Poetry – Feminism and Religion

Coming Round and Round by Sara Wright

the circle
repeats
tightens
with age
crushing
an
aging heart
I cannot
breathe
through
these lifetimes
of
loss
instead
I relive
old
pain
4AM
lasts
an eternity
each mourning

How to Talk to a War Goddess: A Poetic Lesson From Sekhmet by Annie Finch

Consensus decision making, according to the mother of matriarchal studies Heidi Goettner-Abendroth, is woven into the definition of matriarchal societies. In these cultures, the respect, empathy, kindness, maturity, and belief in sustainable relationships that consensus implies are foundational. War, as the inimitable Yael Deckelberg sings to us, is “not a woman’s game”; any society that truly hears women will not play it. Overseen through the caring wisdom of circles of elder women in what Genevieve Vaughan calls the Maternal Gift Economy, matriarchal societies have less than no use for such a cruel, stupid, wasteful custom. As my great-aunt Jessie Wallace Hughan, founder of the War Resisters League, used to say, someday humanity will consider war as absurd as we now consider the custom of dueling. But we won’t see the end of this integral outrage in our lifetimes; that day will likely arrive only after we’ve all come to our matriarchal senses.

Meanwhile, here we are again.

Embraced by Grace by Margot Van Sluytman

I have Come Full Circle. March 27th is the 48th anniversary of the murder of my father Theodore Van Sluytman in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. An Easter Monday. My entire life from that time the age of 16 to this time now the age of 64 was, is, and will always be a connection to how word with a capital W and words with a lowercase w, infuse, inspire, and affect my life. I might even say infect my life.

After being contacted by one of my father’s three murderers, almost 30 years after he put the bullet in my father’s heart, we did share healing. All seemed well in the crucible of tying up loose ends as it were. Ten years later, however, he, made choices that were deeply unaligned to that meeting.

When he and I met, it was powerful. It was profound. Terrifying too. And liberating. His choices 10 years after that meeting, though they shattered me for a time, leaving me with feelings of smallness, stupidity, and inadequacy based on the fact that in choosing to meet him major rifts in my family occurred. Few supported my choice to meet him. However, I grew to understand that we are the poetry that we wish to read, to be, and to see in the world. That we are human. I thought about my feelings of smallness, stupidity, and inadequacy. Thought long and hard. Many times. In early dawning days. Sitting in the gloaming. Late into the night.

Two Poems by John Hardman-Zimmerman

“When Evil Has Its Way”

When Love is not imperative,
When Love has been dismissed,
When Love is not our way of life
Evil has its way.

When we think we don’t need others,
When we think we are superior,
When selfish interest has precedence,
Evil has its way.

When controlling others is priority,
When domination is our goal,
When assertion of power is means,
Evil has its way.

When our faith’s the power of violence,
When our trust is in our weaponry,
When we rely on military prowess,
Evil has its way.

Spring Lessons, by Molly M. Remer

Let us trust the cycles
of retreat and renewal
alive in both the land
and in our hearts right now
as the melody of belonging
continues to serenade us
and we follow April’s determination
to create and shape
this world anew.

And, so,
April arrives
all at once
to enliven the land,
trailing cool breezes
and the first blush of pollen possibility
across fields and forests,
fence rows and farms.
She blankets open spaces
with purple clover and violets,
with chickweed and dandelion.
When we pause to listen,
we can hear the laughter of awakening rippling behind her.
She brings an invitation into healing,
into extending outward and reaching up.
She offers wild promise
and tender hope
and the sweet, fresh breath of change.
Let us soften into spring,
into this invitation,
into restoration and reclamation.
It is now that we choose.
Let us be content to be here,
witnessing the changes,
leaning into the wind,
and savoring the blooming.
Let us trust the cycles
of retreat and renewal
alive in both the land
and in our hearts right now
as the melody of belonging
continues to serenade us
and we follow April’s determination
to create and shape
this world anew.

I have been writing for Feminism and Religion for 13 years. This past summer, I compiled a post with 13 summer lessons from 13 years of posts here at FAR. I bookended that post with a Winter Lessons post as well. Now, here are thirteen lessons to share from past spring posts:

Mountain Mother by Sara Wright

When I picked berries in the mountain field that first summer, I could sense wave after wave of feeling rising up – seeping into my feet from the ground below. The sun spread blue heat over the hills, and I bathed in summer’s glow. For the first time in my life I felt visible, witnessed for who I really was and accepted: I was loved –unconditionally loved by a Mother. That She was a mountain field didn’t seem odd at all. I loved her back – fiercely. I marveled. To be in love with my goddess, the one that lived in this field, brook, young forest, the one who inhabited each of these rolling hills and mountains seemed so natural. Remarkably, She celebrated my presence not only by gifting me with a love that ran like a great underground river beneath me but because She created a palpable sense of belonging. I belonged to Her. She loved me just because I was. I couldn’t get over it. My gratitude knew no bounds. All I wanted to do was to serve her…

She was visible in so many ways – in the riot of purple and green jack in the pulpits that sprung out of the sphagnum moss behind the camp in the moist valley that often filled with water, through the solitary pink lady slipper that appeared by the bridge that crossed the brook, the tiny white swamp violets, the blue fringed gentians and pearl-white turtleheads that popped up in the meadow fed by it’s own spring in the center of the field.

I glimpsed her face in the cedar that sprung to life in the rich wooded soil that bordered the brook, she sang to me from the wild apple branches that bowed over rippling water, she blinked through each firefly night, burst into a “high” when thunder and lightening churned up the waters and the brook overflowed – White Fire crackling out of her clouds and slamming into me.

Poems by Annelinde Metzner

For five days this March, I gifted myself with a stay at the Meher Baba Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I often plan short getaways to help me find my center and decompress from everyday life. The contrast between “worlds” is very great when you’re staying in a pristine nature preserve with the overwhelming commercialism of Myrtle Beach right outside the gates. I knew that this retreat was helping me to deal with a similar conflict I felt in my body, from the pain and stress of living in this moment in time. Poems flowed easily, and I’m grateful for that.

Retreat in Myrtle Beach

A preserve of five hundred acres,
here on the South Carolina coast,
where fresh-water lagoons teem with waterbirds
just across the forested dunes from the breaking ocean waves.
Turtles sun in the grass,
deer leap and raise generations.
A preserve! and out beyond the gates,
over the protecting wall,
is Myrtle Beach, another type of Mecca.
Come out the gate, and it’s “Hooters!”
then, “Tsunami Beach Souvenir Shop!” (everything on sale!)
then, “Maui Beach Miniature Golf,” with an exploding volcano!
and of course, “the MAGA Megastore,”
who’ll sell you anything you could want or need.
This morning I awoke in my sweet-smelling cabin,
little propane heater in the old fireplace
keeping me warm.
And here is the teaching:
Plant your feet on the Earth.
Love this greenness, these creatures,
love Yourself,
because the entire off-kilter, out-of-balance,
koyaanisqatsi (*) world out there
is depending on You: feet planted,
head in the stars.

Mother/Meter: Reclaiming Poetry’s Sacred Goddess Languages by Annie Finch

Those of us on the paths of the Divine Feminine can go to great lengths to approach Her. We might read and study hard-to-find books, invest time and money to visit temples and museums, and seek out Goddesses-related power spots around the world. We might acquire ceremonial jewelry and devotional artworks, attend conferences, track down Goddesses-inspired music, and apprentice with teachers from spiritual traditions that may be far removed from our own heritage. We might invest in supplies and training to craft devotional music, art, sculpture, and apparel, and create or attend performances, healings, and rituals honoring the Feminine Sacred.

Yet there is one important ritual activity that we routinely forget and ignore, one that we know was key to Goddess worship whenever we have written prayers, from Demeter to Inanna, Isis to Freyja, Hekate to Sarasvati. This time-honored practice is simple to learn, costs nothing to use, and quickly, safely, and legally creates an altered state of mind that brilliantly and efficiently connects us with our spirits, the natural world, the Divine Feminine, and each other. And furthermore, this ancient sacred craft is not limited to indigenous or ancient cultures but is already part of the familiar heritage of anyone who speaks English, so there is no danger of cultural appropriation in using it.

My God Bleeds With Me by Jsabél Bilqís

My god bleeds with me
Her feet right beside mine for morning gratitudes
Soles to soils, we touch skin to skin
She’s vast like me
And I love her

My god grieves when I do
My sorrows meet Hers at the ocean shore
Vial for vial, our tears make our medicine
She can transmute anything, just like me
And I love Her

She courts me
leaves me love notes in the shapes of flower petals
winks at me in amber sunsets
morning serenades and juicy fruits
She loves me! She lifes me!
And I love and I life Her too

Broken Roots? by Sara Wright

I write to
find out
who I am
becoming
and when
I implored
Sedna
to take
me back
to the sea
I came
to know
my roots
to Place
were
broken
by age
by betrayal
by loneliness
by advocating
for a planet
animals, trees
by people
who do not listen
by people who
will not see