Resilience – Feminism and Religion

Embodiment as Positive Resistance

I nearly cancelled my recent trip to the United States. The political climate felt tense, the global atmosphere uncertain, and travelling across the Atlantic seemed questionable for several reasons.

Friends encouraged me to go anyway, suggesting that meeting people in person would offer a different perspective from the one shaped by media narratives. And of course, it wasn’t headlines I was meeting, but people, in a human reality that persists beneath larger systems. Thankfully, my trust in relational experience outweighed my hesitation, and I returned from my travels with renewed inspiration.

I’m writing this essay because many people I met spoke with an apologetic tone about being American. They expressed disbelief, embarrassment or anger about their conspicuous yellow haired chief. I just want to acknowledge the warmth, generosity, care and humanity I encountered wherever I went.

The entire experience confirmed what I have long sensed in my work with movement, ritual and community: that embodied presence, especially in uncertain times, is such a remedy for heart and soul. What I encountered was meaningful human contact, even in a politically divided country.

3 Taoist Secrets for Embodying your Life

Taoism is an ancient Chinese philosophy and spiritual tradition that offers a unique perspective on life, existence, and human experience. Where many religious practices aim to transcend and sometimes even punish the body, Taoism cultivates a deep connection with our physical self in ongoing relationship with nature around us.

This resonates with my own experience, in which I see the body as starting point and place of return for everything we do in life. Leaving the body in order to meet spirit or the divine has never made any sense to me.

In this article I’ll highlight a few elements of Taoism as an embodied philosophy, specifically zooming in on principles and practices that promote holistic wellbeing and inner peace.

Paradigm Shifts: Playing the long game

You’re probably tired of hearing it… We live in a time of major change. But hardly anyone acknowledges that change doesn’t happen overnight.

In anthropology and ritual studies, the state of change between the old and the new, is called liminal or threshold space. It is the in-between time. I believe we are living in such a time now. Our familiar frames of reference are crumbling, yet there are no clear new ones in place yet.

In this post I reflect on a few aspects of this long-dance with the unknown.

Activate your Body to Navigate Overwhelm

We live in a time of radical change, in a steam cooker of accelerated alchemy. No wonder most of us struggle with chronic overwhelm.

Beliefs, habits, thought patterns and organisational structures don’t change overnight, and we need ways to boost our resilience in the long arc of paradigm shifts. How can we look after ourselves during this personal and collective dance of change?

In this post I reflect on the connection between movement and health, breathing, and the role of our nervous system. I propose 5 simple steps to minimise and transform overwhelm when it happens.

Better Ways: Starting a Part Time Job at Circle by Caryn MacGrandle

“Are you the store manager?” the liquor vendor asks.

“No, I’m just part time. Started this week.”

I am working at a local convenience store on the poor side of town where I now live.

“I’m just doing this part time to pay my basic bills so that I can do what I want.”

“And what is that?,” he asks.

“I have a computer app that is my passion. I host Sacred Circles. I do webinars and events. I just bought ten acres of land, and I want to do things on there.”

Heal. Help.

It rather feels as if I might be able to do that there as well. Because it is not the side of town with all the fancy subdivisions, it feels as if there is more community. These are Alabama locals. And compared to the plastic world that I am more familiar with, 85% of their customers pay in cash. Blue collar work trucks, construction crews, concrete workers, dump truck drivers, electricians and poor people. Women wearing chemo scarves. Another tells me, “I keep losing weight each week. Don’t know why.” Bony. Stumbling. Hobbling. But I watch all of them keep going.

Hope Lives in the Twinkling of the Stars by Carolyn Lee Boyd

For millennia, we humans have found hope in the dark of winter through holidays featuring lights or the sun such as the Winter Solstice, Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Soyal, Christmas, and others. As the people of our beautiful, fragile planet celebrate these traditions in these perilous and momentous times, I have been wondering what fresh perspectives on hope our global goddess myths and stories can offer.

Let’s start with the Greek goddess of hope, Elpis. In the Greek Pandora’s story as usually told, Elpis/hope is all that is left for humanity after Pandora lets misery escape into the world by opening her box, However, according to Patricia Monaghan in her New Book of Goddesses and Heroines, originally Pandora was the ever-abundant Earth goddess and her box was a pithos, a clay jar used to store food, but also remains of the dead awaiting rebirth. In her Roman incarnation as Spes, the goddess of hope also served Fortuna, the goddess of destiny who brings people together to create life. Finally, She is associated with Salus, the goddess of health.