Herstory – Page 62 – Feminism and Religion

Brigit and Patricia: Comrade-Women by Elizabeth Cunningham

Brigit is my comrade-woman
Brigit is my maker of song
Brigit is my helping-woman
My choicest of women, my guide

Brigit, celebrated by pagans and Christians alike on February 1, is a goddess who knows how to incarnate. When Christianity came to Ireland, she became a saint without missing a beat and without giving up any of her reputation for healing, poetry, or smith crafting, for being the keeper of the sacred flames and wells. The verse above is one of my favorites from “The Blessing of Brigit,” several versions of which are recorded in Alexander Carmichael’s Carmina Gadelica, Hymns and Incantations Collected in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland in the Last Century (which is to say the nineteenth!)

I adapted the verse and sang it in memory of author, educator, priestess, and visionary activist Patricia Monaghan who died November 11, 2012. Dawn Work-Makinne offered a beautiful tribute to Patricia’s life and work. Today I want to reflect on Patricia in relation to Brigit, a goddess Patricia researched and celebrated (look for the forthcoming anthology she edited with her husband, Michael McDermott Brigit: Sun of Womanhood)—and whose spirit she embodied as vigorously as the legendary Saint Brigit of Kildare. Continue reading “Brigit and Patricia: Comrade-Women by Elizabeth Cunningham”

Patterns for the New Year by Sara Frykenberg

Life last year continually pushed me to figure out how I should care for those close to me while also caring for myself. I have been pushed to see the difference between myself and other people: their choices and my own. This is perhaps, the most difficult challenge I faced in the first year of the Age of Aquarius… and life has been an unrelenting teacher.

Happy 2013! Or a statement more accurate to my feelings: Happy end of 2012! Last year around this time, I wrote a post entitled: Celebrating the Beginning of the Aquarian Age. The push to evolve was and is very exciting to me. This shifting astrological paradigm challenges us to break away from those habits and patterns that no longer serve us. But excited as I am, I have to admit that the first year of the Age of Aquarius really kicked my butt.

Did last year feel exceptionally difficult for anyone else out there? I really felt like I couldn’t catch a break for the entirety of 2012. This is not to say that my year was simply filled with loss and grief, though I am dealing with loss and a great deal of grief. But some really great things happened last year too, which I celebrated, but also found extremely difficult to manage. Many of my roles and relationships radically changed in ways that were more difficult than I expected or wanted. Riding the Aquarian tides, I felt tossed about and was often confused. I kept telling myself: just hang on. Just hang on, because you are not alone riding these cosmic waves. Hang on, because you will learn how to swim in these new waters.

Therefore, in honor of the New Year, I would like to take this opportunity to evaluate and strategize for my how.

I am not usually one for making new years’ resolutions. The cultural rhetoric surrounding resolutions either presupposes failure or relates success to the amount of money you spend to achieve a goal. Yet today I find myself considering how I approached last years’ challenges, successfully and unsuccessfully. I have concluded that I need to create more life giving patterns and habits in 2013. Many things I am doing now, my coping mechanisms and my defenses, can no longer meet my needs. So, I guess I am making resolutions. I, however, prefer to say that I am actively hope-ing to evolve my praxis of living. ;) Thus, I set the following intentions for 2013: Continue reading “Patterns for the New Year by Sara Frykenberg”

Blessings for the New Year on Feminism and Religion by Marie Cartier

I remember being in Korea for the 2009 International Women’s World Congress with Hye Sook Hwang and Inhui Lee and many (many) others and realizing then in ways I had not before, how crucial feminist scholarly friendships are to not just my work –but my sanity. The way we see things and the way we talk about things makes sense in a way that many times the rest of the world does not make sense. I re-member, to use Mary Daly’s phrasing, Hye Sook’s Magu scholarship that awakened in me and many others the Goddess magic of Korea. I re-member Inhui’s work with the female shamans of Korea and their rituals to honor and memorialize with honor the “comfort” women—Korean women used as sexual slaves by the Japanese during World War II. I went to that conference on the urging of Hye Sook and came home from that conference with new lifelong friends—among them Inhui. At that time none of us were doctors—now we all are. Continue reading “Blessings for the New Year on Feminism and Religion by Marie Cartier”

SPECIAL AAR SERIES Part 2: Gamer-Player/ Gamer-Avatar: The Potential of a Video-Gaming Body by Sara Frykenberg with introduction and response by Mary Hunt

Introduction:

This is one of four papers presented in Chicago at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, November 17, 2012, in a session entitled “Feminism, Religion and Social Media: Expanding Borders in the Twenty-First Century,” organized by Gina Messina-Dysert and chaired by Rosemary Radford Ruether with Mary E. Hunt as the respondent. What follows is the general response followed by, after each of the contributions, Hunt’s appreciative analysis. The first paper was posted here on Feminism and Religion, and the other two papers are posted here and here on the Feminism in Religion Forum.

General Remarks by Mary Hunt:

The stated purpose of the panel is to discuss “how digital projects are remapping the feminist theological terrain and creating opportunities for a wide range of voices to participate in ongoing and new conversations related to feminist issues in religion.” These writers have done that and more. Continue reading “SPECIAL AAR SERIES Part 2: Gamer-Player/ Gamer-Avatar: The Potential of a Video-Gaming Body by Sara Frykenberg with introduction and response by Mary Hunt”

Every Woman has a Story by Gina Messina-Dysert

Recently, Carol Christ wrote about her experience of being interviewed for the Women’s Living History project at Claremont Graduate University. It is a project I have co-founded and am continuing to develop; I am grateful that Carol and others have offered their “herstories” to be archived. While I am not a historian, I do have a strong interest in women’s stories and with important reason…if we do not tell our stories, who will?

I first became interested in oral history during my doctoral program when I took a course with Claudia Bushman focused on women’s autobiography. It was a difficult time; my mother had passed away unexpectedly and I was consumed with grief. Because her death was premature – she was only 56 years old – I hadn’t prepared to lose her. I thought I had years to figure out all the things I would want to remember and pass on about my mom. Yet, she was gone and I could no longer ask her the many things I wanted to know, needed to know about her. Parts of her story would be lost forever and I did not know how to cope with that. Continue reading “Every Woman has a Story by Gina Messina-Dysert”

In Memoriam Patricia Monaghan: The Goddess Community Remembers and Mourns by Dawn Work-MaKinne

Patricia Monaghan, scholar, author, poet, activist, artist, visionary and vice-president of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology died early on November 11, 2012 after a two year journey with cancer. Patricia was one of the Founding Mothers of the Goddess Spirituality community in the United States, and her loss is a profound one for our spiritual and scholarly communities.

I was a very junior scholar when I first met Patricia in the 1990s. I had long admired her work, especially O Mother Sun!, her comprehensive study on sun goddesses. We were at a regional gathering, and Patricia had been deputed to lead a table of discussion devoted to Goddess scholarship. When we introduced ourselves, she simply said that she was Pat, from Chicago. Our discussion was rolling along when recognition hit. As I remember, I broke into the conversation. “You’re Patricia! From Chicago! “ I enthused. “Your work has been so important to me!” One of Patricia’s key characteristics was her generosity, especially with young and emerging scholars. I left that gathering with her email address, and I thought I was the richest young woman in the world. In the ensuing years, she encouraged me all the way through my doctorate. We had a long and joyous journey together. Continue reading “In Memoriam Patricia Monaghan: The Goddess Community Remembers and Mourns by Dawn Work-MaKinne”

The Mago Hedge School: Why Remember Mary Daly? By Helen Hye Sook Hwang

Prologue

By writing this, I do not intend to defend Mary Daly’s position in any dispute. A controversial figure, Mary Daly never let go of her fight with those whom she thought on the other side of her feminist war. Like anyone else in history, Mary Daly belonged to her time and culture, and I leave her unresolved issues up to her. What I write here is my fond memory of her, whose feminist thought left an indelible mark on my being as well as humanity as a whole. Daly’s contribution remains to be reassessed from the fresh eye of new generations. In the meantime, I begin to speak for my part. Without Mary Daly’s thought, I would not have been in this place where I stand right now. It has empowered me to actualize my dreams to the fullest as a wo/man who was born and raised in Korea but had come from the One Home in origin.

I first hear of the hedge school
“Have you heard of the hedge school, Hye Sook?” asked Mary. “No, I haven’t heard of it,” I answered. This conversation took place during the conference called the Feminist Hullaballoo held in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2007. We met there and spent three days as chums. Mary was with another friend, Yvonne Johnson, so the three of us hung out together. It was a very special time for me – I felt as if I were wrapped up in the eye of the storm. (In fact, my life feels so.) At the conference, someone asked me how I came to be invited as a featured speaker. I was among such renowned feminist speakers as Sonia Johnson, Paula Gunn Allen, and Mary Daly herself. They felt like giants to me. I told her that Mary Daly invited me. Mary had asked me if I would like to go and speak at that conference. I did not have an inflated ego. I would not have been hurt if I were not chosen. But I said “Yes” without hesitation. At the time, it felt like another one of the many “outlandish” adventures that I had undertaken throughout my life. In retrospect, however, this was a very special “Yes” to the beginning of my life’s new phase. Continue reading “The Mago Hedge School: Why Remember Mary Daly? By Helen Hye Sook Hwang”

The Changing Face of Christ in the Catholic Church by Janice Poss

Yesterday, as I have done for the last six years, I attended another ordination, an ordination that as the others has been two thousand years in the making. It was historic, it was Catholic; it was the new face of in persona Christi, the true ideal of Imago Dei. It was also a retrieval of our roots, of the other side of God. These ordinations make and bring God and Christ into integrated authentic wholeness and, therefore true holiness.

Yes, it was the ordination of two more women to the Catholic priesthood. This movement is real and has been going on now since 2003. The changing face of God and Christ is in women, their determination in their discernment as a ‘priestly’ people in living out the Gospel messages with which we are all too familiar and need to be ‘lived’ to make them real and felt in our Church. Continue reading “The Changing Face of Christ in the Catholic Church by Janice Poss”

Impotent* Rage by Sara Frykenberg

Rage, for me, feels intrinsically connected to instinct, like an uncontrollable urge to fight and fly all at the same time but with no place to flee and a need to literally, physically restrain myself from the “FIGHT,” or violence I don’t want to create.

Many feminist theorists talk about the value of anger and particularly, “women’s (diverse experiences of) anger” for consciousness raising, community building and healing. I remember considering this concept for the first time early in graduate school. I was both scared because I associated anger with abusive control; and curious, as I was finally learning to express this “bad” emotion. Overall, embracing anger taught me to speak up and break out of abusive spaces. But sharing this concept with students last semester and discussing the Bible’s descriptions of “God’s Wrath” this semester, I find myself considering levels of anger. When is or is rage appropriate? Some of the feminist theology I have read definitely advocates for a constructive relationship to rage. But many of my students, who can embrace the creative space of anger, had difficulty embracing this positive valuation of rage (even understanding that it is ‘what we do with our anger’ that counts). I have recently found myself facing my own rage… And I am not sure what to think.

I often consider anger a teacher. It shows me where my boundaries are being crossed or where injustices are rising. I have experienced mild anger that, when mediated through humor, has helped me laugh at life and struggle. I have experienced white-hot anger that left me unable to sleep or function “normally.” Betrayals have dragged me out of my bed early in the morning, seeking to run/ walk so that I could breathe and think at a pace that matched the beating of my heart. Continue reading “Impotent* Rage by Sara Frykenberg”

Why a Goddess Pilgrimage? by Carol P. Christ

What is a Goddess Pilgrimage and why are so many US, Canadian, and Australian women making pilgrimages to ancient holy places in Europe and Asia? The simple answer is that women are seeking to connect themselves to sources of female spiritual power that they do not find at home.

Traditionally pilgrims leave home in order to journey to a place associated with spiritual power. “Leaving home” means leaving familiar physical spaces, interrupting the routines of work and daily life, and leaving friends and family behind. For the pilgrim, “home” is a place that has provided both comfort and a degree of discomfort that provokes the desire to embark on a journey. The space of pilgrimage is a “liminal” or threshold space in which the supports systems of ordinary life are suspended, as Victor Turner said. A pilgrim chooses to leave the familiar behind in order to open herself to the unfamiliar—in hopes that she will return with new insight into the meaning of her life. Continue reading “Why a Goddess Pilgrimage? by Carol P. Christ”