous phases of my life, I’ve had a daily devotional practice that’s taken on many different forms as my spiritual studies deepen. I’ve learned to use new tools, and gone from singing other people’s chants to writing my own and creating my own prayers. As my path unfolded, my practice evolved. But last autumn, life shifted when I went back to school and shifted again a couple of months ago when I added a second job to the mix. My spiritual practice over the last month has been sporadic, random moments stolen from other obligations to say a rushed prayer, a chant sung on the drive to work, or an energy center balancing done in the shower before bed.
Meanwhile, in the back of my mind was the fact that I had committed to attending a 4-day training intensive within the Avalonian Tradition, followed immediately by a 4-day leadership retreat for the Sisterhood of Avalon. A couple of weeks ago, with my daily practice in what felt like utter shambles, I suffered an bout of extreme self-doubt. What was I thinking committing to this training intensive and leadership work when I couldn’t even manage to find 15 minutes every day to engage the practice of my faith? How on earth could I think I was ready for this? Should I even still go? Continue reading “It’s Called Practice For a Reason by Kay Bee”
It wasn’t really fire. I came home to Lesbos from a soulful Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete and a discouraging emergency meeting of the Green Party Greece totally exhausted and wanting nothing more than to rest. It was the hottest June on record and my house with its many windows felt like a furnace. Due to a dispute with the installer, it took eleven days to get the air-conditioning fixed. My little dog who could see when I left for Crete, was blind when I returned. I wondered if I would have to put her down and could not bear the thought. I was so tired and so hot that I could not think straight. It was beyond my capacity to even consider moving to a hotel. I didn’t have the energy to unpack. And I didn’t have a car as the old one had been sold and the new one was still at the dealership in Crete. So I couldn’t escape. Instead I tried to hold back tears.
After the air-conditioning was finally fixed, I was able to unpack, wash my clothes, and repack for my return to Crete. The night before I was to leave, I jumped the St. John’s day (midsummer) fires. The locals say they jump the fires for fertility (jumping fires does warm the nether parts) and health. In the photo I am sitting at a table directly behind the first fire, but I soon got up and jumped all three of them, affirming the powers of birth, death, and regeneration.
Continue reading “Trial by Fire, Healing by Water by Carol P. Christ”
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 17. The first, and lesser, is that it is (or was) the birthday of my last serious boyfriend. I really thought we were going to get married. That didn’t happen, and as we were breaking up, he gave me a (probably expensive) bottle of My Sin perfume. I hurled it against the wall behind the dumpster. So much for that. And him.
The real story: I began having asthma attacks in the late 80s. Nearly every night. A friend took me to every doctor we could think of, but none of them helped me. (At the time, my asthma was acute; now it’s merely chronic and under control.) In June 1992, I was very busy doing freelance writing when I could find an assignment, looking for a real job, serving as vice president of the Orange County chapter of Women In Management (which meant I booked the speaker every month)…and breathing. My second book, A Woman’s Book of Rituals and Celebrations, was being published, and I was teaching a weekly class called Practicing the Presence of the Goddess in my living room. Continue reading “My Near-Death Experience, Or How I Met the Goddess Face to Face By Barbara Ardinger”
Every year when the cherries, pears, plums, and apple trees begin to bloom, I go out walking. I look for every spot in my vicinity where white and pink blossoms are blooming in exquisite profusion like foam on an ocean. Every year I take photographs, even though I already have so many. I walk at every hour of the day because, as the light changes, the colors change. I have albums and albums of pictures of my beloveds, the trees.
For me, the apple and cherry trees are a manifestation of Goddess. Of course, everything is a manifestation of Goddess, but these, for me, have an extra measure of that life-giving beauty and abundance I associate with the indwelling Presence in the cosmos. My enjoyment of the blossoms is both a sensual appreciation of the gorgeousness of Being and a poignant awareness that they will not last forever. Sometimes these glories manifest for me as feminine, sometimes as masculine, and sometimes just as Life itself.
Continue reading “Spring Blossoming: The Holy Orchard as Goddess by Jill Hammer”
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
is an antidote to suffering.
“This is my church”
He said,
not for the first time.
I nodded.
He and I are almost
always in agreement
when it comes
to plants
and people.
Feminism and Religion 