Exploring the F-word in religion at the intersection of scholarship, activism, and community.
In this article I reframe my understanding of feminism through the lens of Mona Chollet’s In Defence of Witches, and reflect on how my psyche as a woman today is still deeply influenced by the effects of the witch hunts in mediaeval times.
Continue reading “Life Still Shaped by the Witch Hunts? by Eline Kieft”
One day, during a holiday at the home of Italian friends in the province of Lazio, some forty-five minutes by train from the centre of Rome, I experienced a powerful impression of the Sacred Feminine. She came to me in the Vatican of all places, centuries old male stronghold, and power centre of the Roman Catholic Church.
Even more surprisingly, her presence was more prominent in the Sistine Chapel, the Pope’s own place of prayer, where Cardinals sit in all male conclave. But there she was, shining through the restored colour on that famous ceiling through the brushstrokes of Michelangelo. I was picking up loud echoes immortalised for centuries through his art, tuning into the soul of the artist, seeing his inspiration in terms of angels speaking in colour and light. But then he was called after an Archangel whose name means Who is like God. God is creative, He created heaven and earth according to the scriptures, but now it was looking like She might have created it with him. Somehow over the years in Christianity, the real Sacred Feminine has been hidden away, negated, turned into a virginal statue with little visible life energy from earth.
Continue reading “ART AND SOUL by Iona Jenkins”
There are some books which you just want to sit with, underline, read leisurely, and let sink deeply into your soul. This is one of those books.
Iona Jenkins has led a fascinating life as a Labyrinth Keeper, artist, spiritual seeker (among many other things). In To Sing with Bards and Angels, she delves into her Celtic ancestry as a poet to captivating result. I can deeply connect with her journey as I imagine many others will as well.
This book is filled with Jenkin’s stories of the experiences she has had while walking the spirit pathway. Most notable and the major theme of her book describes her encounters with an ethereal light being she identifies as an angel. Her guide appears in moonlight and its form and words fit within her cultural beliefs as to what an angel is. I love that she notes that she views her guide in this manner because of her own expectations. Her openness in allowing for other interpretations provides a permission structure for anyone reading and/or on their own spirit journey to understand such experiences in their own way whether it be angelic, otherworldly, imaginative, dreamlike, mythic or manifest in this reality.
Continue reading “TO SING WITH BARDS AND ANGELS by Iona Jenkins, Book Review by Janet Maika’i Rudolph”
February is “Heart Month.” Presumably the American Heart Association chose February as the month to raise awareness about cardiovascular health because in February we celebrate Valentine’s Day which we observe by the giving and receiving of hearts of all kinds — heart-shaped Valentines, candy, jewelry – symbolic declarations of love, of giving our hearts to one another. Hearts have long been associated with love. When bringing our emotions to the surface, we “wear our hearts on our sleeve.” When speaking our deepest feelings, we “pour our hearts out.” Feelings of tenderness “warm our heart,” and compassion “pulls at our heartstrings.” When grieving, we feel “heartache,” and loss of love renders us “heartbroken.” The French word for heart, coeur, associates hearts with courage. We “take heart;” we “lose heart;” we “hearten.” We can engage in a task “wholeheartedly,” “halfheartedly,” or our “heart’s not in it” at all. We can be “bravehearted,” “lighthearted,” “tenderhearted,” “hardhearted,” or totally “heartless.” That’s a lot for the heart to carry.
Continue reading ““A new heart I will give you . . .” : Part One by Beth Bartlett”
Samhain is the beginning of winter according to the Celtic calendar. On this day, people brought their livestock in from the pastures and settled by their hearths to survive the coming cold until the magical renewal of spring. Here in New England, leaves are beginning to blaze red-gold, plants to brown as nutrients fill their roots, and animals to nestle underground to hibernate. Across the northern hemisphere, we should once again begin our own retreat below the the busyness of our lives to re-energize and plan for the fruition of spring works.
I’ve usually thought of winter as a time of withdrawal from other beings and the world, but maybe Celtic tradition offers us a more nuanced way of perceiving this season. A wonderful Scottish Samhain story has made me rethink of winter as a time to also reconnect and re-vitalize each other and chart our course to spring’s promise together. I cannot say what the story means to those from whose land it emerged, but I can share the thoughts it evokes in me. Settle in, get comfy, and listen…
Continue reading “Coming Home for Samhain by Carolyn Lee Boyd”
This post started as a comment to Annie Finch’s part 1 of Abortion As A Sacrament post. Realizing it was a story that was getting too long, I’m sharing it here as a reiteration of the practical significance of ritual, and finding our way through the no-longer-charted territories of being a female human — in the sense that if we were a female of any other animal form, we would still know exactly how to navigate all the challenges.
I had a years-long pregnancy-related experience in which ritual was the only thing to finally bringing closure, though the real issue was more the other being’s feelings or intent than mine. About a year after the birth of my only child, still nursing full time and using what should have been sufficient birth control, I became pregnant and aborted at Planned Parenthood. I had been well along, not having suspected anything because my menses hadn’t yet returned.
At the time, there was no debate in my mind, if I had added another responsibility to my already excessive load, I would have failed at everything, the most important being my daughter.
Continue reading “On the Pertinence of Ritual by Anonymous”
One of my oldest friends who I met when I was eight years old reached out to me the other day saying that if there was ever anything she could do, please let her know. She lives in another state far away but is a subscriber to one of my blogs so she has been aware of the various things going on in my life (second divorce, so many changes and transitions in my life yet again, etc.)
Her note said if there was ever anything she could do to help, just let her know.
And I thought to myself: hmmmmmm.
You see I just put a new feature on my app where it emails local events to local users, and one of the first steps in getting this to work is having those local events on the app. So I asked her if she would mind helping me put local events on the app.
We had not actually talked in a long time, and when we had a zoom call to discuss this, I broke down crying.
I felt the pity from her. I also saw just how far I had departed from ‘normal.’
But I don’t want to be ‘normal’.
Continue reading “What is Wrong with This Picture? Rewriting Eve by Caryn MacGrandle”
In 2020, I began writing my biography because some weird things were happening in my life including some which were time-bending. To help make sense of it, I wrote up “conversations” with the mythical characters of Persephone, Inanna and the Norns of the Norse. Throughout my bio, I speak to the Norns as an out loud meditation on the nature of time, fate and energy.
The three Norn sisters are Urd, Verdandi and Skuld. Their names come from Old Norse which is not a spoken language. The actual translation of their names is open to speculation. In general, here are their common meanings.
By mythological tradition, they show up at a child’s birth and then weave their “fateful” decisions about that child’s life into a tapestry. They are considered more powerful and fearsome than the gods because even the gods are ruled by the hands of fate (or Norns in this case). They were also treated as oracles where kings and warriors went to consult them much as was done in Delphi Greece.[1]
Continue reading “The Norns, Spiritual Mystery and Me, Part 1 by Janet Maika’i Rudolph”
After a spring semester-long sabbatical this year, I am back to campus and to teaching. I was effectively off from January to August and the timing could not have been better. After my dad’s death last July (2021), my world was turned upside down. One of the things that happened with his death was a deep realization that he had a lot to do with my sense of grounding. I wrote about this in a previous post, but I hadn’t quite realized how much he was a source of affirmation and grounding for me, an external one—his death was a catalyst for me to learn how to access that grounding more fully for myself, from within.
Having been on sabbatical, then, was helpful in terms of regaining my brain for research and writing, which was its objective, but also for giving me the time and mental space to work on the grounding aspect of my internal life. A few things came together for me during this time. Leading up to the sabbatical and overlapping with it, I got to participate in the Latinas in Leadership (LIL) program with the Hispanic Theological Initiative – a program designed to strengthen the professional development of the Latina women participants.
Continue reading “My Daily MEDS by Xochitl Alvizo”I find it interesting how certain or settled we often expect our little ones to be instead of getting curious about them or acknowledging that they are curious.
My daughter, Hazel, is six years old and will be starting first grade next week. She loves cats, swimming, her cousin, and food. Purportedly, Chinese style barbecue pork buns come first in her heart, even before mommy and daddy (though we are a close second). She also prefers to run instead of walk; and has recently declared that she is Taoist and Shinto. This determination came after some discussion which went something like this:
Sitting at the kitchen table one morning, Hazel declares “My best friend asked me if I was a Christian and I told her I was. I am a Christian.”
Mommy the agnostic is a little surprised. Daddy, the atheist, is biting back a retort—he is somewhat hostile towards Christianity. I am only hostile to abusive, hetero-Patriarchal Christianity. I say to Hazel, “Oh. That’s interesting. Do you know what that means?”
“No. What do Christians believe,” she asks.
Continue reading “My Daughter’s Religions by Sara Frykenberg”
