Herstory – Page 21 – Feminism and Religion

Mountain Mother: Earth, Woman, Goddess (Part 2) by Jeanne F. Neath

Part 1 was posted yesterday.

In Part 2 we’ll complete our travels into Mountain Mother’s realms, as we explore female-centered economics and spiritualities as a means toward creating earth- and female-centered communities and small-scale societies.

Imagine living on Turtle Island prior to 1492. At that time Indigenous peoples had been living in respectful relationship to nature, tending her for thousands of years. European invaders and colonists were amazed by the abundance, but assumed they were seeing wild nature. These were subsistence societies! People’s needs were met by the Earth, her plants, animals, waters, and human efforts. No one charged a fee. Everything was a gift.

Mountain Mother: Earth, Woman, Goddess (Part 1) by Jeanne F. Neath

Growing up in the 1950s in the U.S. I was deeply immersed, trapped like so many girls and women, in capitalist, colonizing, patriarchy. I rescued myself in the 1970s when I jumped head first into the Women’s Liberation movement. I found that the currents pushing communities of women were wild at times, yet taking me where I wanted to go. At that time, it was possible to live one’s life, as I did, largely within this subculture and its women’s dances, bookstores, battered women’s shelters, women of color organizations, festivals, land groups and more. These female-centered and female-only spaces gave women a gut level knowledge of what a world without patriarchy could be like. We could imagine a female-centered world because we were, in many respects, living in one.

Thanks to a decades long assault by the right wing and other anti-feminist forces, women’s spaces became difficult to access. Now the grassroots women’s movement is making a comeback. Over 50 years of second wave feminist thought, research and organizing inform our work. Women’s communities are on the rise. These communities have the potential to become the base for an earth- and female-centered future, as I’ll discuss below.

Listening to One Another: Part Two by Beth Bartlett

Part 1 was posted yesterday.

What are the conditions necessary to foster an environment in which we can truly listen to one another across differences? Gathering insights from many perspectives[i], Alison Jaggar outlined the essential conditions for what she called Feminist Practical Discourse or FPD. These include: 1) the creation of opportunities for participants to talk about their own lives, stressing the importance of first-person narratives and of others listening; 2) the equal importance of each person’s experience; 3) an openness to reevaluating one’s perspective; 4) the inclusion of people whose lives are different from our own and each other’s, especially those whose public voices have been most marginalized; 5) a nurturant, rather than an antagonistic environment, while still allowing for respectful disagreement; 6) participant qualities of self-discipline, responsibility, sensitivity, respect, and trust; and 7) the motivation of care and friendship.

Listening to One Another: Part One by Beth Bartlett

“Listen is such a little, ordinary word that it is easily passed over. Yet we all know the pain of not being listened to, of not being heard.“[i]

“You heard me. You heard me all the way.” So goes the oft-quoted statement of one of the participants in a consciousness-raising (CR) group in which feminist theologian Nelle Morton participated. It is a testimony to the power of what happens in CR groups – of hearing each other into speech. “When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow with us and come to life,” wrote Brenda Ueland, the first female journalist in Minneapolis.[ii] This was the blossoming born of CR groups, where women began to discover truths long buried and watch them unfold and come to life.

The Circle of Giving and Receiving by Sara Wright

Yesterday my Vet and I created our version of the Indigenous Tewa Seed Ceremony, something I have not done since living in New Mexico (except to honor the Seed Moon). We didn’t plan to make an exchange of plants and seeds on earth day because neither of us believe or thought about it – (either do Indigenous peoples) – every day is earth day – so it just ‘happened’ on the day before the Seed Moon becomes full.

After giving Gary a very special heirloom scarlet runner bean sprout of mine (and seeds) along with the rest of ‘his’ plants that I had been nurturing for months, we also split up a sedum to share, one that he had given me in the hospital last fall, closing another circle of giving and receiving.

It wasn’t until after we parted that I was struck by lightning. Visceral memories surfaced as I relived the Tewa Sacred Seed Ceremonies I had attended in NM, gradually coming to the realization that we had unwittingly participated in an ancient ceremonial exchange that may have originally extended back to Neolithic times.

Herstory Profiles: Love, Devotion, and Ecstasy in the life of Indian Poet Mirabai by Anjeanette LeBoeuf

Mira was born in Northwest India in 1498 CE. She is considered a 16^th Century Hindu Mystic, Poet, and Wandering Devotee of Krishna. Her relevance and importance is cemented in the moniker given to her of Bai. Bai, is a honorific ending which can also mean elder sister. Mirabai is quite known throughout India and even across religious traditions. She is a celebrated Bhakti Saint whose devotion to the god Krishna is now lauded and praised.

Mira was born into a Rathore Rajput Royal Family (in modern day Rajasthan). It is said that from the very young age of 5, Mira expressed her devotion to Krishna. Her upper caste status did allow Mira to have access to education and religious practice. But her status also came with forced responsibilities. Mira was forced into a marriage to the crown prince of Mewar and would become a widow five years later. Her father and father-in-law would also later die during the ongoing struggles with Babur, the first Mughal Emperor. As she was still considered part of the Mewari royal family, her remaining in-laws tried to assassinate her on multiple occasions. Some of the attempts included sending her a vial of poison disguised as nectar and a basket of flowers which contained poisonous snakes.

Ariadne and Me – Stumbling Toward the Divine by Arianne MacBean

The Sacred Myrtle Tree with its protective fence at Paliani Monastery

I went to Crete because I longed for some kind of communion with Ariadne. Each time I gathered in ritual with the women on my trip, I hoped She would speak to me, or that I would feel something and know that She was in me, or I within Her. At Paliani, I had these same wishes as I walked toward the over-1000-year-old sacred myrtle tree. Set back in the corner of the quiet convent, I was struck by the contrast between the tree’s black bark and surrounding black fence set against the hopeful flickering of silver ex-votos that filled each branch. I walked around the back of the tree on a slight upper landing and searched for a branch within reach. Finding a spot where I could rest my forearm, albeit awkwardly, I leaned in and waited for Her.

Life-Giving Blood by Michelle Bodle

“What did you think?” This question was posed to me by a young woman I am mentoring in ministry. After receiving The Book of Womanhood by Amy Davis Abdallah as a gift, she asked me to walk through the book and discuss it with her, as suggested in the introduction.

I inhaled deeply before replying that I thought Davis Abdallah was writing from a posture of privilege that she was completely unaware of – and that deeply troubled me.

Davis Abdallah’s premise is that Christian women need a rite of passage accompanying the journey of getting to know themselves. Piloted at the former Nyack College where Davis Abdallah taught, Woman was a program that sought to develop a Christian right of passage for women focused on relationships with God, self, others, and creation.

The Courage to Go Your Own Way by Caryn MacGrandle

My eleven-year-old daughter is regularly called a lesbian in the conservative Southern town that we live. Not because she has identified her gender, but because she does not dress the same as all of the other girls or wear any makeup. She wears linen baggy pants with casual t-shirts. And it is not as if the other girls are dressed more formally than her, but there is a ‘prescribed’ casual look that involves Lululemon and expensive sports casual clothing bought at stores like Dick’s Sporting Goods.

My daughter doodles a skeleton on her hand, and the girl next to her calls her ‘emo’ akin to pariah in the culture. The boy on the other side says, ‘why don’t you just go kiss a girl already. Faggot.’

My heart breaks when I hear her tell me these things.

‘Keep carving your own way. Fly,’ I silently entreat her.

RACHEL KADISH: TRANSCENDENCE AND TEXT, part 2 by Theresa C. Dintino

THE SYMBOL OF THE GENIZAH

Being a non-Jew, the first word I had to look up while reading The Weight of Ink was genizah—a hiding place or the act of hiding sacred texts until they can receive proper burial in the earth. In Jewish tradition this is a required honoring of the written word, especially if it is writing about God. It can also mean depository or treasure; something hidden away in time with hope for more welcome in the future that finds it.

Genizah was the perfect word for me to have etched into my mind with regard to The Weight of Ink as it set the stage and opened a space in my heart for a novel which concerns itself with the power of writing and words through time. The story is centered around human lives engaged in passionate intellectual pursuits, the love of books and learning, and imaginations set afire by the academic.