Poetry – Page 8 – Feminism and Religion

For Mahsa by Lori Stewart

On Friday, September 16, 2022 Mahsa Amini died in a Tehran hospital having been arrested by Iranian morality police on September 13 for wearing “inappropriate attire”. She was 22. Mahsa’s family claims she had bruises to her head and limbs from being beaten. The Iranian police dispute that claim saying Mahsa died from a pre-existing health condition.

Mahsa’s death sparked major protests against the Islamic Republic in Iran and protests of support are occurring around the world. Women are burning their hijabs, which they are mandated by Iranian law to wear, chanting, “Women, life, freedom”. They are cutting their hair which is a longstanding symbol of protest and loss in Iran’s history. This action harkens back to the epic Persian poem “Shahnameh” by Ferdowsi in which hair is a theme and the cutting of hair a symbol of mourning. Around the world, people have followed suit by cutting their hair in solidarity with the protesters in Iran. A recent chant by the protesters is “it’s the beginning of the end” as they challenge their theocratic government.

The Appalachian Cailleach Speaks by Annelinde Metzner

The Cailleach is a Celtic Ancestor-Goddess, a Divine Hag, a Crone who controls the winter winds in the far reaches of remote places. Living in the still-wild mountains of Western North Carolina, I’ve found it is easy to conjure up the Cailleach rising up through a rhododendron “hell.” She certainly took my breath away, and captured my consciousness, when I wrote this poem in 1995. Some years later, Lisa Sturz of the Red Herring Puppets created for me the eight-foot tall, wearable Grandmother puppet you see here. She has appeared in a number of my theater productions to the Goddess, while the poem was being dramatically read, with improvised music on the psaltery. Grandmother is happy to be coming out of my basement once more, for the Samhain service at our Unitarian church here in Black Mountain.

On Her Birthday by Sara Wright

One of the aspects of feminism that really disturbs me is the SILENCE around aging. Reflections on our personal lives are a critical piece that can help women to deal with this inevitable process. Oh, we write about the “wisdom” of the crone, the powers of the “Old Ones”, but we don’t share the poignant, dark, or terrifying aspects of personal aging leaving women without female empathy and companionship when we need it most. I am committed to breaking this silence. My birthday poem speaks to the pattern that lies behind my life and how it determined to an extent how I have lived. Chosen or not.

We come out of a culture that believes that each person has ‘free will’ and therefore the choices we make are our own. I challenge this concept because my life experience has taught me otherwise. Within the constraints of the patterns we live we do have choices. So this is a “both and” approach. Coming to terms with constraining patterns can be painful, but only then can we make choices that allow us to make peace with our lives.

On her birthday…

On her birthday

she surrendered –

Beauty in the Heart of the Beholder by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

In the past two years, I began a project which I call biblical poetry. I had been doing my own translations of biblical verse based on the hieroglyphic meanings of Hebrew words. Ancient Hebrew or Semitic Early writing grew out of the hieroglyphs of Egypt. Since hieroglyphs are pictures, we are able to use the rebuses or picture puzzles to glean the original or at least older meanings of words. I have begun to see these a route to interpreting meanings from before the dawn of patriarchy. This door to understanding appeals to my religious/spiritual/feminist sensibilities. At first, I attempted to stay somewhat true to the well-known meanings as they have come down through the ages. When I began my poetry project, I broke out of that structure to reveal the more mystical/shamanic/pagan meanings that I find beneath the words. At the bottom of this post, I have links to a few of my past biblical poetry posts.

The bible is quite large, so this is an encompassing project with lots of material to explore. This month, I wanted to take a look at how the concept of beauty is treated in the bible. The word for beauty is yaphah. Yaphah can also mean miracle and wonder as well as beauty. Let’s stop for a minute to unpack that. When we think of the word beauty in our culture, the thought is generally about how someone looks (unusually a female someone). But just the Hebrew word alone broadens the meaning. If beauty is someone or something that is wondrous and has miraculous qualities than it goes well beyond cultural standards of how someone looks. If you love someone, they would be beautiful to you because they would be wondrous. Biblical usages and translations tend to focus on beauty, mostly women, sometimes cows (yep cows) and a few handsome men in the mix. But I found that yaphah doesn’t have to be a vision that relies on one’s eyes.

Death By Drowning: A Poem Written the Day After The Supreme Court Overturned Roe v. Wade by Marcia W. Mount Shoop

Today at 10:06am
I found him
belly up
only a little bloated
water his deep
dark grave.

Turn the bucket
over
Talk gently
“How long have you been
in here, friend?”

Turn him over
his final rest
decomposing leaves,
Poison Ivy canopy
Sets off the blue

Sky Woman comes to Earth by Sara Wright

Every twig

is singing

a song of thanksgiving

to Sky Woman

who gifts

steady rain

nourishing

earth’s parched body.

Cracked ground

softens

soaks in minerals

and scent

sensing wonder.

Woman of the Isle of Women by Annelinde Metzner

Gratitude to the FAR community for welcoming my poems as of April of this year. Various earlier poems have been my way of introducing myself.

My work as a poet and composer has been centered around welcoming the reemergence of the Goddess in all Her forms. So this time I’ve submitted two poems referring to two of the many Goddesses who have influenced my life so profoundly.

Ix Chel is a Mayan Goddess of childbirth, midwifery, medicine and the moon. She has been especially honored and featured in artwork and sculpture on the Isle of Women (Isla Mujeres) in Mexico. She appeared to me in Her aspect as a young woman, the Jaguar Woman. In my mind’s eye, I associated Ix Chel with my beautiful son Peter who passed away in 2004, imagining them living joyously together in the Otherworld. Thanks to Deb Pollard for showing all aspects of the Moon above our heads as we sleep.

My second poem was born on a trip through the just-blooming peach orchards of South Carolina. A vision came to me of the Peach Maidens reaching out over millennia to the young priestesses of ancient Crete, dancing in celebration of each other’s beauty. And also sharing of their truth-telling and hard-earned wisdom.