Symbols – Page 4 – Feminism and Religion

Painting Martha Graham by Angela Yarber

Joining Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia, Frida Kahlo, Salome, Guadalupe and Mary, Fatima, Sojourner Truth, Saraswati, Jarena Lee, Isadora Duncan, Miriam, Lilith, Georgia O’Keeffe, Guanyin, Dorothy Day, Sappho, Jephthah’s daughter, Anna Julia Cooper, the Holy Woman Icon archetype, Maya Angelou, and all my other Holy Women Icons with a folk feminist twist is the dancing revolutionary Martha Graham. So, as the contemporary and modern dancers on So You Think You Can Dance continue to amaze us this summer, let us remember from whence they came.

Martha Graham’s contribution to the world of dance cannot be overestimated. She is regaled as the Picasso of the dance world, revolutionizing it by introducing an entirely new quality of movement known as modern dance. Not only did Graham revolutionize the dance world, like Isadora Duncan before her, she also made great contributions to feminist spirituality. One of her most famous statements may well have been “wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.” Like most dancers who are so in tune with their bodies, Graham new the holiness therein, the ways in which the body can express the ineffable when words alone simply cannot. “The body never lies,” she famously reminds us.

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Writing Holy Women Icons by Angela Yarber

For two years I have had the great privilege of writing a monthly article about one of my Holy Women Icons with a folk feminist twist for Feminism and Religion. Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia, Frida Kahlo, Salome, Guadalupe and Mary, Fatima, Sojourner Truth, Saraswati, Jarena Lee, Isadora Duncan, Miriam, Lilith, Georgia O’Keeffe, Guanyin, Dorothy Day, Sappho, Jephthah’s daughter, Anna Julia Cooper, the Holy Woman Icon archetype, Maya Angelou, and many others that will follow in the months and years ahead have guided, empowered, and inspired me as an artist, activist, feminist, scholar, and preacher.

I knew from that outset that writing about them would deepen my relationship with each of these amazing women. I also knew that their power and efficacy monumentally increases when they join together. This colorful cloud of witnesses has filled myriad galleries, reminding viewers of the powerful women who have paved the way for us today. Many have left the group, finding a resting place in the homes, offices, and galleries of friends, colleagues, and strangers who have purchased or commissioned an icon along the way. And those that remain erupt the hallways of my home with a cavalcade of color, daily reminders of who I am called to be and become.

Between researching their stories, painting them, hanging them in galleries, and selling them, I knew that one day I would bind their stories together in a book. So, it is with tremendous joy that this dream has become a reality. Parson’s Porch Publishing, a non-profit publishing house whose mission is to “turn books to bread” by giving their profits to feed the poor, has lifted up the stories and images of nearly fifty of my beloved Holy Women Icons in a book. So, along with originals, commissions, and prints, Holy Women Icons are now available as a book and as individual greeting cards. It is my sincere hope that by binding the stories of these holy women together, they may provide inspiration and empowerment for all readers, binding all our diverse stories together in a collective cry for beautiful, unabashed, prophetic justice for all. Continue reading “Writing Holy Women Icons by Angela Yarber”

A Beltane Story by Barbara Ardinger

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess—NO, stop right there. Tales like this do not require princesses. Let’s try again. Once upon a time there was a sturdy young woman who lived in a small town in Mitteleuropa not too far from the castle of the Holy Roman Emperor.

The girl’s name is Madchen. Her parents are a Farmer and a Cunning Woman. She is proud to say that just last fall she actually saw the Emperor, who is a stiff, elderly man who always wears a fussed-up military uniform and a pince nez and has enormous sidewhiskers. The Emperor did not, of course, notice the girl as he sat in his carriage and waved stiffly to his subjects. But what Madchen doesn’t know is that Crown Prince Rufus, whose uniform and sidewhiskers are considerably more modest than his father’s and who was riding on a great red stallion in the parade behind his father’s coach, noticed her immediately. That girl, he said to himself, is a girl I must have! Continue reading “A Beltane Story by Barbara Ardinger”

Painting Maya Angelou by Angela Yarber

Author. Performer. Activist. Poet. Actress. Playwright. There are few others whose accomplishments are as prestigious, prolific, or expansive as Maya Angelou’s. I initially encountered her work in a ninth grade literature class. The first of her seven autobiographies was our assigned reading. I voraciously consumed every word of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, my heart filled with grief, my eyes filled with tears, my mind filled with questions. It is no wonder this book is the most acclaimed of all her autobiographies, books of poetry, and essays. As a fourteen year-old, my mind was opened to the power of stories, particularly the stories of those vastly different from oneself, and to the oppression black women like Angelou experienced in the United States. As a native white Southerner, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was my first foray into grappling with the nuances of white privilege.

In college, my creative writing professor packed all ten of the creative writing minors into a van to drive to a neighboring college where Angelou was lecturing. I sat in awe, riveted by every word. And upon the completion of my Ph.D., I moved to Winston-Salem, the place Angelou calls home. I have yet to meet her. If I could, I’d surely hand her the icon I painted in her honor, knowing that my words would fail to express how profound my gratitude is for the work she has done in our world. Continue reading “Painting Maya Angelou by Angela Yarber”

Echoes of Mesopotamia by Molly

Echoes of Mesopotamia
small figures from ancient places
ancient times
and ancient faces
ancient words
and ancient wisdom
still flowing in my veins

Clay in my hands
clay in her hands
running on the rivers of time
spiraling in the mysteries of being
spinning in the eddies and ripples of eternity…

I have a strong emotional connection to ancient Paleolithic and Neolithic goddess sculptures. I do not find that I feel as personally connected to later goddess imagery, but very ancient figures call to something deep and powerful within me. I have a sculpture of the Goddess of Willendorf at a central point on my altar. Sometimes I hold her and wonder and muse about who carved the original. I almost feel a thread that reaches out and continues to connect us to that nearly lost past—all the culture and society and how very much we don’t know about early human history. There is such a solid power to these early figures and to me they speak of the numinous, non-personified, Great Goddess weaving her way throughout time and space. Continue reading “Echoes of Mesopotamia by Molly”

“JC” by amina wadud

It’s been more than three decades, and certainly most of the influential time of my own theological/social justice career, since I was first introduced to Joseph Campbell (may he rest in “bliss”). He was still alive then, and my husband and I were like geeks following his PBS series on Myths and Metaphors, and reading all his books. We called him “JC”, an intentional play on initials and Jesus Christ. Both of us Muslims by choice, we embrace the Gospels as part of the divine legacy of revelation and accept that they come from the same Source as the Qur’an, the Torah, and other sacred texts, but we fall short of the divination of Jesus. The grey area of this is hard put for some Christians because “accepting Christ” means to accept the story of his birth, death and resurrection as formula bringing salvation.

We accept his extraordinary divine mission. Our sacred text not only recaps the virgin birth but also gives Jesus the gift of speech from the cradle where he confirms that his unmarried mother was not a loose woman, but rather the bringer of a Divine miracle, and as such, a miracle herself. Maybe at another time I will discuss how Mary configures so uniquely in my own feminist theology as read through the Qur’an, but, today I have in mind something about the transformation I went through with Joseph Campbell, starting with the virgin birth. Continue reading ““JC” by amina wadud”