The United States has not won a war by the surrender of its enemies since 1945, yet we keep going to war. Young men are committing acts of war to terrorize us at home. Our civilian police forces are becoming increasingly militarized. Who can remember what it was like when the warrior-priests of the mouse-god, Apollo Smintheus, took over Gaia’s ancient shrine?
Long before they came down, she could see the three men in their imitation women’s robes. Because she had no place to hide, she continued to sit calmly on her little stool. She stroked the serpent, which tended to become excitable when the priests were present. It coiled more snugly around her shoulders.
The oldest of the three men, the one right behind the warrior with the torch and the sword, was wheezing heavily as he explained the situation to the boy, whose first trip into the darkness this was. “She’s always back there,” he said, mopping his forehead. “Like a damn snake in a hole.” He paused to catch his breath, and the other two paused with him. “So we always have to run her to ground, so to speak.” He laughed. “Sometimes we have to bind her to bring her out. She’s old. Used to be quite dangerous—” Continue reading “Fragment. From Delphi. Part One by Barbara Ardinger”
How much longer do I as a Muslim American female, have to deal with the “gang-buster,” terrorizing, “Satan” worshipers high-jacking my faith for the sake of trying to supposedly ‘preserve’ it? Who are these wackos and why do they seem to represent my faith in mainstream media? Where did they all come from? Which terrorist schools have they all graduated from and what truly is their agenda?
Feeling safe again is often the healing and elusive aspiration of a person like me.
The wasp nest dwells at the edge of my vision waiting for me to notice what it has to show me. In my mind, I have come to this beloved circle of earth beneath the embracing branches of this tree to ponder because the need is urgent for all the world’s women to have lives of peace, safety, equality, opportunity, and enough prosperity to guarantee necessities, and to save our planet from ecological disaster. I seek new ways of thinking about my life and actions and those of the global community of women to inspire more effective means of progress.
I finally spy the wasp nest. I follow its spiral shape, beginning at one point and then expanding in circles ever-outward and upward. I wonder, what if, in addition to perceiving my life as the more traditional journey or age-defined stages, I imagined it as a spiral like the galaxy, flowers, ancient sea creatures caught forever in fossils, swirling water, and so much else of nature? What if at my birth I was like a spiral’s central point, perhaps me at my most essential or as an infinite potential, and then, over time, I spiraled endlessly into the cosmos? 
My father always encouraged us to interpret scripture for ourselves. We read text, learned mainstream interpretations, and then he would ask for our authentic self-generated interpretations delivered in the form of book and chapter reports due to him. Growing up, all prayers and supplications were done in English; my parents wanted us to really understand and synthesize rather than simply memorize Arabic words with a generic sense of what we were reading or reciting.
My mother-in-law is currently in hospice and expected to cross over any time now. My wife is with her. Those two sentences alone—since I am a woman writing this blog—signify historic/herstoric change. I am a woman and I am writing about my mother in law and I am writing that my wife is with her. We are in a sea change regarding gay marriage. I will be allowed bereavement to go with my wife, when the time comes, for the services.
Feminism and Religion 