When I’m in a funk, I generally feed into it and make it worse. Once we are in a rut it is easy to continue the spiral downward. I’m good at admonishing myself for lacking gratitude when I feel this… Read More ›
Music
If Holly Near’s Simply Love Album Were a Musical by Lache S.
For many of us, listening to women-loving-women songs is a spiritual experience. That is because somehow it makes us feel seen, puts a sense of hope into our world as well as daydreams of romance. We can understand the challenges… Read More ›
Reclaiming Sacred Music by Mary Sharratt
Women Singing Earth by Mary Southard Here is a hymn of praise, a beautiful and intimate piece meant to be sung. Reader, I invite you to guess the author of this text and the sacred figure to whom this work is… Read More ›
Love a Good Fail, and Fiona Apple is my Liturgy this Morning by Lache S.
I am falling in love with failure. At least I’m trying. It is time I have to. We shouldn’t, lovely womyn, be short on our accomplishments. It doesn’t matter how slow going we’ve been, what we haven’t done yet, or… Read More ›
Lessons from Candide by Barbara Ardinger
Candide, ou l’Optimisme (in English, Candide, or Optimism) is a satirical, picaresque novel published in 1759 by François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, who was possibly the smartest author of the Age of Enlightenment…but he annoyed so many courtiers and… Read More ›
Protecting the Children, Jesus Christ Superstar Style by Marisa Goudy
“Where is my mother? I am thirsty.” My four year old is crooning quietly to her dolls. She is making sense of the crucifixion through play, asking her Disney princesses to stand in for Jesus, the Marys, and “the bad… Read More ›
My Heroine’s Journey: Writing Women Back in History by Mary Sharratt
We have been lost to each other for so long. My name means nothing to you. My memory is dust. This is not your fault or mine. The chain connecting mother to daughter was… Read More ›
Let’s Keep Dancing by Esther Nelson
My children remember when they were in elementary school, I played Simon and Garfunkel’s popular song, “I am a Rock” (written by Paul Simon), several times daily. I loved it. Stark and sad, yet brutally honest, the song reflected an… Read More ›
Rest and Renewal: Gifts of Women’s Ritual Dance by Laura Shannon
Samhain is past, and we in the northern hemisphere are once again entering the final outbreath of the solar year. At the winter solstice, light will be reborn. Until then, it is important to embrace the time of rest and… Read More ›
Drumming to the Universal Pulse in an Out of Sync World by Carolyn Lee Boyd
Beneath all being is a universal rhythm that is as deep as natural law and as easy to find as the beat of a drum. After giving up an early interest in percussion 50 years ago when a school music… Read More ›
A Movement Needs A Song by Esther Nelson
I’m back in Las Cruces, New Mexico, spending the break between semesters in the spot where I plan to eventually retire. When I was here last summer (2016), I visited the Unitarian Universalist Church so decided to join the people… Read More ›
“Tricolor Mary: Encountering Three Faces of the Divine Feminine” by Simone Grace Seol
I always felt curiously distant from the figure of Mary. I always sensed that there is so much there and yet, I could never connect to it emotionally. The foil to Eve, vessel of Love, suffering mother. I wanted to… Read More ›
It is Over, It is Just Beginning by Kate Brunner
“In this nation of thinkers and philosophers, poets and artists, idealists and enthusiasts, the world will recognize nothing but a people of conquerors and destroyers. …we are neither loved nor respected, but only feared. We are deemed capable of every… Read More ›
#NastyWomen Not Ready to Play Nice by Marie Cartier
I have blogged on this site about Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and my support of her for president of the United States, in several FAR posts this past year: here, here and here. So—this is my last post regarding her campaign before… Read More ›
I Am A Woman’s Poet by Marie Cartier
This is the first poem I ever wrote and had published. I wrote it in the early 80s at the height of the second wave of Women’s Liberation. Having just returned from the final Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, I publish… Read More ›
Gretchen Before and After by Natalie Weaver
In May, I attended the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra’s presentation of Berlioz’ Damnation of Faust. This work, featuring four soloists, a full choir and orchestra, and a children’s choir, was first performed in Hungary in 1846. Its composition was inspired by… Read More ›
Miley Cyrus and the Happy Hippie Foundation by Deanne Quarrie
I almost got in a big fight with my son on Facebook yesterday. I posted a link to an article talking about the work that Miley Cyrus is doing for homeless teenagers. He immediately responded to my post by calling… Read More ›
Gretchen at Her Spinning Wheel by Natalie Weaver
In my continuing music education, I was recently introduced to Schubert’s Gretchen am Spinnrade (hear, for example, Renee Flemming’s performance of this work). The song is a setting of Goethe’s poem “Gretchens Stube,” in which Gretchen, a poor but upright… Read More ›
Revolution Through Rituals by Jann Aldredge-Clanton
A revolution is happening through Divine Feminine rituals! More and more faith communities are reclaiming the power of the Divine Feminine in sacred rituals. Rituals move feminist theory and theology/thealogy from the head to the heart. Words and visual symbols… Read More ›
We Are Music by Natalie Weaver
When I was about eight years old, I dreamed one night that I stood inside the workings of an immense instrument, so big it filled the sky. It was crafted of wood and gold, and although there was no obvious… Read More ›
Hildegard: A Saint Eight Centuries in the Making
The visionary abbess Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) has long been regarded as a saint, with her feast day of September 17, yet she was only officially canonized in May 2012. Why did it take the Vatican over eight centuries to… Read More ›
Songs for the Soul by Elise M. Edwards
During the Christian season of Lent, many Christians focus on spiritual practices or disciplines that bring them closer to God. This year, I did not really engage in this type of reflection until the end of Lent. I have been… Read More ›
The Soul is Symphonic: Reclaiming Sacred Music
Here is a hymn of praise, a beautiful and intimate piece meant to be sung. Hail, O greenest branch, sprung forth on the breeze of prayers. . . . . a beautiful flower sprang from you which gave all parched… Read More ›
The Quiet Voice of the Frame Drum by Oxana Poberejnaia
Layne Redmond passed away on 28 October 2013. Days before her death I received by post her signature Lotus Tambourine which Layne developed with Remo, manufacturer of world frame drums. Remo posted a tribute to her on her page as… Read More ›
“Enlightened Sexism” and The Media: The Cultural Attack on Feminism by Michele Stopera Freyhauf
What is a feminist mother of four daughters to do these days? Look at our media and how girls and women are portrayed to our daughters, teens, and young adults. Then take a look at how media portrays the face… Read More ›
“Stand Up Straight” by Kelly Brown Douglas
When I was little my mother use to always tell me to “stand up straight.” It is probably because of my mother’s plea that one particular bible story became one of my favorites. It is a story that comes from… Read More ›
Eco-Theology and the Dave Matthews Band by Gina Messina-Dysert
Feminist theologian Sallie McFague argues that we must give the earth the attention it is due and recognize its subjectivity rather than having an arrogant viewpoint that assumes we have the right to control the planet. She states that by refusing… Read More ›
Having the world “in a jug with the stopper in your hand” by Kelly Brown Douglas
When we were growing up, my dad would often exclaim to my sisters, brother and me, “You got the world in a jug with the stopper in your hand.” He most often said this when he noticed us indulging in… Read More ›
The Original Art by Elise M. Edwards
Storytelling is the original art as the desire to communicate is a common thread of all the other arts. I started reflecting on the stories – through various mediums–that have shaped me, and I wanted to use my post today… Read More ›
Silencing Miriam: Prophetess, Liberator, and Leader By Michele Stopera Freyhauf
The prophetess Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, while all the women went out after her with tambourines, dancing; and she led them in the refrain: Sing to the LORD, for he is gloriously triumphant; horse and… Read More ›
