The Torah portion for May 21, 2022 is Behar (Leviticus 25:1 – 26:2). In it, the Israelites receive instructions for sh’mita and yovel – two types of sabbatical years. These years attempt to set up right relations between the community, the inhabitants of the land, and the land itself. From an ecofeminist perspective, not all is as idyllic as the Torah wishes it to seem.
Behar begins with sh’mitah, a sabbatical year that takes place every seventh year. During sh’mitah, the land must lay fallow. Both humans and animals can eat from what the land will naturally grow.
According to Juvenal, politicians in ancient Rome discovered they could get the downtrodden masses to abdicate their rights and accept shocking degrees of oppression merely by giving them enough bread to eat and circuses to distract them.
Meanwhile, in our modern age, we have this thing called Mother’s Day. Never mind how overworked and burned out many mothers are, balancing fulltime employment with the lioness’s share of childcare and housework. Never mind that the possible overturning of the Roe vs. Wade would outlaw abortion and force a whole generation of women and girls in the United States to become mothers against their will.
We’re supposed to dismiss all of the above from our pretty heads because, for ONE DAY A YEAR, we celebrate motherhood with a proliferation of sentimental greeting cards, hothouse flowers, and overpriced restaurant meals served by waitresses who are themselves overworked, burned out mothers.
I think we need to call out hypocrisy here.
A culture that truly honored motherhood would do a lot more than offer one day of saccharine appeasement. It would provide paid parental leave for both parents and urge fathers to put in equal time in parenting and housework. It would provide excellent subsidized childcare, following the Scandinavian model, along with a shorter working week, creating an even playing field for women and men to pursue their careers while still having downtime with their families. A culture that truly celebrated motherhood would insure that motherhood was a freely-elected CHOICE and provide sex education, birth control, and abortion with no discussion or handwringing.
Motherhood in a culture that is toxic to mothers and to women in general can be a fraught experience. Generations of unspoken pain, repression, and deep-lying trauma get passed down from mothers to daughters. Some women I know have made the decision not to have children in order to end this long chain of hurt. Just imagine if every woman refused to reproduce until we could dismantle the chains of patriarchal oppression.
Mother’s Day can be a contentious holiday for both mothers and daughters, especially those who have suffered abuse, neglect, or trauma.
An older friend of mine is haunted by the beatings her mother gave her back in the day when the kind of physical punishment we would now view as child abuse was considered acceptable. Her mother even used to joke about these incidents at family gatherings, as if it were some amusing anecdote, and she seemed to remain steadfastly oblivious to her daughter’s deep pain and trauma. One can only wonder what was going on inside the mother. Did her repressed anger or her own unhealed trauma move her to smack the hell out of her little girl? Had she herself been beaten, shamed for her tears, and ordered to laugh it off?
As the saying goes, hurt people hurt people. I would go further by saying that hurt mothers hurt their daughters.
This is the crux of how patriarchy divides and conquers women. How it trains mothers to cut their daughters down to size, just as they were cut down.
The greatest gift we can give mothers on Mother’s Day, or on ANY day, is our own healing and strength, co-creating a world where every woman, whether she is a mother or not, is respected and whole. Where hurt mothers can be healed and heard, without passing the pain down to the next generation. Where the whole insidious cycle of abuse can end once and for all and we can live inside our power.
Mary Sharratt is committed to telling women’s stories. Please check out her acclaimed novel Illuminations, drawn from the dramatic life of Hildegard von Bingen, and her new novelRevelations, about the mystical pilgrim Margery Kempe and her friendship with Julian of Norwich. Visit her website.
It is important that we share these rituals of celebration and affirmation with our sons as well as our daughters. Men, too, should know the power of joined hands in a circle, voices lifted in song, and sweet words of connection surrounding one another on a bright spring day…
I rose early seeking Beltane dewdrops with which to anoint my brow. the cupped violet stems and clover were dry and I found no dewdrops in the chickweed stars. Instead, I put out oranges for the orioles, ran my fingers through the dandelions, and pressed my nose into the lilacs. I spotted green flowers on the mulberry trees, found the first wild pink geraniums and tender bells of columbine and came face to face with the quiet black eyes of solemn deer in the raspberry bushes. These things their own kind of anointing, their own small and significant rites of May Magic.
As a family, we traditionally celebrate the May by making a Green Man face in our field, using natural items that we find that day. As a goddess-focused person who walks an almost exclusively goddess-centered/nature-based path, this is one of our few family rituals that centers around more masculine sacred imagery. It is a favorite for my kids—rituals involving multi-age groups should always be as highly participatory as possible. I have written several times for FAR about how my hearth-priestessing has evolved over the years, letting go of more and more control, doing less and less planning, and being more freeform, spontaneous, flexible, and playful. My four children now range in age from 7-18. We have celebrating the turning of the Wheel of the Year for their entire lives. I love how our memories of past rituals inform the present—for example this year’s Green Man had the same rock for a nose that we used for last year’s Green Man.
This year, May Day was bright and sunny with a wild wind. We circled near the driveway, building our Man on the gravel, where his features would stand out against the brown rocks. We gave him antlers formed from cedar branch and white-tailed deer and a crown of a split stump of gray oak. My oldest son trimmed off cedar branches for his beard, my husband pruned the hydrangeas of last year’s dead growth to frame his face, my sixteen year old gathered golden stalks of dry bluestem grass for a mustache, and my 11 and 7 year olds gathered pieces of grass and cinquefoil to trim his hair and beard.
We stood around him in admiration for a few minutes and then I spoke of the bounty, growth, and renewal of this time of year. We stood hand in hand and read the following blessing together (me calling a line and then all repeating it):
A sweet blessing of the singing sky to us.
A slow blessing of the shining flame to us.
A strong blessing of the crashing wave to us.
A soft blessing of the pulsing earth to us.
We then offered a wish to one another in turn with a spritz of “Valiant Heart” spray (from Honey and Sage Co). For example, I spritzed my daughter (11) and wished her curiosity and creativity and then she turned to her father and spritzed him wishing him health and prosperity.
I gave everyone four rose petals (whole flowers would have worked well, but I was working on the fly!) and invited everyone to kiss each petal in turn and then offer it to the Green Man (the wind whirled most of our petals away as we released them, which was pleasant as well—our wishes, accepted), based on this past poem:
Find four flowers and bring them to your lips one at a time. One for wonder. One for joy. One for love. One for magic. Make your promise invite them in, one by one the spell is done.
We sang a few lines together, laughing, from one of Tom Bombadil’s ditties in The Fellowship of the Ring and shouted out, “Happy May!” after finishing our raucous rendition:
Now let the song begin! Let us sing together! Of sun, stars, moon and mist, rain and cloudy weather, Light on the budding leaf, dew on the feather, Wind on the open hill, bells on the heather, Reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water…
We then each took a handful of wildflower seeds and sang “Call Down a Blessing” over them, each of us plugging in a blessing word in our turn.
Call down a blessing Call down a blessing Call down a blessing Call down __________before you __________behind you __________within you and around you.
This song is based on Cathy Parton and Dave Para’s song, but is sung collaboratively with each person choosing a blessing to sing together in the blank space. (A recording of our women’s circle singing this together during a ritual is available here.) We then scattered to plant our handfuls of seeds in whichever place we wished to do so.
This whole ceremony took less than thirty minutes and we closed our largely spontaneous ritual by joining hands and offering our family’s usual closing prayer (learned from our own dear Carol Christ): May Goddess bless and keep us, may wisdom dwell within us, may we create peace.
It is important that we share these rituals of celebration and affirmation with our sons as well as our daughters. Men, too, should know the power of joined hands in a circle, voices lifted in song, and sweet words of connection surrounding one another on a bright spring day.
My oldest son is graduating from high school this month and this week I took him to register for his first college classes. At this threshold moment in parenting, I feel the odd psychological sensation of overlapping generational “timelines,” sometimes feeling like I, myself, have become my parents, while at the same time, feeling like I am a college student myself. But, for now, at this moment, we stand here together under a Beltane sun, laughing together around a Green Man in the stones.
Molly Remer, MSW, D.Min, is a priestess, teacher, and poet facilitating sacred circles, seasonal rituals, and family ceremonies in central Missouri. Molly and her husband Mark co-create Story Goddesses at Brigid’s Grove (brigidsgrove.etsy.com). Molly is the author of nine books, including Walking with Persephone, Whole and Holy, Womanrunes, and the Goddess Devotional. She is the creator of the devotional experience #30DaysofGoddess and she loves savoring small magic and everyday enchantment.
Jewish amuletic objects come in many forms: salt, the hamsa or hand, the bowl, the scroll with verses, even sword-shaped amulets. These items are meant to provide spiritual protection from malevolent forces such as demons and the evil eye and vary across different times and places. One protective item from Jewish folklore is iron. In medieval Germany, for example, pregnant Jewish women carried an iron object to repel malevolent forces. This was part of a wider cultural norm: across Western Europe, iron was understood to repel fairies and spirits of all kinds, and was sewed into babies’ clothing, hung above cradles and doorways, etc. According to one Jewish legend, when the waters of Egypt turned to blood during the first plague, water in metal vessels was 34245 the only water to remain unchanged. Pieces of iron were placed on all vessels containing water during the solstices and equinoxes—considered to be a time when spirits were roving the world—to protect them from contamination.
It was a strange thing. I even felt a little self-conscious about it, but it’s just where I was at the time.
I arrived in Mazatlán two days after my dad died. The wake was well on its way and people were already at the funeral home, including my mom and sister. I see my dad in the coffin – it was an open casket with a glass top so you could still see him. I said hi to him like I would on any other day – “Hi papa” – waving toward him from a couple feet away as I greeted the folks already there. I felt no sadness, no grief, no need to cry.
I then went and stood by my mom’s side as she wept over the coffin, talking to him and gesturing as if caressing his face over the glass top. I put my arm over her shoulder. I stood with her in her grief. I felt sad for her – I wanted her to be ok. But me, I felt fine. People would hug me and cry as they did, expressing their condolences or their own grief. I would hug folks back, but there was no part of me that needed to cry – I just wasn’t there yet.
It took me over a week before I felt like crying – before I did cry. People said it was shock; that was why I didn’t cry. At the time, I didn’t know what it was – I just knew that I felt fine, until I didn’t. Today, ten months since my papa’s death, I don’t think it was shock, it was just the fact that he wasn’t who was before me, who I was feeling—it was my mom, grieving, and she was my focus. She was who was before me, and I tended to her.
In feminism becoming a ‘wise’ crone is acknowledged (it is certainly true that experience brings insight), but the vulnerabilities associated with aging remain hidden. I wonder how much of this silence has to do with shame? Does our culture’s obsession with youth keep us quiet? If so this attitude isolates women from one another when older women need each other’s support more than ever. Lately, I find myself keenly aware that I need to write about the changes that are occurring in my own life so that I remain visible to myself if not to others.
When it comes to the challenges of aging the silence is deafening.
Turn, Turn, Turn
It’s May Day. At dawn I scoop water from the brook, first pouring some on the earth and then, returning to the house, I bless the floor of the log cabin that is my home. I light candles for intentions… Too sensitive to light (phototrophic) I am acutely aware that the wheel is turning her face towards the harsh white glare of summer.
When we seek immortality or spiritual “rebirth,” are we not saying that there is something wrong with the “birth” that was given to us through the body of our mothers? In She Who Changes and in “Reading Plato’s Allegory of the Cave as Matricide and Theacide,” I asserted that our culture is “matricidal” because it is based on the assumption that life in the body in this world “just isn’t good enough.”
What is so wrong with the life that our mothers gave us that we must reject it in the name of a “higher” spiritual life? The answer of course death.
Can we love life without accepting death?
Can we love our mothers if we do not accept a life that ends in death?
Jesus was said to have encouraged his disciples to leave their wives and families in order to follow him. When he was told that his mother and brothers were outside and waiting to speak to him, he is said to have said:
“Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother. (Matt. 12:48-50)
Originally posted on February 7, 2021. You read the original comments here.
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 hopefully living in a more optimistic and peaceable time now, but that’s no reason not to add a new spiritual practice to our lives. I hope you’ll like this one and will try it for yourself.
We’re accustomed to seeing people praying with rosaries or reciting mantras and counting repetitions with strings of beads. We can do that, too. But how about using a simpler “tool” to keep track of our mantras and affirmations—our own hands?
I’ve been blown away this Spring by the abundant beauty and sheer number of tulips planted throughout Roanoke, Virginia, a city I’m beginning to think of as “home.”
If I were to pick a favorite flower, it would be the tulip, yet I find it impossible to look at a tulip without being reminded of my religious upbringing regarding “salvation” as represented in the acronym of Calvinism’s “Five Points.” Each tulip displays five petals in its flower. Each petal stands for one point.
T=Total Depravity
U=Unconditional Election
L=Limited Atonement
I=Irresistible Grace
P=Preservation and Perseverance of the saints.
When my (now ex-) sister-in-law delivered her first baby one Spring, I gave her a pot of tulip plants, reminding her that T-U-L-I-P was the basis of our faith. The plant didn’t live to the following Spring, portending perhaps my future abandonment of T-U-L-I-P doctrine—doctrine being an interpretation of Scripture. T-U-L-I-P lays out an understanding of soteriology (doctrine explaining human salvation) hammered out by the French theologian John Calvin (1509-1564) and developed further by his Protestant followers.
Calvin had pushback to his five points from Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609) and his disciples who disagreed vehemently with Calvin. Both Calvinists and Arminians claimed to be Christian, believing Christ to be the ultimate sacrifice for sin and necessary for blissful, eternal life. The discussion/debate remains an intramural one.
Seeing and engaging the world through a T-U-L-I-P lens does damage to the human spirit. It’s especially harsh on those people who have been systematically marginalized throughout patriarchal history—women, the LGBQTIA+ community, poor people, and Black/Brown people (especially in the US). After all, marginalized people have been considered “depraved” (first leaf of the tulip) by those who have power in our hierarchical society to develop and enforce doctrine that keeps the status quo for those in the upper echelons. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
What is salvation? How does it happen? Who gets to be saved? Why are some saved and not others?
Today these questions don’t plague me as they once did. I find them curiously interesting, but not personally relevant. Nevertheless, these very questions and T-U-L-I-P, as a viable explanation for the human condition, used to hold me in their grip, crippling me while sucking joy from living in the here and now.
A brief explanation of T-U-L-I-P:
TOTAL DEPRAVITY—Not only have human beings inherited original sin (sin being the transgression of divine law), but are totally incapable of doing any good whatsoever without God’s intervention and help. Sin has infiltrated our thinking, emotions, and will. Only God can break through that murkiness before we can receive the free gift of salvation accomplished by Jesus’ death and resurrection.
(The following four points are dependent on the “truth” of the first point.)
UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION—God chooses who will be saved (the “elect”) for his own purposes, not based on anything an individual may or may not do. Nevertheless, we humans are responsible to see/believe the “truth.” (Huh?)
LIMITED ATONEMENT—Christ (the ultimate sacrifice for sin) did not die for everybody—only for those “elect” that God gave to Christ. Not everybody can be or will be saved.
IRRESISTIBLE GRACE—Those whom God “elects” to salvation cannot ultimately resist the offer or internal call of God’s grace for salvation.
PERSEVERANCE (AND PRESERVATION) OF THE SAINTS—Once Christians have been saved they cannot lose their salvation. God will see to it that the “elect” will persevere in the faith to the end.
So, why is this at all pertinent? Because our religious communities’ theological doctrines (handed down from our ancestors) have seeped into the social fabric of society. How often have we (those humans not “equal” to other humans) been told we don’t know things, don’t measure up, and will never achieve? We are lacking in countless ways and only our “betters” can enlighten and save us. (This is one way “total depravity” has worked into the interstices of society.)
T-U-L-I-P, Re-imagined:
Instead of Total Depravity, might we consider Total Perfection? We come into the world completely vulnerable and gradually learn to navigate our particular circumstances through the various communities we belong to. We express ourselves within the boundaries of our humanity. We love, hate, cry, get angry, and express joy. In much of Buddhist thought, these emotions are just that—emotions. We retain our perfection while being “angry Buddha,” “sad Buddha,” or “happy Buddha.” Emotions are not a moral issue. We are perfect in our humanity.
What about Unconditional Love, not Unconditional Election? What if we were to give ourselves and those who cross our path unconditional love? No judgment, no agenda to mold people into this or that—only acceptance of our perfect humanity?
Why not Limited Experience instead of Limited Atonement? We are human and bound by what we often call “laws of nature.” We fall at times. We forget what we need to be doing. Ideally, our family and community are supportive in ways that teach and encourage us, not limiting or withdrawing their support as we explore our environment.
Let’s talk about Irresistible Beauty, not Irresistible Grace. Beauty surrounds us. Beautiful art arrests us every day—both in the natural world and in the art humans produce. Navajo people focus on walking in beauty, meaning walking in harmony with all things—people, objects, animals, and life itself!
Pensive Perseverance rather than Perseverance (and preservation) of the Saints although the latter sounds good as long as “saints” refers to all people traversing the earth. Pensive (or critical thinking) Perseverance will enable us to flourish as we discover our own path.
My revision of Calvin’s acronym doesn’t answer all of life’s BIG questions, however, I do think a revised version of T-U-L-I-P—one that doesn’t straight-jacket our humanity would better nurture and sustain us on life’s journey. Perhaps we can begin with contemplating, planting, and even painting the earthy, garden-variety tulips that flourish in the springtime!
Painting by Cliff Edwards
BIOEsther Nelson is a registered nurse who worked for several years in Obstetrics and Psychiatry, but not simultaneously. She returned to school (Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia) when her children were in college and liked it well enough to stay on as an adjunct professor. For twenty-two years, she taught courses on Human Spirituality, Global Ethics, Christian-Muslim Relations, Women in the Abrahamic Faiths, and Women in Islam. She is the co-author (with Nasr Abu Zaid) of Voice of An Exile: Reflections on Islam and the co-author (with Kristen Swenson) of What is Religious Studies? : A Journey of Inquiry. She recently retired from teaching.
I am pissed! I wrote this blogpost the day after Beltane when the leaked draft of the Supreme Court majority opinion regarding Roe v. Wade was leaked to the public. I was up anyway feeling the effects of PTSD. Lessons that Carol P. Christ wrote about and brought to my own consciousness were rattling around my head. The first is her definition of patriarchy: “patriarchy is a system of male domination in which men dominate women through the control of female sexuality with the intent of passing property to male heirs.” This definition was part of a 3-part series she wrote (and we recently re-posed in her legacy posts) beginning here.
They are all well worth reading.
I was raped in 1977 when I was 22 years old. This after being abused by my father. I never got pregnant, but I was suicidal after the rape. Had I been pregnant without recourse to ending it, I would without a doubt have stabbed myself in the stomach or reached for that metal coat hanger. (I was too young to face pregnancy when my father abused me.) Had the result been my own death, that would have been warmly welcomed on my part. To this day, I still self-mutilate at times when stress becomes too much.
Feminism and Religion 