Category: Women’s Spirituality

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 see; my feet knew the path by heart, so I was free to let my other senses take precedence. Listening to the sound of my feet, the first bird song, I moved into a still place, while first light gathered itself around me like a luminous cloak under the cottonwood trees. On my return the curves of the river and the dazzling painted sky held my rapt attention  … I didn’t realize for a long time that this daily meander was actually a walking meditation that helped stabilize me in a place that I loved but could not call home.

In the mystical magical twilight, if the conditions were right, I witnessed the mist rise over the river and whenever this happened it seemed to me that I ‘sensed’ a figure emerging from that cloud… this apparent apparition never ceased to pull me into her ‘field’. The woman was always weeping and I called her La Llorona, believing that she wept for the Earth, my precious Earth, because her animals and trees and plants were dying. Extinction was concrete reality, a daily occurrence. Cultural denial made it impossible for me to share my grief, but here, with La Llorona, I was witnessed and free to mourn… Continue reading “La Llorona Musings by Sara Wright”

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 create a home, planting trees and creating small gardens. I had escaped the too long winters, the heavy physical work associated with them. Yet questions gnawed at me. What did it mean to feel at home? Why the profound feelings of emptiness and lack of clarity? And what about the light?

I couldn’t escape the problem of light. One of the reasons I set out for the river in the dark was because I wanted these walks to end before sunrise. There was a quality of intense light present during the day in the too thin air that I found disturbing. Too much light, air, wind, and on the other extreme, too much stone. The crust of the earth held little in the way of new life in the desert. Survival of any plant species was precarious and dependent on the rains that rarely came. Almost everything I planted ended up dead. The desert had little to offer in terms of containment for people or plants. The sky gods ruled the desert, and did so with an iron will. Stone doesn’t surrender; it is incapable of receiving. This was not a forgiving place. Continue reading “In Sight (Part 2) by Sara Wright”

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 time in the desert. Although I had formed a deep and abiding relationship with my land in Maine over a period of almost 40 years and had constructed a small log cabin on this beautiful piece of property that has a brook on three sides, woods and fields, I wondered if at this stage of my life I should consider moving….

I was very fortunate to find a place to live In Abiquiu, NM, and eventually I was able to move into a friend’s newly built casita that bordered a tributary of the Rio Grande, which also abutted another friend’s property. This abutting property included a Bosque (river wetland). I was blessed to have a beautiful place to walk through without having to get into a car. Most hikes required driving somewhere, a practice I disliked.

I discovered over time that New Mexico was a land of extremes – and not the paradise I had expected. The one torturous summer I spent there under 100 plus degree heat made it clear that I could not live in this stifling sauna with its bloody burning sun year round. Wildfires burned continuously. The west winds roared churning up clouds of dust that choked the air, sometimes for days on end; and the winds were relentless, especially during the spring. I remembered fairy tales that spoke to the malevolence of the west wind; I imagined I could feel that power here. Continue reading “In Sight (Part 1) by Sara Wright”

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 meaning in unchartered ways during this epoch.  I find my old truths not only no longer fit; they were imposed, inherited, mind-binding patterns that have caused me damage from which I am ready to heal.  I have discovered that rigorous meditation practice is transforming my experience and understanding in ways that very closely align with the outcomes of feminist deconstruction of patriarchal value norms.  Renewed and serious application of this work, in my opinion, has never been more timely, more universally needed, or more psychically therapeutic. 

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The teaching of impermanence discloses itself in what might be described imperfectly as both the foreground as well as the deep background of human experience.  It is imperfect to use the terms “foreground” and “background” because these words suggest a stacked-dimensional and binary experience in human life, which is, to say the least, inadequate.  I defer to these terms only for the purposes of suggesting different value experiences that the teaching of impermanence meets along the range of aspects of cognition and self-awareness.  Continue reading “Navigating Meaning in Unchartered Ways by Natalie Weaver”

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 those around me.

Here in my corner of the world summer is a time to be outdoors, and so returning to Maine in the early spring has allowed me to be emotionally present in a joyful way for Nature’s turnings, first from winter to spring, and then from spring to summer. But I am a naturalist and only too aware that my love for the wild is not shared by everyone.

Because I have no family, the longing to be with loved ones does not pierce my heart in the same way it does for others. Continue reading “Living with Uncertainty by Sara Wright”

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 I delve into its passages, the more that I have found these hidden/not so hidden sacred feminine images, even deities. I have begun a project of digging in and rooting out these little gems. When people think about the sacred feminine or female deities in the Bible the most well known is the Shekinah. The Shekinah is a lovely presence. The word means “dwelling” and usually represents “god’s divine presence” or a place where the divine resides.

The problem is that the Shekinah as a feminine essence of the divine is never stated explicitly, it is an interpretation of how the word is used.  I love the concept of the Shekinah but as an essence that upholds the entire weight of the feminine divine in the bible, I find it unsatisfying by itself. Luckily for me, Goddess Shekinah has lots of company. Sometimes they are indeed hiding in plain sight. Sometimes they hide in the translations. The passage I am presenting today has some of both going on. The following is the King James Version of Genesis 49:25. Jacob has been giving blessings to each of his sons and this is part of the blessing he gives to Joseph: Continue reading “Yes, There are Goddesses in the Bible by Janet Maika’i Rudolph”

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 to feel a personal sense of ‘harvest’ when most people’s lives have been on hold since the spring.

Confined to our homes, many people could throw themselves into tending their own gardens (if they had one), but most of us could not cultivate the symbolic gardens of our lives and work in the way that we wanted. Many have faced deep loss, the withering of seeds planted in the past which could not now come to fruition.

Despite the tragic times, the earth continues to dance to the sacred rhythms of sun and moon. The trees are full of fruit, the fields are full of grain. Although I too have had my share of sorrow and grief in recent months, today I feel moved by the season to look at what we can harvest from our experience of the coronavirus pandemic.

Continue reading “Lammas after Lockdown by Laura Shannon”

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 white trees, other than in pictures and stories.  The name always evoked images of birch bark canoes and messages to fate scrawled with bits of burnt wood.

Face to face, birch trees were as marvelous as I had imagined.  I loved their shape against the blue sky, their beautiful white bark, the graceful way they swayed in the wind, the delicate tracery of their branches in mid-winter.  Once I even saw a pair of mating dragon flies clinging to a branch, using their delicate wings to maintain harmony with the movement of the gentle breeze. Continue reading “Lessons From Birch & Mother Earth—Grace, Resilience, and Rebirth by Mary Gelfand”

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, once via ambulance when the hotline nurse thought I was having a stroke because my face suddenly went numb, and my blood pressure, usually below normal, had shot up to 199/113.

I had just described my previous month – two weeks of crippling fatigue, occasional sore throat, then stomach upset arrived day 17 along with fever and cough that sometimes worsened into scary difficulty breathing, then came the pricking and shooting nerve pains, numbness, and feeling that all my blood was cold and trembly and horribly uncomfortable, the metallic taste in my mouth, the painful glands, vicious headaches, a week of horrible adrenaline spikes and insomnia, bladder discomfort, two days of insatiable, continual, desperate thirst, conjunctivitis… hell, I’m sure I’m forgetting a few. Continue reading “No, I Don’t Fucking Need Anxiety Meds: The Covid Misogyny Epidemic by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir”

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 edges – ferns that hold in precious moisture creating damp places for toads and frogs to hide, places for young trees to sprout, places for the grouse and turkey to hide their nestlings, ferns whose lacy fronds bow low as if in in prayer. Sweet fern covers the hill above and around the brook.

The Ostrich ferns are giant bouquets that sprout up around Trillium rock shielding tender wildflower roots. Maidenhair is being devoured by insects, sadly, the only fern having difficulty here. New York ferns are stiff with ladder like fronds and the few cultivars provide soft shades of dark red, blue and green.  Along my woodland paths the tall pale green bracken stalks have to be pulled although I leave all that I can around the edges to protect the mosses. All the ferns are forever unfurling in a state of becoming, spiral gifts for any discerning eye. Continue reading “Midsummer Meditation by Sara Wright”