Nature – Page 4 – Feminism and Religion

Finding Happiness Through Nature and Creativity by Judith Shaw

We live in difficult times. Daily we hear of culture wars, real wars, mass shootings, floods, fires and multiple other climate disasters and human clashes.

How on Earth can one maintain a positive outlook and experience genuine happiness? I’ve discovered a few activities that effectively pull me out of dwelling on past challenges or worrying about future uncertainties. These activities consistently guide me back to a state of inner peace and contentment.

From the Archives: Sacred Water by Molly Remer

This was originally posted on August 9, 2017

“Drinking the water, I thought how earth and sky are generous with their gifts and how good it is to receive them. Most of us are taught, somehow, about giving and accepting human gifts, but not about opening ourselves and our bodies to welcome the sun, the land, the visions of sky and dreaming, not about standing in the rain ecstatic with what is offered.”

–Linda Hogan in Sisters of the Earth

The women have gathered in a large open living room, under high ceilings and banisters draped with goddess tapestries, their faces are turned towards me, waiting expectantly. We are here for our first overnight Red Tent Retreat, our women’s circle’s second only overnight ceremony in ten years. We are preparing to go on a pilgrimage. I tell them a synopsis version of Inanna’s descent into the underworld, her passage through seven gates and the requirement that at each gate she lie down something of herself, to give up or sacrifice something she holds dear, until she arrives naked and shaking in the depths of the underworld, with nothing left to offer, but her life.

From the Archives: Every Bird in the Mountains: Wisdom for this Climate Moment by Tallessyn Zawn Grenfell-Lee

This was originally posted on April 17, 2o21

I found a bird’s nest the other day. A perfect, round little nest, with five pale blue speckled eggs. I’ve been working for several years to figure out how to support the birds who share our yard, with bird feeders, leaf litter and better soil for caterpillars and worms to feed the baby birds, yellow LED outdoor lights, and native plantings to attract more insects and pollinators. I knew that songbird populations are struggling, but lately I’ve learned even more about their truly worrying decline, and how we can all create ‘homegrown natural parks’ to help. It’s been a deep source of joy and hope, through the long pandemic, to see the tufted titmice, dapper chickadees, and bright red cardinals at our feeders, and the soft gray juncos hopping about on the ground. When we moved here a few years ago, a bird’s nest appeared right above the floodlight on our deck, and we got to see and hear the wee fledglings that spring, as if they were welcoming us to our common home. We loved those baby birds, and I’ve often wondered whether they are now among the visitors that seem drawn to the window feeder whenever we start to play music.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: The Flourishing of Life and Feminist Theology

This was originally posted on July 28, 2014

I first encountered the image and concept of “flourishing” in Grace M. Jatzen’s feminist philosophy of religion, Becoming Divine. For Jantzen “flourishing” is a symbol of a theology of “natality” or birth and life, which she contrasts to the focus on death and life after death in traditional Christian theologies.

Jantzen argues that the focus on death and life after death is a rejection of birth. Birth is rejected because birth through a body into a body implies finitude. Birth ends in death. Jantzen argues that embracing natality means embracing finitude and death.

From the Archives: Oakness as a Metaphor for the Wild Soul: the Dance Between Life Force, Personality and Original Nature by Eline Kieft

This was originally posted June 16, 2022

The process of fitting in and learning what is required to participate in society teaches us many useful skills such as math and language. All too often, this happens at the expense of developing expressive and intuitive abilities and trust in our unique contributions and points of view, or what I call the ‘Wild Soul’. This represents our original blueprint or essential spark that makes us into who we are.

Fire by Beth Bartlett

The nature and meaning of fire have been appearing in several disparate aspects of my life lately – in the fire of Celtic spring rituals; in books I’ve been reading[i]; in the fireflies of summer nights and the fireworks of the 4^th of July; even as a clue in a game; and most ubiquitous of all – the smoke from Canadian wildfires. So persistent a theme begs pondering. It first appeared in a Rewilding course as the sacred element of spring in the Celtic wheel of the year. Spring is the time of new beginnings, of the sunrise – the element of fire in the sacred direction of east, of the fires of passion and creativity, and the celebration of Beltane.

Integrating Snake Medicine Part 2

In Part 1 of this post, published yesterday, I described the first steps of my personal journey of soul recovery, including my first encounter with Green Snake, in statues, dreams and hypnotherapy. Those experiences led to choosing to tattoo Green Snake on my left arm. Read more about finding my Medicine and embracing my Golden Shadow as I stepped into an ancient lineage of Snake Healers.

Sometimes we encounter really sweet, or funny gems on the road of individuation… Let’s start with one like that!

Sweet Intermezzo (6 years ago…)

In the film The Matrix, Neo receives a message to “follow the White Rabbit.” Just before I met my partner, he encountered a live Green Snake slithering across a forest trail in Thailand, followed by a Neo-like dream to “follow the Green Snake.”

Integrating Snake Medicine Part 1

This post describes some of the steps on my personal journey of soul recovery across many, many years. It can be traced back to when I was 3 or 4 years old. Each header reflects a significant moment towards finding my Medicine and embracing my Golden Shadow of stepping into an ancient lineage of Snake Healers.

Although many of the steps created an immediate shift in my consciousness, this kind of individuation usually doesn’t happen overnight. I’m sharing it to honour the unfolding trails across time, and to encourage people to surrender to their journey, while letting go of a specific outcome. Part 2 will be published tomorrow.

Understory by Sara Wright

“If this isn’t the manifestation of the Great Goddess Greening the Earth I don’t know what is.” – Sara

Time stretches, folds back on herself as I gaze out the window squared by the four directions. A slanted sun glows golden green in early twilight. How comforting to see the trees rotting on the ground and new green wrapped all around me like a cape. The hemlock branches are almost black against the sun that sets early in the gorge. The phoebes are still – a few leaves flutter – lemon lime emerald – we haven’t names for all the impossible hues of green. I am suspended. All thought disappears into shadowy sheltering hemlock and pine against a darkening sky – the day is fading into twilight…. To be steeped in green is to be blessed by the trees who will get to live out their lives as Nature intended because of the people who cared enough to save these forests – a gift for all who see…. Beyond the window a steep gorge has sprung to life – jewelweed and oxalis bubbling out of stone. Crystalline water flows down the hillside…It is clear to me why springs were experienced as holy places. The crisscrossing of downed trees fallen under wind and winter weather is nourishing the next generation of seedlings. Fallen birches send anti- bacterial mycorrhizal mycelial fungal threads to protect other trees and plants from disease. We know almost nothing except that the skin of this precious earth holds the seeds of new life. No wonder I can sleep…\

From the Archives: Earth-Spirituality in the Qur’an and Green Muslims by Elisabeth S.

This was originally posted on March 14, 2017

There is some very helpful guidance in the Qur’an for how we should and should not treat the earth. In my exploration of Qur’anic verses on the environment, I have found a great deal of Earth-love that I want to share.

The first idea is that the earth is not ours to trash and misuse recklessly or indulgently. Sura 2:284 says, “Whatever is in the heavens and in the earth belongs to God.” This sentiment is found throughout the scriptures. Individual wealth and the practice of financial profit and salary as reward has given us the illusion that, if we’ve earned the cash, we can do with it whatever we like. We can buy anything we want, show it off, hoard it, and then trash it. How often do we quell our suffering or attachments through consumerism as if there were no consequences? But we need to begin to shift to the perspective of honoring the earth as not something we are entitled to or even deserve. If we are supposed to be stewards of the earth, then fine. But it seems that selfishness and personal gain have distracted us, making us neglect our duty. The idea that the earth is a bestowed gift is embedded into the Qur’anic “golden rule”: “You who believe, give charitably from the good things you have acquired and that We have produced for you from the earth. Do not seek to give bad things that you yourself would only accept with your eyes closed” (2:267). Yes, we work the land to produce food, but not everything is within our jurisdiction.