Feminism and Religion

Are Your Shackles Showing? Hyperbole, Metaphor or Shades of Reality? by Karen Tate

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You’ve been held in a windowless room for a long time. So long, you can’t remember how long it’s been. You have shackles on your ankles. Sometimes you can see beyond your sleeping pad, sometimes not so much. You’re instructed to perform tasks assigned to you according to the will of your captor. Most days you work so long you feel as if you’ll drop. Sometimes you have enough food to eat, other times not. It’s cold and damp in this holding cell where you’ve lived most of your life. You’ve been sick here, but you have no access to a doctor. You’ve been beaten regularly, physically and verbally, for infractions perceived by your captor. You still have the bruises. You’ve not been outside this place for so long you’ve stopped scraping the number of days you’ve been held captive onto the walls.

But, sometimes, you can faintly hear a voice whispering to you from the outside. It’s a voice that calls to you in quiet moments when the usual crushing noise more easily heard doesn’t drown it out. It’s hard to understand the words the voice is speaking. They sound so foreign to you. The voice suggests there is something else outside this cell. When you ask your captor about it, the reply is always the same…laughter, mocking, anger. So you become afraid to listen.

Then one day your captor gets careless. Or maybe you’re listening closer. The incessant noise seems less. Your captor forgot to lock the shackles on your ankles and bolt the door. You hear the voice outside. It offers you something else. It sounds too good to be true. You’ve heard your captor say as much. You’d been told that the voice offers empty promises that will never become reality. But you ask yourself how much longer you can go on here? So, you stand up at your sleeping pad. Your legs are shaking. The hair is standing up on the back of your neck and carefully, timidly, you walk toward the unbolted door. You reach out. Your hand is shaking as you place it on the knob. You see the red marks from old bruises on your wrists. Something inside you knows you no longer can tolerate this cell. Only, it’s all you’ve ever known, or it’s all you remember.

It’s your moment of truth. You might not get this chance again in your lifetime. Do you turn the knob? Do you step across the threshold and move toward the voice? Or do you shrink back, fearfully choosing the familiar, the devil you know? Do you choose the somewhat reliable crumbs laced with indifference and resentment your abuser has been dishing out for years? Can this really be all there is? Or can you find it in yourself to take a leap of faith? Are you going to continue a life of institutionalized abuse and exploitation or are you going to walk across the threshold into a different life?

Continue reading “Are Your Shackles Showing? Hyperbole, Metaphor or Shades of Reality? by Karen Tate”

The Time My Kids Broke Me Out of Jail by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

When I was a child, I liked and hated the game Monopoly. It was interesting and exciting, but it was also cutthroat, ruthless, competitive, and often seemed to involve cheating by the banker. My vague memories are mostly hurt feelings and distrust. So when my younger daughter Z pulled my ancient Monopoly set up from the basement and asked me to teach her how to play, I agreed with reluctance and trepidation.

My older daughter E noticed us playing after an hour or so and asked to join. Of course, E played at a significant disadvantage since she joined late. My trepidation increased. E was paying lots of rent but collecting hardly anything. The hurt feelings and distrust would erupt soon. I played grimly on, trying to act relaxed and cheerful as my dread mounted.

At one point, I couldn’t afford to pay rent to Z, so I mortgaged some properties. My daughters were horrified. “No, Mummy!” they kept repeating, “you don’t have to do that! We will give you some money!!” But, see, that’s not how The Game works, so I kept refusing their money. “It’ll be fine, honest!” I said, confused and unsure how to handle their anxious concern. I tried to be Nonanxious Presence Parent, modeling that I don’t mind losing The Game. They were equally confused. Why wouldn’t I accept their help? We played on. Continue reading “The Time My Kids Broke Me Out of Jail by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir”

Feeling Squeezed by Esther Nelson

Tyler Foggatt, associate editor of The New Yorker magazine’s, “The Talk of the Town series,” recently contributed (March 23) an essay titled “Cooped Up.” She notes that China, the first country to shut down due to COVID-19, is now in the process of opening up. More than ten million people in Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, were under lockdown. She writes, “When restrictions were eased, earlier this month, the city’s [Xi’an] divorce rate spiked.” Marital conflicts, often existing underneath the radar, bubble to the surface and sometimes explode during periods of quarantine (forced togetherness).

According to Foggatt, American psychologist Lawrence Birnbach predicts that the divorce rate in the U.S. will rise as the current pandemic unfolds. Two of his patients, married to each other and self-quarantined together, reported they have argued more than ever, mostly having to do with how thoroughly (or not) one person washes their hands and wipes down surfaces.

I think many of us can relate to this. Long before the current health crisis developed, my spouse and I went about our lives quite differently. At times we clashed. Keeping our distance from each other—even before social distancing became the “right” thing to do—was effective inasmuch as that strategy kept things from boiling over, at least most of the time. Continue reading “Feeling Squeezed by Esther Nelson”

The Healing Aspects of Ritual by Sara Wright

I have been writing and celebrating ritual for half of my life. The equinoxes and solstices and the cross quarter days (May 1, August 1, All Hallows, and February 2) comprise the eight spokes of the year. What I have learned from my research is that virtually every Indigenous culture follows this calendar in a general way – What I have gleaned from personal experience is that during these ritual periods my body is opened to the Powers of Nature in very specific ways that can be positive or/and negative.

Often I experience uncomfortable physical symptoms – feel an intense buzz, am struck by severe headaches, the feeling that I am walking on air without solid ground; I have unusual experiences with animals or plants; I am blind sided by radical insights in waking life or through dreaming. I have come to expect that usually there will be some kind of sign and if there isn’t one my body/mind isn’t in tune ritually and something is amiss – either my intentions, or the letting go (death) of some aspect of myself. The older I become the more I attempt to move through these periods with increased awareness that I am a receiver and need to be paying even closer attention… Continue reading “The Healing Aspects of Ritual by Sara Wright”

Last Will and Testament by Carol P. Christ

Just over a month ago and shortly before Greece went into Coronavirus lockdown, I signed the contract on my new apartment in Crete (after waiting 6 months for the owner to submit his paperwork). Though I did not realize it until I had been sitting in the notary’s office for several hours, the date of the signing was February 25, my father’s birthday. My father and I had a troubled relationship, due to the fact that he could not accept that I did not “know my place” in a world where women were expected to be submissive to men.

My father and I did not see each other during the last thirteen years of his life. After having received “the silent treatment” for two of the four months when I was teaching in California and living less than a mile away from him and his third wife, I had gradually come to the conclusion that I did not want to put either of us in the position where he could be cruel to me again. When he developed a heart problem a few years before he died, I decided not to visit. Nor did he ask me to do so. Continue reading “Last Will and Testament by Carol P. Christ”

A Jewish Amulet against Plague by Jill Hammer

image of amulet originally by Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum (1759-1841) — originally by Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum (1759-1841)

I begin with prayers and wishes for all who are suffering because of the COVID-19 epidemic: those who are ill, those who are mourning people who have died, those who face economic hardship, and all who are afraid. May we find ways to support and comfort one another.

This 19^th century printed amulet against cholera, which was widely disseminated through the Jewish community at the time, was written by Moshe Teitelbaum. Part of it has become a common “house blessing” in Jewish homes Several friends, including Rabbi Jay Michaelson and Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, posted the amulet on Facebook when the coronavirus epidemic began to take hold in the US. I immediately recognized it because I had been to Paris with my family and gone to a wonderful amulet exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Art and History, and this amulet was prominently displayed. In a time of 21^st century plague, as we seek shelter, protection, and mutual care, the amulet seems newly and profoundly relevant. Continue reading “A Jewish Amulet against Plague by Jill Hammer”

When Life Hands You Lemons… by John Erickson

“When life hands you lemons, sometimes you have to make applesauce.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about something my grandmother would always tell me: “When life hands you lemons, sometimes you have to make applesauce.” I know, it sounds crazy, but life right now appears to be more on the crazy than the sane side.

We’re all in a state of uncertainty right now. The news is scary. Twitter is scary. Heck, even TikTok is losing parts of its humor. Everywhere we seem to turn, it’s more information about COVID-19, new cases, new lockdowns, and new things that we shouldn’t do for the foreseeable future. Continue reading “When Life Hands You Lemons… by John Erickson”

Walking in Moonlight Before the Pandemic by Marie Cartier and Kimberly Esslinger

For this month’s blog my wife, the poet Kimberly Esslinger, and I have written a joint poem—

Walking in Moonlight Before the Pandemic

and what is done to the least of these….

Where is the god of woman. Of cats. Of dead cats?

Of wives. Of midnight walks with dogs and the normalcy of silence.

And day becoming more like night in this stillness. All the crowded spaces. Open.

Empty. A bag floats down at night. A grocery bag. Onto the hood of a

speeding hatchback. Not a bag. But now a cat. Someone’s cat. Dead.

Just like that. A hatchback. And yes, here I was, with my dogs, wanting to believe

it was alive. I start to call her, she. Did she just move? Did you see her move?

My wife has gloves. A box. A plan. But I push her away.

I believe in god. And she could heal this cat.

She would. She would if I would wait long enough. Continue reading “Walking in Moonlight Before the Pandemic by Marie Cartier and Kimberly Esslinger”

The Mountain and the Goddess by Judith Shaw

Mother Earth does not discriminate. She cares for all her children in all their varied forms. Our ancient ancestors considered Earth and its many geological elements to be feminine and/or associated with goddesses – from caves, to rivers, lakes and seas, to forests, to agricultural fields, to mountains.

Continue reading “The Mountain and the Goddess by Judith Shaw”

Elder – Berry Musings by Sara Wright

I first became interested in herbalism as a young mother who kept a small herbal garden outside her back door. There is nothing better than fresh herbs to spice up any dish (as any good cook knows well) and baking my own bread, making homemade granola, etc., like gardening, was simply part of what I did. In retrospect, I see that cooking served as a highly creative endeavor that helped me to create some balance between the millions of mundane jobs associated with single motherhood and my need for creativity…

It seemed quite natural to begin to explore herbs for medicinal purposes. I first experimented with plants that grew wild near my house on the island on which I lived. I sensed that developing a personal relationship with the plants I was using mattered, an intuition that continues to inform my growing and preparation of herbal remedies to this day. If I don’t have the right growing conditions for an herb I need, I wild craft responsibly. Until recently I have never used store bought preparations.

When I studied with medicine folk in the Amazon thirty years after first using herbs for culinary and then medicinal purposes, I learned that each healer only used his/her own garden grown herbs and preparations differed based on the knowledge that each medicine person received directly from the plants, so perhaps the importance of having a personal reciprocal relationship with individual plants is tied to their efficacy – my sense/experience is that it is. The ways of the natural world are not well understood by most westernized people. Continue reading “Elder – Berry Musings by Sara Wright”