Feminism and Religion

Archives from the FAR Founders: The Dark Half: Reflections on the Winter Solstice By Xochitl Alvizo

This was originally posted on December 21, 2011

Xochitl Alvizo; Photo by http://www.chrispinkham.com/

I’m a Capricorn. People seem not to be surprised when they find out. I’m also the oldest of three siblings and a keeper of people’s secrets. Stories and secrets – my family’s included – I hear them all, take them all in. Sometimes someone will share something with me that involves another and afterward say, Now, don’t you go telling so and so that I said this. And of course I always reply, I don’t tell no one nothin’. And it’s true, I don’t tell – I simply take it in. I listen and I take it all in. The stories shared, stories of joy and of love, excitement and disappointment, of hurt feelings and misunderstandings, all of them inform me. They all cause me to reflect and consider the fragility of us all, the precariousness of life. We affect each other so much, from the smallest moment to the largest system, all of it makes such a difference to us.

Tonight we celebrate the Winter Solstice – it marks the boundary of darkness and light – it is the shortest day and longest night of the year.

Jacob’s Ladder, A Feminist Perspective by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

Today, I embark on my retelling of the biblical story of Jacob, the section usually referred to Jacob’s ladder or Jacob’s pillow. The entire story-arc of Jacob is filled with mystery and a sense of shamanic-style questing. What is the goal of a shamanic quest? There are many but the foundation is to open gateways to travel amidst thresholds. It is through these passages that we can gain knowledge of ourselves, have ecstatic experiences, do healing work, divination . .

I believe this is a feminist issue because when we look at Jacob’s story more holistically, we can strip away the patriarchal assumptions inherent in the tale as it’s come down to us. For example, in my retelling, there is no male grand deity standing above, judging and dictating human actions and interactions.

THE EARTH AS GRANDMOTHER by Sara Wright

I have become increasingly uncomfortable with the phrase ‘the earth is our mother’ used by so many westerners.

Indigenous peoples have been in an intimate relationship with the earth since the beginning of time so for them calling the earth “Mother” makes perfect sense (they know how to treat her with respect).

In my way of thinking westerners who appropriate the Native perspective, co -opting the sentiment to make it their own feels inauthentic and inappropriate.

The most glaring difference between the two perspectives is that Indigenous peoples consider all living beings their relatives, treating them with deep respect, honoring their individual and collective gifts and by NEVER taking more than they need, be it medicines, trees, animals, or plants for food.

Carol P. Christ and the Pilgrimage to the Goddess: Online Memorial Gathering, December 20, 2023

Dear FAR community,

Two and a half years ago, our beloved friend and mentor Carol P. Christ passed to the realm of the ancestors. It’s been wonderful to read her archive posts every week as well as so many posts remembering and referencing her brilliant work. The FAR community was so important to her: as Carol herself pointed out, she not only offered her own posts each Monday, she also read and responded to every post, every day. I also cherish the daily connection to our FAR ‘family’, and find profound comfort for the loss of such a tremendous presence through this daily connection with others who knew her and miss her as as I do.

What “Can” Women Do? – An Excerpt from Nice Churchy Patriarchy by Liz Cooledge Jenkins

In an essay called Sister, You Can Be Anything God Desires You to Be,^[1] Kara Triboulet recalls a discussion in her theology class at her Christian college. When the professor opened up the floor and invited students to express their views on women in leadership, these are some of the things her classmates said:

“I believe women can be in leadership, just not as pastors.”

“Allowing women to teach other women and children isn’t limiting. At least they have a place to serve.”

“Women can be directors, but not pastors.”

“The Bible is very clear . . . women can’t teach or lead men because men were created first. It’s just the way God ordained it, and we all just need to accept that.”

Women in Greek Mythography: Pythias, Melissae and Titanides by Max Dashu, Book Review by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Cover photo: Eos, titanis of Dawn, Black-figure lekythos attributed to the Sappho Painter, Athens, circa 500 bce (Public Domain, courtesy of New York Metropolitan Museum)

Demeter and Persephone, Hera, Athena, Medusa, Artemis are often the first, sometimes only, goddesses modern women experience, and they have profoundly influenced our 21st century attitudes about gender, violence, and more. Yet, as Max Dashu says in her new book, Women in Greek Mythography, Greek history has “served as a template for supremacy, from male domination and Hellenic colonization, to modern Eurocentric ideologies about history” (xi). While most Greek scholarship generally glosses over these malevolent influences and ignores women’s lives, Dashu focuses on “female spheres of power, priestesses, witches, and of course systemic patriarchy” (xi) in order to “map realities of women’s lives, both their spiritual authority and their subjugation; the spaces they carved out, their ceremonies, and the stories they wove into their tapestries” (xi).

Women dancing in leafy belts: not the Greece we were shown. © 2022 Max Dashu.

Women in Greek Mythography is not only a fascinating historical story of Greek myth and religion to be read cover-to-cover, but a rich sourcebook full of meticulously documented facts. She draws from scholarly works of history and mythography, as well as analyzing images on vases, friezes, sculpture and more. She has carefully rendered 270 drawings of these images so that readers can judge their meaning themselves. She delves into language, seeking out the origins of words that may indicate where goddesses and myths originated and their relationships to one another. She demonstrates that goddess mythologies often had many variations, sometimes conflicting, with many “countless regional deities that were subsumed under Olympian names, the local origin myths, ceremonies, and customs” (xiv).

Embracing the Shadow Woman of Justice in Dark Times by Carolyn A. Cushing

Justice/Shadow Woman by Rachel Pollack. From the forthcoming The Shining Tribe Tarot: Definitive Edition

Prayer to Justice

Justice, we call you into the center of our hearts, our minds, our spirits.

May the fire of your being inspire us to believe your beauty can shine forth in our world.

May the flow of your being purify and release us from wounds that come from the places where You are violated.

May the breath of your being pass through us and form on the lips of all words of wisdom.

May the endurance of your being aid us to persist in serving You.

May we hear your truth. May we know your balance. May we gather your wisdom.

Justice, guide us.

Justice seems so far away, obscured by terror, purposely ignored in these days of war and season of darkness. How can we invite Her back? What will bring Her renewal?

In Search of the Light by Beth Bartlett

The approaching winter has felt darker than usual. Here in the north, where usually we are blanketed with snow this time of year, this year we have none. All around town people are putting up Christmas lights, but without the snow to reflect the light, the beams and sparkles of light do not carry. Without the softening effect of billows of snow, they can even seem a bit garish.

But it is not just the lack of snow that renders these days darker. With the wars raging in the Ukraine, Gaza, Yemen, Sudan and smaller conflicts around the world; the rise of hate crimes against both Jews and Palestinians in this country; the alarming possibility of a misogynist fascist man – who, echoing Hitler labels his political opponents “vermin” – becoming President of this country again; the ongoing climate crisis — these can seem dark days indeed, rendering our attempts at holiday cheer a bit garish as well.

The Webs We Weave, by Molly Remer

Each year, as fall peeks around the door tasting the air and sending cool tendrils of change slipping across the horizon and skimming across our shoulders, I feel clarity descend, a sharp and sudden certainty that I do know exactly what I want to do and where I want to focus.

In early September, we watched an orb weaver spider make her web by our studio. Much faster than we might have imagined, she tumbled gracefully through almost empty space, connecting long strands from porch gutter to hydrangea bush, returning to the center often to stabilize before launching into the next direction. The sun was setting and we stayed captivated by her dedicated intention, moving next around the middle and expanding from the center rapidly connecting her many threads. Finally, we walked on the road, watching the sunset illuminating the bluestem grasses in the field as the nighthawks darted bat-like above our heads on their annual migration. We returned to the web at dusk surprised to see how much finer the structure had become, each strand now laid very close to the one above it in a radiating circle. As we watched, I felt a sense of liberation chiming in my bones, freedom that comes from knowing with firm and dedicated awareness which way to go, trusting the threads of my own life to hold me as I make my way with both purpose and grace.

Winter Solstice: Celebration of the Powers of Fire by Sara Wright

I have a problem with the belief that Winter Solstice is primarily about celebrating ‘the coming of the light.’ This one – sided thinking negates the cross-cultural reality that this is a festival during which candles are lit to light up the night and roaring fires blaze inside and out bringing warmth to all. Winter Solstice is above all else a Festival of Fire.

Fire is an ambiguous element (as all the elements are) carrying both a positive and negative charge. On one level fire brings warmth and light on cold winter nights. On the other hand, fire also incinerates, destroying everything it touches. Approaching a Festival that celebrates the Element of Fire should be done with consciousness and caution.