Feminism and Religion

Feminist Parenting About Sexuality Part 2 – pornography by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

As I said in Part 1 – this topic will be difficult to discuss. As I said, I promise I AM NOT SAYING ALL MEN ARE BAD. Please re-read Part 1 if this post causes you to feel defensive or protective toward males.

Unfortunately, we live in a deeply, horrifically misogynist culture. Our culture is so dystopian that it has normalized a mass butchery of violence against females. I can say these words, and most people either nod or look skeptical, but they don’t actually understand what I am talking about. People do not understand because they have so normalized horrific misogynist violence – they have been so brainwashed – that they cannot recognize brutal attacks against women, even when those attacks are right before their eyes… or happen to their own bodies.

From the Ground Up by Sara Wright

As a 76 year old feminist who lives alone (except for animals) I have been struck by some recent experiences I have had with kind men, men that I would call “Mothers’ sons”. Overall, throughout my life I have had negative experiences with males beginning, of course, with my own father, which is why I eventually made the choice about 30 years ago to live alone.

These Mothers’ sons seem to have little or no interest in power or control but appear to live by another code, one that is not predicated on domination. As this prose poem indicates one such man is replacing the rotting timbers in my house, a difficult and labor – intensive job for one person. He is working alone, not out of choice, but because he cannot find one person who isn’t busy building million dollar houses for outrageous sums of money that are sprouting up like weeds in Western Maine. I have been looking for someone to do the work for five long years without success, and with a growing sense of desperation. Because it is men like these that we need to help restructure our toxic culture my burning question for the readers of FAR is how do we help create and support men like this one?

How I Learned to Make Maps by Marie Cartier

I went into the unknown world with glasses

that made everything so clear I could

move through this world into the next.

Before I got my glasses…I didn’t see the way I could step to the edge,

put out my hand, split the known world and

go through: into the unknown.

I became someone without history.

Those rooms with my father, those times, those days, then nights.

Those stories …

Incest really is not a word that describes anything.

It does not describe the way the body splinters and then the known world separates and

when the known world separates, when all you know is you splitting,

all you see is clouds.

So, I got glasses and I walked to the very edge of the flat world and stepped through.

Oh, I said, the world is round… is round is round. I started circling the round world

to find my hero, my Self.

I was alone, but my glasses were sparkling clean.

Bull, Oracle of Strength and Prosperity by Judith Shaw

Bull, with its components of aggressiveness, stubbornness, virility, and ferocity, is emblematic of masculinity. But Bull is also associated with fertility, abundance, strength, and determination. Viewed by some cultures as a solar symbol – in the oldest myths, we find Bull connected to the moon.

Fragments of Sinai by Jill Hammer

Every year on Shavuot, the story of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai is read in synagogues around the world. It’s a dramatic story, with thunder and lightning and mysterious ram’s horns blasting, and Moses disappearing into a thick cloud. It’s a powerful story. It’s also a problematic story, for me. As a feminist, ascribing divinity to an ancient text with a vision of women/gender that is very far from my own doesn’t work for me. And yet, as a scholar and midrashist who often plays with the words of the biblical text, I do meet God/dess and my ancestors there. I’m moved by the ancient legend that all Jewish souls, of every time and place, were present to receive Torah at Sinai. How to express this layered and complex relationship with Torah?

The Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute has been holding Shabbat prayer online since the pandemic began, and we gathered on Shavuot morning to pray. As a community committed to the liberation of all genders, I felt we couldn’t read the Torah portion the way it was—but I also felt we couldn’t not read it. So I created an aliyah—a Torah reading—composed of fragments of the text. Three of us read it together; I chanted the Hebrew, and Kohenet Ketzirah Lesser and Kohenet Harriette Wimms and I read the English. I picked fragments of the text that spoke to me in some way.

More Biblical Poetry by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

This is the 3^rd in a series of Biblical poetry where I am “translating” verses of the Bible. You can read the first two here: Biblical Poetry and Biblical Poetry, Part 2.

One of my primary purposes of doing this work is to strip away patriarchal veneers that have been layered upon original teachings. I reach into ancient pagan knowledge in order to reclaim what I believe to have been lost.

Below is each verse in 3 versions. First is the King James Version (KJV) for familiarity, the second is Jeff Benner’s Mechanical Translation (Benner) which uses a consistent translation for each word. I use his translations to get a better sense of how the words originally fit together.[i]

Singing Is a Sacred Power by Carolyn Lee Boyd

A moss-soft ballad sung from a mountain top to the sunrise. A parent’s lullaby to soothe a newborn to sleep. Thousands of voices rising together to banish injustice from our planet. A single wavering melody infusing inspiration into a moment of despair. Whenever we open our mouths to sing, no matter how tuneful or discordant our song, we have instant access to a well of power to transform ourselves and others.

Over the years, I’ve been amazed at how often singing denotes spiritual power in myths and stories about goddesses and holy women from across the globe and throughout time. These are just a few examples from around the world. You may know others.

Schism of Reality, Schism of the Republican Party By Anjeanette LeBoeuf

The failed insurrection on January 6^th should have been a watershed moment for many to abandon the parasitic party of Trump. Sadly, after the dust and armed guards cleared, many have returned to their delusions and skewed realities. A few key Republican politicians have refused to return to the fold; Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL) have become the most vocal in their opposition.

Lessons From the Mother Tree by Sara Wright

Picture of Sara Wright standing outside in nature

Last night I was reading Forest Scientist Susanne Simard’s new book “Finding the Mother Tree”. She was writing about how uncanny it was that her personal life has paralleled that of trees, the forests, the plants, the fungi, the mycorrhiza (underground networks), she has been studying for more than thirty years. This weaving of Nature’s ways through human lives has also been my life experience, although I am a naturalist and not a scientist. (I capitalize the word “nature” to accord her the Sovereignty that is missing because most humans see Nature as a “resource” to be used – not a Living Being). I take note of the fact that so many of these tree advocates are women.

I observe and listen to Nature by paying close attention to weather patterns, to flourishing or withering leaves, bowed or broken trees, to wind, to parched ground, to birds, to animals, to water, to fire, water, earth and air, and by being emotionally present to whatever is happening in my own backyard while scanning earth and sky for ‘signs’ of what’s to come. I receive the answers I need if not through a bird sighting, a porcupine, a clump of moss, a dying tree, then through dreams. For months now I have been threatened by the immanent loss of our forests by way of dreaming.

Teacher Appreciation Week & Appreciating Teaching by Sara Frykenberg

Part of discovering my love for teaching and moving through my anxiety involved reconsidering my “ideals” of teaching, which were numerous and high minded.

I always wanted to be a teacher. Sure, I had other career dreams as a child too. I wanted to be a model, because I wanted to be pretty like a model. I wanted to be a flying missionary to please my father—you see, it was not quite enough just to do missions. I also needed “save” (pun intended) people with my daring airplane recuses. And in moments of practical mindedness, I thought I should definitely be a “cleaning lady” (aka a housekeeper), because I was very good at cleaning, which was a way of life and survival in my home. But “teacher” was a persistent calling, so I followed in my teacher-mother’s footsteps AND tried to satisfy paternal aggrandizement by becoming a professor.

It occurred to me recently that I have actually been teaching now for nine years. I’ve also discovered in the last few years that I like teaching. And no, I didn’t always know this. I always wanted to like teaching; and sometimes I was sure that I did indeed like teaching. But non-teaching associated trauma during my early career and my social anxiety also sometimes made (and makes) the process excruciating. (Neo-liberal and late-capitalist academic practice, politics and policy don’t help either.) Part of discovering my love for teaching and moving through my anxiety involved reconsidering my “ideals” of teaching, which were numerous and high minded.