Feminism and Religion

Devi* Has a Sense of Humour by Terry Folks

(*Devi is the feminine principle in Hinduism, the goddess counterpart to Deva, the male aspect.)

I live alone.

I put a small stool on the bathroom floor beside a kitchen chair next to the vanity counter top. My plan was to step on the stool then up on to the chair, then up on to the counter so I could stand and put a hook in the ceiling.

When I finished, I carefully turned around to make my way back down from counter to the chair. As I was stepping down, I felt unstable so I instinctively reached for the towel bar on the wall. The towel bar gave way and I fell directly left side down on to the high back of the chair, bringing the chair down to the floor with me beside the empty stool.

Be A Friend: A Conversation on Self-Care by Mary Gelfand & Rev. Bernadette Hickman Maynard

Mary:
Like many of you, I struggle to balance spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being in these chaotic times. As women, we’re conditioned to prioritize others—family, work, community—while systemic injustices demand our energy daily. It’s like Sisyphus pushing his boulder: exhausting, endless. But rediscovering the FRIEND acronym, created by Reverend Bernadette Hickman Maynard, helped me reframe self-care and I wanted to share this with my FAR community. Bernadette, how did this concept come to you?

Bernadette:
In December 2023, I was the pastor of a church, deputy director of a community organizing nonprofit, mom to four kids, and a wife. My body rebelled and I had pain in five areas, dizziness, heart palpitations, panic attacks. I’d cry uncontrollably. I was burned out. Finally, I took six weeks off from everything. During that time, I realized I couldn’t fight for others’ liberation while sacrificing my own. So I created FRIEND—six practices to reclaim my joy – and determined to “be a FRIEND to myself” every day.

Mary:
Your story resonates deeply. We’re rarely taught to prioritize ourselves and pay attention to our physical and emotional needs. There’s always another task that seems to take priority over self-care and it’s easy to burn-out. How does Be A FRIEND work?

Of Birds and Dogs –Invisible Birds and the Weaver by Sara Wright

I am not feeding my year-round avian friends in the hopes that ‘my’ phoebes can nest in peace above my door and raise their brood without red squirrel interference. Last night I startled a nesting mother by turning on an outdoor light, so egg laying has begun. Every day I apologize to my beloved chickadees who must find food elsewhere (for now).

It’s hard to ignore the truth. So many birds that used to be common around here are gone. Mourning doves and white throated sparrows are two species that I miss too much. Occasionally, I hear a solitary w/t sparrow’s call. In March one mourning dove visited for a day; the flocks are gone

In this space in between bird loss and my choice not to feed those that I recognize by sight and sound, I have gradually learned how to listen to the invisible warblers that have probably been here all along.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: What Was Your Childhood Religious Tradition And Do You Still Follow It?

This post was originally published on Nov. 26th, 2012

Recently, in an interview with the Women’s Living History Project of Claremont Graduate University, I was asked: What religious tradition did you identify with as a child and how did it impact your childhood? and: Is your tradition the same today that you had when growing up?

I was surprised that the interview questions didn’t ask anything about feminism, experiencing exclusion in patriarchal religions, or belief. My religious and political convictions, which are intertwined, have alienated me from family members. Therefore, I was suspicious of questions that seemed to have been formulated by someone for whom religion and family go together, and for whom believing or not believing (!) did not seem to be an important issue.

After expressing criticism of the questions, I agreed to work with them. My answer to the first question was that I did not have a single religious tradition as a child. I had four. Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: What Was Your Childhood Religious Tradition And Do You Still Follow It?”

As a Hen Gathers by Elanur Williams

**Gustav Klimt, *Garden Path with Chickens*, 1916**

In the early years of my childhood, my family lived for a short time on a poultry farm in Bandırma. Hens wandered freely, unconfined. The contours of that land have long since changed, replaced by refrigerated depots and industrial freezers that hum along the highways, the relentless march of capital. In the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, Jesus laments: “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.” These days, I find myself returning to the image of the mother hen—a figure who embodies a special wisdom that is seldom named, yet deeply and instinctively known.

Although I did not have a religious upbringing, I grew up embracing aspects of many faiths. My spiritual background is Alevi, and after inviting the Presbyterian faith into my life following my marriage, I find these layered identities influence each other in ways that are both intricate and transformative. In her sermon Who Is Jesus? Mother Hen, Reverend Agnes Norfleet lingers on the vulnerability of the mother hen metaphor, questioning what strength a hen can possibly offer in the face of the fox—Herod—and, more broadly, in the face of violence at large. Reverend Norfleet asks why Jesus does not invoke a more forceful or fiercer maternal figure—a lion, perhaps, or a bear? What does this choice imply for our activism and understandings of leadership? What unique wisdom does the mother hen offer?

The Wisdom of Cerridwen: Transforming Her Cosmic Brew by H. Bryon Ballard

Moderator’s Note: This is the Preface to the recently published anthology, The Wisdom of Cerridwen: Transforming Her Cosmic Brew.

Cerridwen, ancient Queen,
Dark Mother, take us in.
Cerridwen, ancient Queen,
Let us be reborn.
—a Reclaiming chant

Open these pages and relish the words of this divine Mother, this wild Sister, this trickster and keeper of the Cauldron of Eternity! Spend time with Her. Learn Her sacred ways, Her stories, Her lore.

I learned the chant above at the Glastonbury Goddess Conference where I taught several years ago. I often use it in both my private meditations and in public rituals. It is simple but direct, quite unlike the Goddess it honors. I learned how to pronounce Her name from a Welsh-speaking colleague who gave it a rolling “r” and an emphasis on the second syllable. Keh-RRRHID-wen. Try it. So delicious to say.

Do Women Really Need the Goddess? by Collie Collier

It’s been several years now since I first read ecofeminist thealogian Carol P. Christ’s revelatory prose regarding the necessity of the Goddess in a woman’s life:

A symbol’s effect does not depend on rational assent, for a symbol also functions on levels of the psyche other than the rational… The symbols associated with … important rituals cannot fail to affect the deep or unconscious structures of the mind of even a person who has rejected these symbolisms on a conscious level—especially if the person is under stress… Symbol systems cannot be simply rejected, they must be replaced. Where there is not any replacement, the mind will revert to familiar structures at times of crisis, bafflement, [celebration,][1] or defeat.[2]

Reading those words was an unexpected shock—I felt like a previously unknown weight was abruptly lifted off my shoulders! As a young tween, I’d consciously refused Christianity for a somewhat naïve equality-based form of feminism—but I’d still unwittingly internalized the organized religion’s misogynistic teachings. Since then, I’ve worked to encourage the Goddess, in all Her multiplicity of forms, in both my life and the lives of women and genderfluid persons all around me.

The Loving Tree By Janet Maika’i Rudolph

from Egyptian tomb of Pashedu *ca.* 1314-1200 BCE

Once there was a tree who loved two young children, twins, a boy and a girl.

Thay came everyday to play under her canopy.

Gather her leaves and play fairies of the forest.

Climb her trunk and play in her branches

And sleep with their backs against her trunk

They loved the tree and the tree loved them.

Time went by and the twins grew older.

They didn’t come to visit the tree as often.

One day when they did come, the tree asked them to play but they responded they needed money because they wanted to go on dates.

The tree responded, take my apples to sell. But leave enough behind for the squirrels and birds and other animals so they can eat too. Leave enough behind for the seeds.

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The Dark Goddess Los Angeles by Arianne MacBean

“Welcome to Hollywood! What’s your dream?” the character Happy Man says in the opening scene of Pretty Woman, a movie that epitomizes mythic Los Angeles, a place where fairy tales come true. The Dark Goddess Los Angeles, with Her lure of wealth and transformation, Her persona of glamour and aspiration, where even a down-and-out sex worker can be saved by a lawyer with a fear of heights and “save him right back.” Los Angeles calls out a westward invocation of promise. But as much as She pledges, She deceives. Her thick air, dense with unseen harmful toxins, a costly nutrient. Her sinewy highways, the blood lines of her body, sites of daily catastrophe. Our pilgrimage is the slow crawl of passing car crashes on the opposite side of the freeway divider wall. Our mantra, That could have been me. That could have been me.

I’ve been hating LA for thirty-five years. Hating Her May Grey and Her June Gloom. Hating Her maze-like web of concrete highways, Her center-less-ness. Only in Los Angeles are the freeways archetypes, “Take The 2 to The 5 to The 110 to The 10.” I’ve never felt lonelier – alone in my apartment, alone in my car, alone in my thoughts. But over time, I’ve learned to love traversing Los Angeles’ arteries. I have had some of my most profound ideas, my most aha moments, while flowing through Her pulsing veins. The neither here-no-thereness of this city is pregnant with patient possibility. Anything can happen in Her spaciousness, Her waiting.