Healing – Page 12 – Feminism and Religion

Christmastime for the Self by John Erickson

We’ve all been there.

Sitting around the tree watching the kids open presents. Attempting to enjoy a holiday meal with extended and immediate family that you may or may not have traveled thousands of miles to see. Trying with every fiber of your being to not talk about the elephant, or red hat, in the room.

We’ve all been there.

Alyssa Edwards

I get it. It is hard to not go home for the holidays. It’s also hard to sit at home and watch every one of your friends post online about their dinners, get-togethers, and other joyous events while you sit at home. I also understand that many of us, as a result of our sexual and/or gender identity, or maybe our political preference, don’t feel comfortable going home or, can’t go home. This is not ok and that is why it is so important that we all have our chosen families to be with during these times of communal gathering or more importantly, ways to cope while we are at home in these uncomfortable situations to make sure we take care of ourselves and make it out the other end.

Because this blog comes out on Christmas Day, I wanted to give you a few tips that I do to self-care in these situations. Remember, there is no right or wrong thing to do. I encourage you all to make your own list. The only thing that matters is you take care of yourself!

John’s Top 5 Tips for Dealing with “Those” People

Your car is your friend – Seriously, I cannot count the # of times that I have found myself driving around for that extra 5 minutes to just collect my thoughts or calm myself down. If you need to, jump out to your car and sit back and relax for a second or drive to a gas station (Kwik Trip in Wisconsin is my go-to) and pick up a soda to drink.
Drink (if you can) – look, I know not everyone drinks (or is from Wisconsin) but sometimes you just need to make yourself a cocktail (responsibly). However, if you are going to drink, remember that old adage: loose lips sink ships. If you get too loose, you may say something you regret (or didn’t plan on saying; I’ve been there).
Bathroom Sanctuary – Sometimes you may not need to use the restroom but you need a place to go and just lock the door, check Facebook, call a friend, or simply breath. The bathroom is the perfect place to do that. Find it. Use it (even if you don’t have to).
Dinner Conversation – Before I go anywhere, I always brush up on a few facts. How are the Packers doing? How about the Milwaukee Bucks? Can you believe they STILL haven’t finished that construction? No matter if you’re traveling somewhere near or far, if you think you need to make sure you can participate in dinner conversation without bringing up the two forbidden topics (Politics and Religion), then do so!
Push Back – Ok, sometimes it is ok to engage. I mean, how are we ever going to get out of this great divide if we don’t talk to each other. Now, that doesn’t mean it will go over or there will be some type of magical aha moment but it is ok to say something, especially when your crazy Aunt/Uncle/Cousin/Second Cousin/Random Friend of Cousin who no one invited starts spouting off some nonsense (like Mexico paying for Trump’s wall because that just isn’t going to happen). If you feel safe enough to push back and say something, especially when someone if being completely and totally rude and inappropriate, always make sure you have an exit strategy. That is either a friend you can call, a room you can go to, or a nap you suddenly want to take. No matter what, if you do choose to engage always remember to a.) Speak calmly and slowly at all times (Republicans are triggered when you yell and provide them with too many facts too fast); b.) Make direct eye contact; c.) Make sure you always have something to take a long sip from afterward to prove you made your point.

I have to admit, I am quite lucky. I know I have written a lot on this site about what has happened to my family since the election of the Fascist-in-Chief. Luckily for me, I surround myself during these times with people who openly love me, my views (for the most part), and allow me to be myself, or simply, we just don’t talk about “it” because they clearly know now that we were right about Trump and his cronies. I don’t have to use these tips because the people they apply to, don’t really come around our holiday gatherings.

However, if there is one thing that I learned, it is that this election has cost us each something. Whether that was a friend, family member, or a part of yourself that you never think you’ll be able to get back, we need to respect these losses and the pain that comes with them. I promise you that it will get better (heck, better starts on January 3, 2019). We have a long way to go until 2020 (I mean, a LONG way to go) but I know we will all get there together, one way or another because there are better Christmas and holidays to come where we won’t have to use these tips and tricks to survive anymore.

So, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! I’m thankful for each and every one of you this holiday season (unless you voted for Trump).

John Erickson is a Ph.D. Candidate in American Religious History and holds two MA’s from Claremont Graduate University. John serves as a commissioner on the California Commission on the Status of Women. He is President of the Hollywood Chapter for the National Organization for Women, a boardmember for the City of West Hollywood’s Lesbian and Gay Advisory Board, a board member for the ACLU of Southern California, the Legislative Action Chair for Stonewall Democratic Club, and a board member for the National Organization for Women.

Crow and The Pornographic Gaze by Sara Wright

Once she believed that
it was her fault
they came on to her,
that she owed them
something…
They owned her?
Secretly the
girl was pleased
because any kind of attention
was better than none,
or being so “different” –
stitched into an Indian skin.

She was a pretty shell,
an abandoned spiral
worn down by waves –
assaulted from within
by the pornographic gaze.
How she hated being young. Continue reading “Crow and The Pornographic Gaze by Sara Wright”

Lei by Elisabeth Schilling

Mauro Drudi’s installation of LEI (SHE/HER/YOU – formal) in the Chiesa de San Cristoforo on the Sicilian island of Ortigia where I usually take a bus to daily has become the shrine of women I’ve been searching for. Each time I cry, I am glad I can feel something: those tears are a mixture of communion, comfort, and recognition.

When one enters the church, there are two converging walls. On either side, a woman’s face is painted in shadow and light, gazing off toward the light, is reproduced over and over so that the number of women looks almost countless. They are the same face, a reproduction of Antonello da Messina’s “Annunziata” in the mode of pop art. The difference is not in expression. They all wear the same thoughtful, complicated, neutral countenance, holding deep thoughts and experiences of suffering and wise knowing, both acceptance and maybe resistance; they have lived and might be any age, although I see in our connection my own. The difference is between glossy, unblemished surfaces of wood vs. surfaces weathered, slightly ragged, sometimes scribbled on with ink. The former, found on the right when one enters supposedly represents the “positive” woman, the “western woman [. . . representing someone] happy, gorgeous, well-kept.” On the left, about these representations, Drudi says, “Which artist can paint the skin of a woman who has been abused, beaten, exploited, captivated or disfigured with acid? In my opinion, nobody, and so I let the material speak: the wall of a beach hut destroyed by a storm; woods and materials used and abused [. . .]; exhausted panels deriving from carrying tons of goods, tables, packagings, production wastes.”

Continue reading “Lei by Elisabeth Schilling”

A Total Eclipse of the Moon by Carol P. Christ

The morning after the July 27 total eclipse of the moon, I wrote:

I am a-mazed and still in awe. Last night I saw the eclipse and the blood moon from my favorite tavern in Pachia Ammos. We pulled the table out from the roof shelter and positioned our chairs so that we were looking at the high mountains where the moon came up, almost full, the night before. The mountains are sheer exposed rock that seems to have risen up from the sea. In the evening light they were bathed in the rose glow of the setting sun.

I read that the eclipse would last from 8: 22 until 2: 28, but at 8: 22 the moon was still hidden behind the mountains. Soon someone shouted, “it’s coming,” pointing to lacy clouds capping one of the peaks that had suddenly become luminescent. The clouds disappeared leaving only a faint light emerging from behind the mountain. When the moon finally rose about 9, the eclipse had already begun. It looked like someone had taken a small bite from the lower left side of a cookie. It was very white and there was no sign of the promised red moon. Mars was positioned to the lower right of the moon, so large and so bright I had mistaken it for Saturn a few nights earlier. Continue reading “A Total Eclipse of the Moon by Carol P. Christ”

Small Victories by Sara Frykenberg

Last year was a hard year. I wrote about this difficulty—vaguely eluding to challenges of environment, home, and work—in my last post. In this blog, which was a copy of my reflection for our last faculty meeting of the year, I asked my colleagues and myself: should I take the year apart or find thoughts that will help us put ourselves back together again in the fall? I am pretty good at taking things apart. But returning to school in less than a week, I find myself most concerned with the latter question: have I put myself back together again? Have I found these thoughts?

I have slept more, but am I rested?

I have taken space, but am I ready to be close again?

I don’t know. But I am beginning to find the answers, the fragments of thought, in my small victories.

Bringing my panic to ‘get it together’ before school starts to my brother, he said to me: “You have a stubborn Taurus heart.” He’s right. My Taurus moon, which tends towards obstinacy, perfectly suits my Libra (in)decisiveness. I might have a lot of trouble coming to a decision, but once I have, you better believe that I am going to hold onto that decision—particularly in matters of the heart. I tend to hold onto anger too, problematically. I once lived an entire year in perpetual rage. But, I eventually had to let it go to learn how to breathe again (literally and figuratively). This summer has also been a practice in breathing; and the process feels at best, incomplete. Continue reading “Small Victories by Sara Frykenberg”

Gardening through Grief by Marie Cartier

A friend of mine has been in hospice with Alzheimer’s. And she died today. There will be a day when I write about Barbara… what a great friend she was. How I hate that she is no longer in my life. How I know how hard it is for her spouse to lose her. How hard it is when someone so vibrant leaves your community.

But writing about her was not what I could do today. And today is when I had this blog due. I decided after I learned that she had passed – to garden. Barbara used to help my wife water the garden. It was something comforting and familiar and useful that she did with us.

Continue reading “Gardening through Grief by Marie Cartier”

Haiku Getaway by Esther Nelson

One of my undergraduate professors was (and still is) a haiku enthusiast. When I took his Zen Buddhism course, students were required to write haiku throughout the semester. He encouraged us to focus on the natural world as we struggled to come up with three lines of seventeen syllables, arranged in a five-seven-five pattern. I eventually discovered lots of pleasure creating a haiku poem—crisp, even stark—using words with a precision I found beautiful.

I recently spent some time in North Carolina (from the Outer Banks to Asheville), treating myself to a short vacation after finishing up the Spring semester. In spite of good intentions, I have failed over and over again to keep a detailed journal while traveling. On this trip, I made a vow to write at least one haiku a day. I kept that vow.

Writing haiku daily forced me to be mindful of my surroundings, reflect on my experience, and then use carefully-chosen words to capture the moment. That mindfulness created a glue of sorts, anchoring me in time and place. To my delight, have found this trip lingering in my memory in ways that other trips have not. Continue reading “Haiku Getaway by Esther Nelson”

Priestess at the Crossroads by Joyce Zonana

In order to transform what is happening at the Mexico/U.S. “border” (and elsewhere) we must first break down the borders within our heads—all the borders in all our heads. Mr. Trump tells us “If you don’t have Borders, you don’t have a Country”; my response today is: “Who needs countries? Who needs genders? Who needs races or competing religions? What we need is Coatlicue.”

jz-headshot As so many of us recoil in horror at the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to enforce an impenetrable border between the U.S. and Mexico, I find myself struggling to understand what he and his supporters mean by “borders,” and why they are so invested in maintaining them. The administration’s vicious immigration policy, recently epitomized in a brief tweet on June 19^th, 2018—Juneteenth, the day in 1865 when slaves were finally freed throughout the U.S. at the end of the Civil War—“If you don’t have Borders, you don’t have a Country” has sent me back to Gloria Anzaldúa’s visionary 1987 book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza.

Grounded in her experience as a queer mestiza raised in the Texas/Mexico borderlands, Anzaldúa’s bilingual, cross-genre manifesto argues for the transformative role of the mestiza, no longer “sacrificial goat” but “officiating priestess at the crossroads”:

Continue reading “Priestess at the Crossroads by Joyce Zonana”

Witches in the Weeds by Sara Wright

In folklore Old women are believed to control all aspects of Nature – Fire, Earth, Air and Water, but in myth and story they have a special relationship with water.

The title “witches in the weeds” emerged after I did some research on the Datura plant. This plant is usually associated with old women and sorcery in myth and story. For example, in European mythology, the dark goddesses, Hecate, and Baba Yaga are associated with Datura. Datura is considered to be a ‘witch weed’ and is categorized as a poison along with deadly nightshade, henbane and mandrake. The seeds and flowers have a history of creating visions, delirious states, and causing death. Datura thrives in wilderness areas. Old women, dark goddesses and Datura have a lot in common.

Women and birds have been associated since Neolithic times. Scholar and mytho-archeologist Marija Gimbutas unearthed many bird-women sculptures that were fashioned out of clay in “Old Europe”. Old women in particular are most often associated with owls, herons, crows, ravens, and black birds of all kinds. It is probably the relationship between women and birds that is one of the roots behind the belief that old women can fly. The other root behind flight can probably be found in the relationship between women healers and the plants they used. Plants like Datura contain alkaloid properties (scopolamine, hyoscyamine, and atropine) that are capable of producing visions of flight and are used by folk healers and medicine women and men. Continue reading ” Witches in the Weeds by Sara Wright”

The Blessing of Spiritual Direction by Elise M. Edwards

Five years ago, I moved to Texas from California. In that time, my spiritual practice and my feminist and womanist worldview has grown through contemplative practices. It’s ironic. “Everything’s bigger in Texas!” the saying goes, but in the presence of big, sweeping landscapes and open skies, big storms, and big egos, I’ve found the sacred in the small things. I have deepened my connection to God through a small group of women who practice group spiritual direction.

This past Sunday evening, I gathered with these women at my church for our spiritual direction group. We sat comfortably in a circle, relaxing on a couch and chairs around a coffee table, as the evening sun streamed in from a large picture window and lit the room. As we read a passage from the Bible (Mark 3:34-35) in which Jesus looks at the people sitting around him and says, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother,” I saw my companions more clearly. Although my eyes were closed, I had a vision of these women sitting around me, halos made of sunbeams shimmering over their heads. I thought, “Here are my sisters!”

Continue reading “The Blessing of Spiritual Direction by Elise M. Edwards”