Spiritual Journey – Feminism and Religion

Inanna and Me: Transformation by Judith Shaw

In this world of opposites, transformation is constant. Every moment the cells of our bodies are dying and being reborn. Matter, which flows from consciousness, dies but is reborn through the process of birth, death and rebirth. Some changes are fast and some are slow; stars live billions of years and butterflies live only a few days.

Ever since our collective experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, we both feel and are told that our world is transforming. Leaders—political and spiritual—talk about the need for transformation. Some want us to transform ourselves back to some imagined golden age, whereas other have eyes on the future, speaking of transformations we can’t yet imagine.

My own life has been one of continual transformation, an ever recurring experience of letting go of the old. I was told by an astrologer long ago that I came into this life determined to wipe the slate clean and transform myself. Admittedly it has not been an easy path, but my internal transformations have been a rich source for my paintings. Much of my art has been and continues to be about transformation.

Notes from the Cauldron of Change, by Molly Remer

Mirabai Starr writes that to be a mystic is to “harvest the bounty of your own soul garden,” a place that is “both wild and tended,” sometimes lush and sometimes arid.

As summer’s heat presses in
and the clamor of growth and change
rises to a peak of abundance and urgency,
we may begin to hear a summons
from deep within.
The cauldron call begins,
at first a whisper
and then an irresistible song
that leads us away from the to-do list
and into a mystical realm
in which dreams and desire meet
and begin to bubble into possibility.
May we grant ourselves space
for descent,
even in the middle of all that
is hot and bright and beautiful.
May we listen to the yearning we feel
to explore the depths,
stepping out of the light
and into the cool shadows
that beckons us to steep.
Right here,
right now,
in the middle of all that swirls,
is when we are invited to stop,
to put our ears back down
to our souls
and listen hard.
It is now that we are invited
to step into the cauldron of change,
to sink down
and in
and let everything we are carrying
soften and melt away
while we remember how it feels
to simmer in everything
we have made,
all that we love to taste
and serve.

For years now, August has been my “Cauldron Month,” a dedicated time in which I take my life into the metaphorical cauldron of being, to reflect, to re-collect, to reconnect, to consider what I’m “simmering” in, what is bubbling and brewing in my days, and what needs to be scooped out of the pot. It is time in which I review the year to date and consider where I’m going, what I’m savoring, and what I’m dishing up to serve.

From the Archives: Creating Space: Mosques Affirming All Bodies, Minds, and Hearts by Laury Silvers

This was originally posted on December 31, 2013

In my first blog for Feminism and Religion, I discussed the cognitive and embodied dissonance that some Muslims experience as a result of historically (not eternally) gendered ritual forms. I ended with a promise to share with readers the ways in which el-Tawhid Juma Circle mosques try to create space to break free of those forms. Our mosques affirm all human beings as spiritually, socially, and ritually equal and try to break down the social hierarchy of ritual and theological leadership by opening up a space for all bodies, minds, and hearts to lead and follow as equals among each other.

Breaking out of cognitive and embodied dissonance requires cognitive and embodied habituation to what Amina Wadud names, “The Tawhidic Principle.” Meaning, the space must be one in which human beings can embody divine oneness by recognizing that their relationships with each other are on the horizontal plane and refrain from mediating between any other individual and God on the vertical plane. Wadud has described it as a triangle in which God is at the top with self and other at the two points beneath. Each has an individual relationship with God and a relationship of reciprocitous community with each other. Wadud argues that to mediate between another and God is nothing other than idolatry because the mediator forces another to accept that satisfying his expectations is the same as satisfying God.

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.

The Circle as a Field of Human Integration by Paul Robear

This blogpost is included as part of FAR’s co-operation with other organizations to highlight and amplify each other’s voices. Paul Robear is President and Executive Director of The Cuyamungue Institute (CUYA).
CUYA is the international home of Ritual Postures and a global leader in transformative experiences rooted in ancient traditions — offering workshops, research, and online learning that open pathways to expanded states of consciousness.
CUYA, The Felicitas D. Goodman Institute is an independent, 501c3 not-for-profit educational organization committed to the study of “ASC” Altered States of Consciousness as a natural extension of the human experience.

Finding Coherence in Shared Presence

Why have human beings always gathered in circles?

I have often wondered why I am instinctively drawn to them; my body seems to recognize a quiet stability before my mind can explain it.

The circle itself generates a kind of collective coherence.

Long before there were formal doctrines or institutions, there were fires, drums, breath, and bodies moving together in a circle. Across cultures and continents, people entered rhythm — through chant, movement, and synchronized breath. While these practices were often interpreted through religious frameworks, something more fundamental was occurring beneath the symbolism.

In a circle, every face can be seen, every movement sensed. Nothing approaches from behind. The body registers this orientation as safety.

Ritual, then, may be one of humanity’s oldest technologies for collective coherence.

Renewal, Reflection, & Resonance by Paul Robear

The Power of Introspection in Personal Transformation by Paul Robear of the Cuyamungue Institute

Self-reflection helps us understand who we are, what we believe in, and why we think or act the way we do. It is a key element of self-improvement. I have found that by reflecting regularly, I greatly increase my chances of making healthy changes that support growth in my life.

Throughout my life, I’ve felt a yearning to better understand my own strengths and weaknesses. From an early age, I was drawn to moments of pause and deep reflection. These pauses became opportunities to notice what within me was ready to be renewed. I think of this as the space where we begin to hear the resonance of our own inner wisdom.

To give shape to this inner journey and to make it simple and memorable, I began framing it around three guiding words, each beginning with the letter “R.” Over time, these words became touchstones for clarity and meaning in my practice of introspection.

Renewal: A Quiet Beginning: Renewal is usually quiet, subtle, and deeply personal. Just as nature renews itself in cycles, our lives also hold rhythms of renewal. These moments invite us to release what no longer serves us and to open to fresh possibilities. Renewal is not about reinventing ourselves, but about remembering our capacity for growth and allowing space for it to emerge.

33 Years of Wisdom by Chaz J.

As the celestial clock turns towards Sunday, April twenty-seventh, at the luminous hour of 9:12 PM, I shall step into the sacred circle of my thirty-third year. And for a soul who once walked the hallowed halls of the church, as I did, the echoes of a profound resonance surely sound. For Jesus proclaimed his divine lineage and embarked on his earthly ministry around his thirtieth spring, only to ascend three years later, at the very age I now approach?

Thus, this year unfolds as my very own ‘Jesus year,’ a time ripe with potent transformation, reinvention, remembrance, and the blossoming of my inner wisdom. I present this wisdom, aligning it with the seven sacred wheels of energy, the chakras that map the landscape of my being. Each chakra, a vibrant note in the symphony of my soul, accompanied by a song that, for me, hums with the exquisite harmony of its balanced state. This is a profound and poetic offering of the journey I have walked and the radiant being I am becoming.

The Flesh and the Fruit by Vanya Leilani, PhD: Book Review by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

Subtitle: Remembering Eve and the Power of Creative Transgression

I have learned that every good story of spirit has many layers of meaning and pathways of understanding. Dr Leilani has found particularly relevant and even beautiful aspects of the biblical story of Eve. She uses Eve’s actions as a template of her own spiritual journey. Her pathway begins in obedience (listening to the voice of authority), travels through transgressive acts (eating of the fruit), and finally results in a self-knowing that had not been possible at the beginning of her journey. In this book we follow along on her quest to learn about herself with Eve as her inspiration.

This is a luscious book. Vanya Leilani’s insights are not only profound but are written with a poetic sensibility. I found myself speaking some of her passages out loud because the vibration of her words are powerful and feel so sensuous on the tongue. I wanted to take them into my body, as well as read them on the page.

Womanist Sapphic Reflections on Sex, Desire, and Power by Chaz J.

**This post is based on my personal experience, research, survivor of the purity movement, and professional experience as a therapist and spiritual advisor of 5 years.

**Sapphic = women loving women <3

Everything is sex, except sex- which is power. Now ask yourself who is screwing you. – Janelle Monae

Desire, a flame that flickers, not always fanned to embers of the flesh, but today, let’s speak of its carnal heat, its dance with power, its intimate embrace with sex.

A tempest roils within, desire’s current a raging, untamed beast. A lifetime shrouded in the gloom of putrified dread, where yearning was condemned, branded a scarlet path to eternal fire, has left its indelible scar. The hollow pronouncements of warning, like the venomous whisper of James 1:14-15, still slither within, etched into the marrow of my bones: “Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.” These words, seared into my soul, a brand of shame, a constant, gnawing reminder of the perceived treachery of wanting, the supposed sin of simply feeling and wanting.

From the Archives: Forgive Me My Ancestor(s) by Elizabeth Cunningham

This was originally posted on January 19. 2020. An ‘Update Note’ has been added at the end of the post.

Elizabeth Cunningham

When I was a child in the 1950s we often played cowboys and Indians. There is a photograph of my brother and me in no doubt inauthentic costume complete with feathered headdress. In kindergarten I named myself Morning Star. (I just googled and see that I must have gotten the name from the 50s television series Brave Eagle, the first with an indigenous main character. Morning Star is the female lead.)

When I was a teenager, my aunt came across a privately printed book The Gentleman on the Plains about second sons of English aristocracy hunting buffalo in western Iowa. My great grandfather accompanied them as their clergyman. I wish I could find that book now to see how this enterprise was presented. In my adolescent mind these “gentlemen” looked like the local foxhunters in full regalia. On opening morning of foxhunt season an Episcopal clergyman (like my father) was on hand in ecclesiastical dress to bless the hunt and then invited to a boozy breakfast.