Shame is the shadow of being unloved, unwanted, rejected, strung out on need. Shame paralyzes; slamming into reverse actions that would create new intentions including hope of love. Shame blots out Personhood, snapping the thread of interdependency. Plant Consciousness restores… Read More ›
Women’s Spirituality
Running with Hares, a Personal Reflection by Sara Wright
An overturned bowl of starflakes, lays down a new pearl white blanket. Earthbound I shovel – Silvery showers obscure – and some paths are slippery in the dark. Grooming a circle round and round I attend to listening. When… Read More ›
A Handy Spiritual Practice By Barbara Ardinger
Here’s a simple spiritual practice that I’ve been doing for longer than I can remember. During the regime of the Orange T. Rex, I started doing it at bedtime to calm my mind so I could go to sleep. We’re… Read More ›
Crane Song: Finding my way Home through Image, Myth, and Nature – Part 2 by Sara Wright
Read Part 1 here… Recently, I returned from the Southwest where I was introduced to the ceremonies of the Pueblo peoples, ceremonies that reflected my own spiritual practice reinforcing its authenticity. This interlude also allowed me to be part… Read More ›
Crane Song: Finding my Way Home through Image, Myth, and Nature – Part 1 by Sara Wright
The last gift I received from my very distant parents was a print of a Native American Medicine Wheel by Ojibway artist Joe Geshick. I received this present on my birthday in 1993. When I opened the cardboard tube I… Read More ›
Guadalupe Rises Again by Sara Wright
I was in a Mexican store helping someone to choose tiles for the sink and bathroom of a new casita. I have always been drawn to Mexican art because the images tell stories, and many of those stories revolve around… Read More ›
Stories the Stones Tell by Sara Wright
The potshard in the center seems to have a “face”… although I bring some of these artifacts home for closer inspection it is part of my spiritual practice to return them to the land. Avanyu, spirit of the waters The… Read More ›
Restoration by Molly Remer
In 2014, I sat on a low wooden bench nursing my 6 week old baby boy while wet plaster strips were laid across my face to create a mask. The final activity of the Rise Up and Call Her Name… Read More ›
Like Water Flowing Down a Mountain: Creating Lasting Change by Carolyn Lee Boyd
As we strive to create a better future, we can look to our rich heritage of global goddess and heroine tales for insight into peaceful, creative, and effective means to achieve our goals. Let me introduce you to the delightful… Read More ›
Changing Woman Speaks by Sara Wright
She climbed steep hills and rubble to reach the meadow. The flat – topped mountain peered down at the woman gathering stones as if they were diamonds. Amber, moss, pearl white, rose red and orange, gray and ebony – a… Read More ›
A Thanksgiving Litany for Living through Fractious Times by Alla Renée Bozarth
All things being relative, rememberthat collective and individual historiesare cyclical but open-ended, and discernthe kind of moment you are in and part of. Remember how to make it betterby holding on to all that is dear in life,and becoming more… Read More ›
October Magic, by Molly Remer
In was in October that my last grandmother died, my last living grandparent. As the leaves turn to red and gold once more, I wake thinking of her each morning. I wake thinking of my maternal grandmother too, who died… Read More ›
Telepathy, Women, and Birds by Sara Wright
I am a naturalist and ethologist who has studied many animals and birds in their natural habitat; my 15 year study of Maine’s black bears is perhaps the best example of the work I do. I am a dedicated animal… Read More ›
Passionflower Autumn by Sara Wright
I am gazing out the window; an almost bare leafed apple tree’s sap has begun its descent for the winter months. Trees participate in a great round; breathing slows as the tree becomes drowsy. Soon the merciful cold will put… Read More ›
Subversive Sister Saints by Angela Yarber
As the American Embassy was bombed in 1999, I was hunkered in a Russian Orthodox Church, gazing at the brooding, whitewashed faces of icons, hands raised in endlessly frightening benediction. Hundreds of men met my eye, as I found myself… Read More ›
Yes There are Goddesses in the Bible, Part 3
This blog post is the 3rd in a series of looking for female deities in the bible who have been translated out of easy reach or otherwise hidden within its words. In my last blog post I discussed bird imagery… Read More ›
Re-Visioning Medusa: Part I by Sara Wright
All through my childhood a self-portrait, painted by my mother hung above my parents’ bed. I was fascinated by this image of the stern face of my very beautiful mother with her long wavy chestnut hair. In the painting my… Read More ›
Sacrificial Gathering in the Long Covid Desert by Tallessyn Zawn Grenfell-Lee
I am a fairly private person; but I do like nice hugs. I grew up in a home that involved so much intentional love and affection that I came to see it as a normal part of any loving relationship…. Read More ›
Herb Talk: Bee Balm by Sara Wright
For Carol. Women’s relationship with plants stretches back to the beginning of humankind. Most of us know that women invented agriculture and became the first healers. I come from a family of women who all had gardens, but no one… Read More ›
Morning Meditation by Sara Wright
I have just returned from the brook where I offered up my Toad Moon prayers to the song of the Hermit thrush and to the rippling waters – first honoring my body with a poem written just for her, and… Read More ›
La Llorona Musings by Sara Wright
In Abiquiu New Mexico I walked down to the river and Bosque (wetland) communing with trees, leaving in the dark and returning before dawn every morning. Red Willow River is a tributary of the Rio Grande. I didn’t need to… Read More ›
In Sight (Part 2) by Sara Wright
This post follows In Sight (Part 1). Yet, I was content enough here wasn’t I [living part of the year in Abiquiu, New Mexico]? The desert was starkly beautiful, and I loved the place I lived, doing my best to… Read More ›
In Sight (Part 1) by Sara Wright
Four years ago I made a radical decision to spend a winter in New Mexico. Maine winters were long and I was 71 years old. An unfinished experience 25 years ago had left me with a longing to spend more… Read More ›
Navigating Meaning in Unchartered Ways by Natalie Weaver
The ideas that here follow are an effort to organize insights from meditation practice over the past several months. I submit them to FAR not because they are particularly profound or even well-developed but because I am, as everyone is, navigating… Read More ›
Living with Uncertainty by Sara Wright
I was deeply moved by Carol’s willingness to share deeply personal feelings about how her visit to the hospital , enough so that I decided to write about how the Covid virus has impacted my life and the lives of… Read More ›
Yes, There are Goddesses in the Bible by Janet Maika’i Rudolph
“Freud once asserted that mortals are not made to keep secrets;what they would like to conceal oozes from all their pores.”Psychoanalyst Theodore Reik[1] It’s remarkable how much female imagery there is in the Bible hidden within its wording. The more… Read More ›
Lammas after Lockdown by Laura Shannon
Today, August 1, 2020, is Lammas, the Celtic festival of late summer, the ‘feast of bread’, time of harvest and of golden grain. Here in the UK, Lammas arrives just as we are emerging from our coronavirus lockdown. It’s hard… Read More ›
Lessons From Birch & Mother Earth—Grace, Resilience, and Rebirth by Mary Gelfand
When I moved to Maine from New Orleans 15 years ago, I was delighted to discover how many birch trees were on the property where I lived with my new partner. Previously I had had little contact with these beautiful… Read More ›
No, I Don’t Fucking Need Anxiety Meds: The Covid Misogyny Epidemic by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir
“I think you should take medication for anxiety.” This was my doctor’s response when I calmly listed my Covid symptoms, which had been going on for a month and had landed me in Urgent Care twice and the ER twice,… Read More ›
Midsummer Meditation by Sara Wright
It is past “midsummer” and we are moving into the hottest time of the year without a drop of nourishing, healing rain… When I walk around outdoors I find myself focusing on the many different ferns that grace the forest… Read More ›