Five years ago, I wrote an essay for Feminism and Religion musing about rituals for our sons. I wondered aloud how we welcome sons in manhood, how we create rituals of celebrations and rites of passages for our boys as… Read More ›
Priestessing
Was Sefer Yetzirah Written by a Woman? Jill Hammer
This year, I published a book called Return to the Place: The Magic, Meditation, and Mystery of Sefer Yetzirah (available from Ben Yehuda Press, benyehudapress.com). Sefer Yetzirah, or the Book of Creation, is an ancient Jewish mystical work (written in… Read More ›
To Bless One Another, by Molly Remer
May you allow yourself to taste your longings and to bravely honor them. May you make wise sacrifices. May you trust in abundance. May you savor the many flavors of this sweet life before your eyes, beneath your feet, below… Read More ›
To Light a Flaming Pumpkin: The Inexact Art of Family Ritual, by Molly Remer
Our bounty is in creativity friendship community the myriad small adventures of everyday. We tell of magic and moonrise and listening to the pulse of the earth beneath our feet. Ah, October. Fall has settled into the trees and air…. Read More ›
Nourishing Your Caring, by Molly Remer
Take time to nourish your caring. It is needed. Last month it was raining heavily on a Saturday morning and I spent time coloring letters to fairies with my younger children and baking a cake. Before I knew it, the… Read More ›
Spring Blossoming: The Holy Orchard as Goddess by Jill Hammer
Every year when the cherries, pears, plums, and apple trees begin to bloom, I go out walking. I look for every spot in my vicinity where white and pink blossoms are blooming in exquisite profusion like foam on an ocean…. Read More ›
The Sanctuary of One Another by Molly Remer
“Please prepare me to be a sanctuary. Pure and holy tried and true. With thanksgiving I’ll be a living sanctuary for you.”* —Beautiful Chorus (Hymns of Spirit) In March, my husband drove our daughter into town to work at her… Read More ›
Priestesses at the Parliament by Rae Abileah, Bekah Starr & Chaplain Elizabeth Berger
During the first week of November 2018, 12 graduates and current students of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute attended the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Toronto, Canada. The Parliament is a conference with a 125-year-old history that has grown… Read More ›
Honoring the Completion of the Year, by Molly Remer
“Beginnings and endings are so very sacred, to give honor to all that has transpired, every experience, every joy, every pain, is a doorway to the magical. Hold your entire year between your hands, every day, every thought, every breath…. Read More ›
Saying Goodbye to my Grandmother, by Molly Remer
Part 1: The Question It is October, the veil is thin the year is waning the leaves are turning I am trying to say goodbye to my grandmother she is dying. I do not know what to say. The leaves… Read More ›
Bless This House: Creating Sacred Space Where You Live, Work & Travel by Mama Donna Henes – A Book Review by Joyce Zonana
“There is no such thing as a bad blessing,” Mama Donna tell us, “no rules . . . no recipes, no prescriptions, no instruction manuals,” no “one-size-fits-all” House Blessing. Yet it’s not so much “anything goes” as “everything matters”: “The only thing you can do wrong in a ritual is to not pay attention to your true intentions.”
Ritual Theory: Sharing Stories by Molly Remer
“Ritual that is alive encourages each person to touch what is sacred in their own way, in their own time, through their own unique experience. So there evolves a dynamic dance between guiding and shaping the group’s experience and encouraging and… Read More ›
Priestessing the Priestesses by Christy Croft
Last week, I had the incredible privilege of sitting vigil with a friend in hospice in her final hours on this earth. She slept for most of the time I was there, but her waking moments were lucid, if brief…. Read More ›
Putting “Winter Solstice” in your “Happy Holidays!” Greeting by Marie Cartier
When you read this dear FAR family, it will be December 22, the day after the winter Solstice. Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year, and marks the beginning of winter. I am Catholic, a board member of… Read More ›
A Winter Woman by Molly Remer
“When winter comes to a woman’s soul, she withdraws into her inner self, her deepest spaces. She refuses all connection, refutes all arguments that she should engage in the world. She may say she is resting, but she is more… Read More ›
Sacred Water by Molly Remer
“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… Read More ›
Making Our Stand by Molly Remer
“You may not remember, but let me tell you this, someone in some future time will think of us.” —Sappho I put on my boots and jeans, grab my priestess robe, pack a basket of ritual supplies, and meet four… Read More ›
Rituals for Our Sons, by Molly Remer
“…There, he found a piece of glass and began to tell a story. He was telling one of his tribe’s men’s stories. It was a story for boys to become men, and it was not shared with women. The women… Read More ›
The Blood of Isis by Deanne Quarrie
Over the years I have seen the image of the amulet called the Knot of Isis but in all honesty, never paid it much attention. I am on the organizing committee for our annual Goddess Festival here in Austin this… Read More ›
Planting Roses for Our Daughters: Creating a Community in Time by Carolyn Lee Boyd
Outside my childhood home grows a yellow rose bush descended from one planted by my great-grandmother, Jennie, a century ago. That bush has given her descendants many gifts of spirit over the years— her love of beauty despite a life… Read More ›
Priestess as Shamanic Path – Part 2 by Molly Remer
This is a continuation of Molly’s piece from Wednesday, 10 August 2016. You can read Part 1 here. After explaining that the homebirth of her second son was her, “first initiation into the Goddess…even though at that time I didn’t… Read More ›
Loosening the Weave: Leaving Space for Mystery by Kate Brunner
Yesterday morning, I sat in a sunrise fire circle on a ridge above my new Rocky Mountain home. Two years ago on the same day, I stood before a loom in a reconstructed Iron Age roundhouse in Wales. And in… Read More ›
Priestess as Shamanic Path – Part 1 by Molly Remer
It is late autumn, 2009. I am 30 years old and pregnant with my third baby. He dies during the early part of my second trimester and I give birth to him in my bathroom, on my own with only… Read More ›
The Palm of My Hand by Molly Remer
“If there is one chant in the universe it is to create.” –Chris Griscolm quoted in Nicole Christine, p. 25 If you ever eavesdrop on a conversation between my husband and me around the clamor of our four children’s voices,… Read More ›
Stealing the Yarn: Jewish Women and the Art of Feminist Dreaming (Part 2) by Jill Hammer
In my last post, I discussed the uses of dreamwork for Jewish women who are uncovering their own spiritual language. The protagonists of recorded Jewish dreams, from Joseph to the dream interpreters of the Talmud to the kabbalists, tend to… Read More ›
Entering The Cave: Jewish Women and the Art of Feminist Dreaming (Part 1) by Jill Hammer
Dreams are my window on my wildest self. They are also a way to observe the conflicts within, and therefore they are a feminist practice, teaching me about my relationship to power, gentleness, love, and brokenness. Claiming my dreams is… Read More ›
