In the News – Page 5 – Feminism and Religion

The Wave: Poems from Hurricane Helene by Annelinde Metzner

For 37 years, I have resided with awe and delight in the Appalachian Mountains near Asheville, North Carolina. With gratitude for the palpable strength and ageless beauty of the great mountains down to the tiniest ephemeral flowers, I have poured out poetry and music in honor of Her and my life here. In one day (or three, including the days of rain leading up,) Her pristine beauty and the homes and lives of thousands were destroyed by the violent winds and rain of Hurricane Helene. I was dropped into a deep well of grief, which I still experience to this day. But something very ancient, basic and fundamental pushed me to write poems, astounded as I was by the events and human interactions around me. I hope these poems give you some sense of the experience.

Resistance Checklist: Do It Loud. Do It Quiet by Karen Tate

Despite what you’re hearing out there, because it’s outdated information just being repeated in the echo chamber, Trump did not win by a landslide. He has no legitimate mandate. As of this writing one percentage point of the population separates how many votes each candidate got in this election and counting has not finished.

Many of us might still be recovering from the election disappointment and we’re trying to find our way forward. Consider this:

“Many of us have been brought up on stories of praying to God the Father to save us, waiting for our prince to come, submitting to the greater wisdom of our husband or priest to guide us. We need to move from this way of being, into our own agency. But we must also recognise that we cannot do it all, nor do it alone, in the martyr mother myth so many of us have learned to embody.
This is not the time for being nice, biting our tongues or not rocking the boat. And yet these are also not times for making enemies or picking fights. Can we find other ways of engaging and challenging, visioning and contributing to transformation? What might these look like?” From Weaving Our Way Beyond Patriarchy – a compendium of over 80 women’s voices, launching today exclusively from Womancraft Publishing. com

Kamala Gave us a Tremendous Gift by Karen Tate

So I’m going to assume my readers don’t think meditation is a gateway for the devil to enter our minds and it’s not too woke. I mean, it’s a pretty mainstream practice these days going way back. Meditation originated in India, a very long time ago. According to the Live and Dare website, the oldest documented evidence of the practice of meditation are wall arts in the Indian subcontinent from approximately 5,000 to 3,500 BCE, showing people seated in meditative postures with half-closed eyes. In fact today it’s a recommended self help tool and who among us didn’t need some self help after November 5?

So, I was doing a guided meditation and this figure comes toward me and hands me a box with a key inside but the meditation ended without my knowing what the key symbolized. Then a few days later I was in another meditation circle and that box and key reappeared, only this time I got the message. The key was certainty. The key reminded me of a period in my life, some of my darkest days, when the road ahead was not clear, everything I’d planned for my life seemed gone and I had every reason to despair. I felt those feelings again as I touched the key in the meditation, but I also felt that glimmer of certainty I had back then that if I just kept making my famous lists, putting one foot in front of the other, following my logic, everything would work out and in the end, it did. Actually, in the end, there were even unexpected gifts in the troubles. Call it my Higher Self, my Soul, God, Goddess, my intuition – whatever – I was being reminded in those guided meditations of my ability to persevere. Of my resilience. That good things are ahead and there are gifts in the suffering and challenges if we are willing to see them.

Thanksgiving by Beth Bartlett

When I offered to write the FAR post for Thanksgiving a month ago, I had no idea how difficult I would find that task to be. I suppose I had a different vision of what these days would be like. I had no idea how heartsick and wordless I would become in the wake of a second and even more bizarre and dangerous Trump presidency. It hardly feels like a time for celebrating a national holiday.

Thanksgiving in the United States and the colonies before has gone through several iterations – from the mythologized feast of the Puritan colonists in Plymouth, Massachusetts with the indigenous Wampanoag following the successful corn harvest – corn the Wampanoag had taught the Puritans how to plant after half of them had starved to death the previous winter; to George Washington’s Thanksgiving proclamation giving thanks for the successful ratification of the US Constitution; to Abraham Lincoln in 1863 acceding to Sarah Josepha Hale’s 36-year quest to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday — “to heal the wounds of the nation.” Goddess knows we could use that now, but it seems farther out of reach than ever.

Lesser known is the proclamation of a day of thanksgiving by the Massachusetts Bay Company to celebrate their defeat of the Pequot nation following the Pequot Wars of 1636-1638 in which most of the Pequot peoples were killed or enslaved, giving rise to many indigenous peoples observing Thanksgiving as a National Day of Mourning.

Harris Could Not Outrun 2000 Years of Patriarchy by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

I made this poster 8 years ago and am devastated to have to dust it off again. The safety pins came from a British idea when Brexit was passed. People would wear the safety pins on their clothes to let anyone feeling vulnerable know that they would be “safe” with them.

The political finger pointing for Harris’ loss is beyond noxious. I have heard all manner of scapegoats; Biden, the Obamas, VP candidate Walz, Harris for saying too much of one thing, not enough of another, the progressives, Liz Cheney and even George Clooney. . . .blah blah blah

How can we make sense of a world where women voted for a misogynistic abuser. Black and brown people voted for a white supremist. Latinos voted for a policy of mass deportations targeting their brethren. Youth voted for a climate denier affecting their future. And so on. Think of all the women who voted for a world where they, their daughters and their granddaughters can be denied basic healthcare. It’s a true-to-life Cinderella scenario whose stepmother cut the toes off her own daughters to please a prince. Or Chinese mothers who would bind their own’s daughter’s feet, thereby crippling them in the service of marriage.

Dear Anti-Harris Progressives: Here’s how to help Palestine (and the economy, and everything else) by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

First, understand without doubt: I agree with the anti-genocide protesters (and the progressives who are frustrated about our rigged economy). I couldn’t agree more that we need an arms embargo against Israel. I support the progressives who are protesting at Harris rallies, saying they refuse to vote for any candidate who does not commit to an arms embargo, so that no more US arms will be sent to wage ethnic cleansing against the civilians (mostly women and children) of Palestine. Harris has advocated for a ceasefire, she has met with the protesters, and she has responded politely to their protests against the genocide. But when they continue to chant that they won’t vote for her, she responds, “You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”

I do not like the hand we’ve been dealt. Our democracy, always deeply flawed, has become increasingly weak and unstable. In fact, many professors and analysts increasingly define the US as a plutocracy – governed by and for the top 1%, in which the average citizen has little to no voice or impact on policies. Monopolies have consolidated in order to help destroy democracy, driving costs of living up and wages down. The Military Industrial Complex, with its staggering domination of the international markets, has locked the US into endless war, often in support of autocracies over democracies. And the same billionaires who are causing climate change, are investing in high tech solutions to save themselves from the apocalypse while the rest of us go extinct or become their slaves.

An Incantation for 2024, USA by Marie Cartier

-please repeat and/or use in ritual, if needed

There was a time (there was a time)

We were waiting for something (we were waiting for something)

We were wanting something (we were wanting something)

We needed it to be different (we needed it to be different)

We were. We are. We are here: this is it.

We want something. We want something. We need something. We need something.

There was a time when we could make something happen.

Women’s Bodies As Battlefield by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote in the introduction to her book The Women’s Bible:

The Bible teaches that woman brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgement seat of Heaven, tried, convicted and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity, a period of suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependent on man’s bounty for all her material wants . .

We are facing the long-term results of these biblical writings. This upcoming election is so unsettling because it is showing patriarchy in all its ugliness. We see how this is being played out, especially regarding abortion, but in all areas of the functioning of women’s bodies. The reason abortion is at the foundation of it all is that the drive to police women’s bodies is the crux which justifies all sorts of cruelties. It is the same with racism. These are issues that span the pantheon of rights; human, economic, healthcare, bodily autonomy. It takes a police state to quell all of these.

Censored Angel: Anthony Comstock’s Nemesis. A Novel by Joan Koster

“I would lay down my life for the cause of sex reform, but I don’t want to be swept away. A useless sacrifice.” Ida C. Craddock, Letter to Edward Bond Foote, June 6, 1898

In 1882, Ida C. Craddock applied to the all-male undergraduate school of University of Pennsylvania. With the highest results on the entrance tests, the faculty voted to admit her. But her admission was rejected by the Board of Trustees, who said the university was not suitably prepared for a female. (U of P only became co-ed in 1974)

With her aspirations blocked, Ida left home determined to leave her mark on women’s lives by studying and writing about Female Sex Worship in early cultures. At the time, little information was available to women about sexual relations. To do her research, Ida resorted to having male friends take books forbidden to females, such as the Karma Sutra, out of the library for her.

An unmarried woman, she turned to spirituality and the practice of yoga, a newly introduced practice to the American public at the time, as a way to learn about sex. In her journals, she describes her interaction with angels from the borderlands, and in particular, her sexual experiences with Soph, her angel husband through what was likely tantric sex.

On Being Apolitical or Neutral by Karen Tate

I believe we are all One and part of the cosmic web. Chaos theory, the butterfly wings moving in Oregon can affect a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Or quantum entanglement, two or more objects can affect each other no matter how far apart they are. Yes, we are all inter-connected whether we believe or understand it. So the crazy neighbor or uncle we can’t stand and roll our eyes every time they spew sh*t out of their mouth, well they are part of us. As are rich and poor, black and white, male/female/trans, Left and Right, American and French, Christian and Pagan, educated and less educated, religious and atheist, etc. If we are more tolerant and inclusive, if we focus on love, joy and being in the grace of the Light we might evolve or ascend as so many are talking about these days. The “deplorables” like the uncle or neighbor would do better if they knew better.

Can you remember when you had the self awareness to know you just didn’t know what you didn’t know? They don’t yet. I think, we, as a part of them, we have to “hold space” and move forward in love until they educate themselves, self correct and rein in their hate or bad behavior or thoughts. As One, it’s as if one of our appendages is broken. We don’t cut it off. We tend it until it’s healed and healthy through all the pain and physical therapy. Eventually we’re whole.

Unless this “part of us” is threatening our way of life…