Women’s Voices – Page 60 – Feminism and Religion

Embracing Fierceness by Mary Sharratt

Maenad dancing with snake, ancient Greece, ca 450 BCE

This post is in part inspired by Donna Henes’s brilliant post, I am Mad. Too often as spiritual women, we are told we have to be nice all the time. Accomodating. Compromise our boundaries and principles.

Mainstream religions tell us we must forgive those who mistreat us. Too many women in very abusive situations literally turn the other cheek–to their extreme detriment. As Sherrie Campbell points out in her essay The 5 Faults of Forgiveness, the obligation of forgiveness oppresses survivors of abuse because it makes it all about the perpetrator and not about the healing, dignity, or boundaries of the survivor.

In my own Catholic upbringing I learned to swallow my anger and rage until it erupted in depression and burning bladder infections. My background did not teach me to skillfully dance with anger and it’s been a difficult learning curve for me. But I learned the hard way that owning my anger was crucial if I wanted to stand in my power and speak my truth.

Continue reading “Embracing Fierceness by Mary Sharratt”

A Dance Between Fear and Trust by Jassy Watson

I have been deep in thought about TRUST.

There was a moment of realization recently when I saw clearly how in every moment of every day we place trust in the hands of others, many of whom we do not even know. Every time we step onto a bus, train or plane or take a ride in a taxi, we are doing so in faith that they will get us to our destination safely. Every time we drive a car we trust that all those driving on the road with us are safe drivers. We place trust in schoolteachers and childcare workers to care for our children often without knowing anything of their background. We place trust in doctors and healthcare workers, many of us never even questioning treatments or procedures.

Every moment of our lives requires some level of trust and faith. Of course, I know this – we all do, but I have never really questioned this trust or taken the time to think about how much trust it actually takes just to do the everyday. Our lives are immeasurably built on trust. But what happens when fear and doubt start taking over? Continue reading “A Dance Between Fear and Trust by Jassy Watson”

Painting Herstory: Our Lady of Silver Lake by Angela Yarber

angela It has become my new routine during the first phase of my queer little family’s year-long journey. After completing my chores, I run along the trails surrounding Silver Lake and once I’m thoroughly drenched in sweat, I grab a book and push our enormous 15-foot canoe into the frigid waters of the little lake we’re calling home for three months. With a smile that has yet to wipe off my face, I paddle fiercely. I’m typically the only person on the lake.

It’s a steep mile hike from the trailhead, and we’re the only ones “living” here for the summer, so my giant green canoe ripples the silvery waters in solitude. Once I find the right spot, I stuff my life vest behind my head and cozy down into the belly of the canoe, book in hand, goofy grin still spread across my flushed face. In the warmth of the sun, I read. In the belly of the canoe, I drift into the history of the lake, the unwritten annals lapping alongside my rocking boat, the portions on record filling the book in my sun-warmed hands.

The author who wrote the history of Silver Lake, William Powers, hiked up with several autographed copies in his rucksack several days after our arrival. He’s a nice man who wrote a nice book. There’s nothing like reading about the history of a place while in the place. Hear me say this clearly: there’s nothing wrong with the nice book this nice man wrote. The stories of Frank Chandler feeling a call from God to build a place for religious camp meetings along Silver Lake’s shores are fascinating, an interesting part of the history of camp meetings that filled the Awakenings throughout the United States. But as I read about Frank Chandler and the various men who the logged roads hikers now hike and built the buildings that haven’t existed for years due to fire, I couldn’t help but notice who was missing. Continue reading “Painting Herstory: Our Lady of Silver Lake by Angela Yarber”

The Guessing Game by Vibha Shetiya

Viba My husband, who is American, first introduced me to the word “negging.” Although I hadn’t come across it before setting foot in America, I soon came to realize it was a concept that knew few cultural bounds. The Urban Dictionary (UD) defines negging as “[when] you use remarks to tap into female insecurity; shake their confidence…neg is a negative remark wrapped in a back-handed compliment.” In the West, as I have learned, negging tends to target a woman’s physical attributes, often as a pick up line. Thus, as the UD again illustrates: “You are nearly as tall as me. I like tall girls (LIFT). Are those heels 4 or 5 inches (DROP)?”[1]

I’m from India and thought I’d provide an example of negging to illustrate its varied and glorious forms. Back when I was growing up, dating wasn’t socially acceptable in my culture – it often had to be done on the sly which probably explains why negging as a pick up line wasn’t the smartest choice. But we South Asians had and continue to have our own cultural equivalents of underhand methods specifically designed to erode a woman’s sense of self. Continue reading “The Guessing Game by Vibha Shetiya”

A Cornucopia Sometimes Curiously Stuffed With Nothing by Natalie Weaver

Natalie Weaver edited The summer is getting late. School supplies are coming in, and it is time to try on the uniform pants in order to get them hemmed before the first day. I always feel a little funny at this time of year, almost queasy from my mixture of nostalgia for waning days at the pool and excitement for crisp plaids and fresh notebooks. I continually miss the scents of summer skin, chlorine and suntan lotion, even while I look forward to the autumnal fragrances of newly sharpened pencils, cinnamon sticks, and rubbery Halloween costumes. Time, at this transitional time, is always pregnant with the promises of both bounty and loss, so I am not surprised by my wistfulness as we turn to fall. I am, however, taken by its depth for me this year. For, this transition has been a little heavier than usual as I ask myself, “Where did it go?” and “What did I do?”

You see, I wanted to travel more with the kids, but I became sick, or rather, a sickness I already had presented itself unmistakably and irrevocably just as the summer was getting under way. So, I slept a lot, but it was not the sleep of rest and recovery; it was lost time. I felt bad about my crankiness and limitations, so I tried to make up the time by adding more play to the times of day when I felt good. The kids weren’t playing along though, and I just felt more exhausted. I was a broken record, as I kept asking what anyone wanted to do. And, I felt like I was failing when we couldn’t arrive at activities, or menus, or destinations. Continue reading “A Cornucopia Sometimes Curiously Stuffed With Nothing by Natalie Weaver”

The Wonder that is Being Born: How to Live Out Loud? Sacrilegious or Evolution? by Karen Moon

Yesterday, I went to a Women’s Circle, the description follows:

Our next circle will honor this journey of Venus or Innana as she was known by the ancient Sumerians. We will gather on Sunday, July 26th at 3 PM at my house. We will celebrate the divine feminine energy of Innana/Venus through meditation, song and dance. I encourage you to dress as your inner goddess, embracing your personal divine feminine energy. We will have our usual potluck munchies afterward.

I had spoken to the host on the phone previously and know her via Social Media. My husband gave his helpful advice to be sure that it was not a “cult,” and yes, I do think any time you find things via social media, a big dose of common sense is needed. Continue reading “The Wonder that is Being Born: How to Live Out Loud? Sacrilegious or Evolution? by Karen Moon”

Four Days of Bliss (or How I used The System to beat The System) by Vibha Shetiya

Vidha S I’m not particularly fond of my periods – they’re painful, full of cramps. But they are a part of who I am, and I’m not going to apologize for them. We women, especially those of us belonging to the sub-continent, have been shamed or embarrassed into silence, while being reminded that motherhood is the most exalted position a woman could ever hope for. I mean, isn’t that paradoxical – if it weren’t for the bloody nemesis (pardon the pun), we would never get to experience motherhood.

I grew up in a Western environment (in southern Africa) where “period” wasn’t necessarily synonymous with repulsion. But when I moved to India, the land of my birth, soon after my “life-altering” experience, things began to look different. I came to realize that I ought not to be like the neighbour girl who was so besharam, or shameless, that she insisted on announcing her monthly ignominy to the world by refusing to conceal the fact that she had indeed been at the pharmacist’s to buy sanitary pads. Why, the pack of pads, sealed in newspaper and carried in a little black plastic bag was right there for the entire world to see on her ten minute walk back home! I gradually came to understand that “those four days” were taboo – do not speak of “it,” do not make it obvious even if you are writhing in unbearable pain, do not contaminate sacred space with your womanly profanity. Continue reading “Four Days of Bliss (or How I used The System to beat The System) by Vibha Shetiya”

MASKS OF THE GODDESS: Bringing the Divine Feminine to Life by Lauren Raine

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“What the audience saw when a dancer looked through the eyes of the mask was the Goddess Herself, an ancient and yet utterly contemporary presence, looking across time, across the miles.”

Diane Darling, Playwright

In Salt Lake City in October at the Parliament of World Religions a group of women and men will be will be literally “bringing the Goddess to life”. “Goddess Alive!” is produced and written by M. Macha NightMare (Aline O’Brien), with Mary Kay Landon. Participants will use my “Masks of the Goddess” Collection to create a ritual theatre event honoring the many faces of the Divine Feminine throughout the world.

The Masks of the Goddess Project began in 1998, and since then the ever-evolving, multi-cultural collection of masks have travelled around the U.S. to different communities for dance, storytelling, exhibit, and personal invocation, always collaborative.

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Continue reading “MASKS OF THE GODDESS: Bringing the Divine Feminine to Life by Lauren Raine”

Feminism, Race, and Religion: An Interview with Sikivu Hutchinson by Kile Jones

While black Churches are burning, and black children are being gunned down by police, I felt it important to speak with someone who is involved in raising awareness on the role of racism and cultural imperialism in American society. I am honored to present to you all, Sikivu Hutchinson.

As a woman of color, and an atheist, how do you respond to the invocation of God in the Charleston tragedy?

It frustrates me but the invocation of God in crisis is a significant part of African American cultural and social history. As I wrote recently in an article entitled “Pushing Back on ‘God’ in Charleston”: “Radical black humanists, most notably Frederick Douglass and A. Philip Randolph, have challenged black religiosity under slavery while acknowledging the crucial role activist churches played in black self-determination.

Randolph’s critique of organized religion and the god concept was always coupled with a critique of capital and the imperialist occupation of black bodies and African countries. Churches dominated black communities because of the nexus of racial apartheid and capitalism.”

Organized religion and God belief continue to dominate African American communities because of these legacies. That said, clearly no loving god would allow a twenty six year-old in the prime of his life to be cut down in cold blood, nor abide by a five year-old having to play dead to avoid being murdered. And no moral god would demand forgiveness for a crime for which there has never—since the first African was stolen, chained, exploited and “imported”—been any reparations. Continue reading “Feminism, Race, and Religion: An Interview with Sikivu Hutchinson by Kile Jones”

Sappho, Frankincense, and Female Spirituality by Stuart Dean

White Howjary Frankincense (photo: Trygve Harris (www.enfleurage.com))

Sappho is the first Greek author to attest to the usage of frankincense. The word she uses to refer to it (libanos) is what comparative linguists call a ‘loan word,’ in this case from ancient South Arabic (the root meaning of which is ‘white’), the language spoken in the only region in the world still now, as then, where the trees grow that produce the resin that is frankincense (the finest being White Howjary from near Salalah Oman).

This was long before Amazon Same-Day Prime: that frankincense even made it to where Sappho was is astonishing given the thousands of miles of desert terrain that had to be covered. That fact plus the fact that Sappho chose to use the Arabic word for frankincense suggests it must have been of special importance to her. How important can be seen in the power she attributes to it. In one prayer poem (S.2, composite translation and very brief notes here) she completes a stanza by referring to frankincense burning from Aphrodite’s altars; she completes the very next stanza with a reference to ‘sleep falling.’ The parallelism implies a reciprocity: the smoke goes up, the sleep comes down and a stanza later, there is Aphrodite. Continue reading “Sappho, Frankincense, and Female Spirituality by Stuart Dean”