Feminism and Religion

A Tale of Dos Equis: Separating From My Husband by Caryn MacGrandle

After thirteen years filled with marital strife, I recently moved out. For financial and logistical reasons, we are staying married, focusing on our two children and have put into place a ‘3-3-3’ schedule.

Three days, our daughters are with me. Three days, they are with him. And three days, we are all together at our old home.

I believe that it is a great transitionary plan as it is making the adjustment for our daughters easier, but it is not always the easiest on me.

I call him my Dos Equis as yes, he is husband number two. Perhaps I am a slow learner, but I believe I have been ‘on path’.

Dos Equis wanted us to all go on vacation together, and so we recently drove to Destin, Florida. He feels that our relationship is ‘normal’ and that I have perniciously turned off some essential switch withholding my wifely duties and my support for him.

But it is not normal.

Although I would suppose that far too many of you can relate.

Feminist Parenting About Sexuality Part 3: You’ve probably been raped more often than you think by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

Our Rape Culture is successfully grooming boys and men to rape girls and women, and grooming girls and women to accept rape as normal, healthy sex. That’s a heavy statement. Remember, in Part 1 of this series, I said:

“I am going to say some very, very upsetting things. I am going to talk about:

—Studies that show what percentage of men would probably rape a woman if they thought they would get away with it

—The percentage of men who find filmed rape and misogynist violence arousing and consume it on a regular basis,

—The ways our culture grooms females to comply with their own rape, dehumanization, and exploitation

—The ways our culture grooms males to ignore and override female boundaries, and to justify those actions

—The ways our culture grooms males and females to believe that most rape is not rape

—The ways our “Rape Culture” destroys the ability of males and females to have healthy relationships or healthy sexuality

—The ways men and women can help keep everyone safer, happier, and healthier

What I am NOT GOING TO SAY:

Deluge by Sara Wright

It’s time to submit another post to FAR, the only blog site I follow, and a place where I have found genuine support and even a sense of community, which for me is a great gift. Mostly, I experience myself as an outsider.

Lately though, I have found myself struggling to stay with feminist issues. As a naturalist and lover of the earth I am continuously overwhelmed by more bad news and the apparent indifference of so many to what’s happening to people and this planet. Writers on this blog do address how these times are affecting women but less frequently how our issues are intimately related to what’s happening to the earth. Personally I am obsessed, and can’t seem to focus or write about any topic that doesn’t address these issues or how I feel about what’s happening here – climate change is catastrophic, as is the loss of non – human species. The poem/prose that follows is the kind of writing that rises out of some dark place inside me where much of time I feel like I am drowning.

Lucky by John M. Erickson

This past weekend, I was asked by an individual why I decided to get my Ph.D. in American Religious History focusing on LGBTQ spirituality and sexuality. Now, I’ve been asked this before, and if you know anything about me, you know I like to shock people at times, so my usual response is: “I have always been fascinated with people tell me I was going to hell.”

It’s almost the end of Pride Month and I wanted to take a moment to reflect on where we’ve come and where we must go.

Mother-Love: A Review of Rosemary Daniell’s THE MURDEROUS SKY: POEMS OF MADNESS AND MERCY by Joyce Zonana

She’s been called a “national treasure” by Bruce Feiler and lauded by Erica Jong as “one of the women by whom our age will be known in times to come” … And yet Rosemary Daniell is not as well-known as she deserves to be–perhaps because she is a fiercely feminist Southern woman.

joyce-zonana

She’s been called a “national treasure” by Bruce Feiler and lauded by Erica Jong as “one of the women by whom our age will be known in times to come.” The author of three books of poetry, a novel, several memoirs, and several books of nonfiction, she is the founder of the revolutionary “Zona Rosa” writing workshops and retreats that have helped hundreds of participants—mostly women—become published authors. For many years she led writing workshops in women’s prisons in Georgia and Wyoming, and served as program director for Georgia’s Poetry in the Schools. Her work has been featured in numerous magazines and newspapers. And yet Rosemary Daniell is not as well-known as she deserves to be—perhaps because she is a fiercely feminist Southern woman who unabashedly celebrates her own sexuality while also bringing her formidable intellect, wit, charm, and compassion to bear on her approach to writing.

Continue reading “Mother-Love: A Review of Rosemary Daniell’s THE MURDEROUS SKY: POEMS OF MADNESS AND MERCY by Joyce Zonana”

Blue Is My Favorite Color by Marie Cartier

You can’t have the ocean without blue.

I walk at night, that’s the time of year

the grunion run, a silver school teaching us that it’s

work to populate –the small shimmer of a female screwing herself into

the sand. I wish her blue. She wooshes three thousand eggs

into the hole she’s made, her birthing room. The males circle her, and fertilize the eggs with a hug. The males leave and the female is quiet.

Then she flips and flops herself back and forth and forth and back,

side flopping to the ocean.

I wish her blue. I wish her free. I bless the eggs.

Are Bees Begotten from Bull? by Judith Shaw

At first glance the ancient belief that bees were birthed from dead bulls seems odd. But if we delve deeply into pre-historical artifacts we discover the mythopoetic roots of this idea.

The Little Mother by Sara Wright

This morning I met her by the barn sitting on a cedar fence

regarding me with one shimmering marbled eye, a little spiked crown on her head. A moment later two tiny balls of feathers exploded out of a tangled mass of blackberries below her. The fluff balls flew in between the cracks of the fence disappearing into what I knew must be a bird haven because I had recently piled a lot of brush back there. The fact that these nestlings could fly told me they were about two weeks old.

“Good morning,” I whispered as the mother continued to watch me. Behind the fence I heard a number of teeny voices peeping. Into the quiet space between the mother and I, arose the realization that this bird knew me well and had probably been watching me all spring. Normally when a human surprises a mother with chicks the adult puts on a show, taking immediate flight and then dragging a wing on the ground behaving as if it is broken. In this manner the adult desperately hopes to lure the predator away from her chicks. Even so, few nestlings make it to adulthood. The male doesn’t parent at all.

Even In This: The Sacred Power of Radical Trust by Tallessyn Zawn Grenfell-Lee

I remember back when I worked in biology, some of the labs used animal models, like zebrafish or fruit flies, for their research. Some of my family members even worked with mice, helping to develop insulin treatments for diabetes that would mean fewer needles for children; or treatments for burn victims that directly helped the children at the Shriner’s hospital across the street. Their work really inspired me. Partly because of the ways it was helping so many people, of course. But also because of the way they talked about the mice.

I’m not here to defend or condemn experimental mouse models. What I want to talk about today is sacrifice. Because in these labs, the taking of an animal’s life is never described as killing. Every single time an animal dies, it is called a sacrifice. Every time.

When Your Garden Gardens You by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Summer is a time when we are surrounded by the power of Nature, the impulse to life, balance, and well being. Even small actions to align ourselves with it can create momentous changes and healing within ourselves and towards a more sustainable world. Over the past couple of years, I have noticed a decline in pollinators like bees, butterflies, and birds in the small garden behind my home. This may be part of the worldwide pollinator crisis, or the result of nearby housing developments overtaking wild land, or my own past bad gardening decisions. I decided that this year it was time for me to join the many other gardeners worldwide who are creating pollinator-friendly spaces.

So, I did some research into what native and non-native plants already growing in the garden are good for pollinators and which native plants I should acquire from gardener friends or native plant organizations. I also learned to make a better environment for pollinators by waiting to move or shred leaves until warmer weather so as not to disturb pollinators wintering over, making sure that plants on which insects are making homes are left alone, and building up berry brambles, shrubs, and brush piles for birds and butterflies to find food and shelter in.