Feminism and Religion

For the Children by Sara Wright

“What you make from a tree should be just as miraculous as what you cut down”.

Richard Powers

November is the month of endings and beginnings – I am keenly aware of all trees as they prepare for winter sleep, and this is the season during which I begin to celebrate evergreens. Most deciduous trees are a tangle of sleepy gray branches, but the conifers are still breathing life. Herein lies the Deep Forest Green Religion of Hope. Many trees, both thin barked deciduous trees and conifers are still photosynthesizing.

I love gazing into the woods beyond my brook lush with balsam, fir and hemlock knowing that the animals and birds that are left will soon be nestled in thick undercover finding nourishment and protection from winter winds and snow.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Thinking About Thanksgiving

This was originally posted on December 3, 2012

Thanksgiving evokes deep memory and raises questions about what we are celebrating, now that we know the stories we were told about the Pilgrims and the Indians are not the whole truth about America’s early history. I thought about all of this as I prepared for Thanksgiving this year and cleaned up for days afterwards.

Although I do not live in America, I have celebrated Thanksgiving with a group of friends in my home in Greece many times during the past twenty years.

Wacky Wednesday Weekly Weavers Call by Caryn MacGrandle

My daughter used to love Dr. Seuss’s book Wacky Wednesday. The premise of the book is that you are supposed to find the things that are off in the picture: an upside down picture, a tiger instead of a baby in the stroller and steps leading up to a house with no door.

My daughter was always so excited to find these anomalies: giggling and pointing them out.

‘See, the world makes sense! But this doesn’t. And this doesn’t either.’

What, Together, We Are by Annelinde Metzner

It seems that the hearts of the whole world, and especially the hearts of women, are grieving now, as war and warmongering take over more and more of the Earth. Patriarchy rages on, like a monster in its death throes, and we wonder, “will they take us all down with them?” It is my hope that these poems will help us to keep on keeping on, keep on loving Her.

My grief, my love for the world

I watch the dancer, one arm framing her face,
one hip drawing upward in the belly’s rhythm.
The dance of mature women, Raqs Sharqi
born of the sensuous music of the Middle East.
Her hips pull us into infinity,
an inward-outward shout of beauty and desire.

My Pilgrimage to Crete – September 2023, Part 2 by Terry Folks

Part 1 was posted yesterday.

Stage Four – Mentor Appears

Joseph Campbell spoke of ‘mentors’ appearing to help the sojourner, and what Maureen Murdock called the gathering of allies. In my hybrid of these two archetypal journeys, there may be several mentors – human, power animals, divine guides or a combination. She could be a wise elder who helps the heroine prepare for the journey or gives her a gift for later use. In my case the wise elder was my 93 year old mom who became one of my mentors. When I expressed my excitement and fears, she said what she always says when I – one of her seven children – am facing a challenge: “Go get’em Tiger!” She also offered financial support so I could take time away from my psychotherapy practice.

Two other mentors showed up in what Carl Jung called my ‘active imagination’: Carol Christ and Marija Gimbutas. Both have transitioned so my active imagination conjured their support as divine intervention. I reread Carol’s reflections and teachings on the pilgrimage, and watched the videos she made as inspiration. I felt her invitation. I was ready to change.

My Pilgrimage to Crete – September 2023, Part 1 by Terry Folks

Carol Christ’s Legacy honored by Laura Shannon, and the Ariadne Institute

Adventure by Autumn Skye with permission of artist

When I teach the Heroine’s Journey in my Sophia Women’s Wisdom Group, I draw on Joseph Campbell’s idea of the mono-myth, an archetypal story that resonates with every human across time: The Hero’s Journey. I combine Campbell’s ideas with pieces of feminist Maureen Murdock’s heroine’s journey to recognize the unique pathway of the feminine. I call this my hybrid heroic journey. If you are not familiar with Maureen Murdock’s work, I invite you to see how she brought her feminist eye to Campbell’s iconic Hero’s Journey in her book The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness. After her conversation with Joseph Campbell six years prior to his transition, Murdock felt he missed “that the focus of female spiritual development was to heal the internal split between woman and her feminine nature” (p. 2). In my hybrid heroic journey, that split in the early stages is internalized negative masculinity. The rejection of our feminine nature may appear differently in each woman’s life but it is often characterized by treating ourselves how we imagine men perceive us.

My recent Pilgrimage to Crete was astonishing; my epiphany, gradual. As I share my adventure, imagine stages of your own heroine’s journey wherever you are in that cycle. I hope that by sharing this series, you will experience a real life example of Dion Fortune’s definition of magic: ‘The art of changing consciousness at will’. Starhawk, Truth or Dare, 1988.

My Goddess by Mary Gelfand

Birth of a Galaxy, by Willow Arlena, https://www.mysticlifedesign.com/

My Goddess is unconfined
–unbound
–unlimited
–unrestricted.

My Goddess exists beyond
–the images of Her created by men
–the words describing Her written by men
–the laws coercing Her, enacted by men.

The Advocate by Sara Wright

Recently I had a serious accident and ended up in a nursing home after the surgery. My experience in this house of horrors was terrifying. Without any family support I was left to a health system that is hopelessly broken.

Drugged on my arrival it was a few days before I realized that the 17 drugs were making me sicker than I already was. I take only one regular medication and it wasn’t until I refused all but my one medication for PTSD/anxiety that my head began to clear. I was left alone under bright lights for my entire stay, and it remains to be seen whether I have suffered permanent eye damage as a result because I am so photophobic. The noise was unbearable making it impossible to sleep. No one bathed me or cleaned the filthy room. Ringing for help brought no one to my aid most of the time. It is important to state that there were exceptions, a couple of dedicated aides and three nurses, but no one was reliable on a daily basis. Because I was unable to eat the fatty unpalatable food, I lost pounds every few days. I was slowly starving. I remember thinking that I was going to die in this place, and it was this dawning realization that brought be back to the edge of life.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: As It Might Have Been: Ancestor Stories in the Dreamtime

This was originally posted January 9, 2017

In the middle of the night in waking sleep, I asked my great-great grandmother Annie Corliss to tell me the story of how she met and married James Inglis. This story came through me in a place I have come to call the Dreamtime. The Aboriginal term feels right. As I understand it, this is not a place where the dead speak to the living but rather a space where boundaries blur as the ancestors speak in us.

Annie Corliss’s Story: As It Might Have Been

From the Archives: “Breathing Life into the Women of Chayei Sarah.”

One of the basic tenants of feminist methodology in religion is the recovery of women’s history. There are many ways to approach such a task. In religions with sacred writings, one avenue for recovery may be reinterpreting them. This could come in the form of a critique. For example, traditional interpretations may overlook or undervalue women, who appear in the text, reaffirm sexist, patronizing, and/or misogynist viewpoints already found in the text, or develop new ones. In order to recover women’s history, feminists working with their sacred texts would then call out these interpretations for their sexism. They would correct phrasing, understanding, and even translations, when necessary.

In addition to critiquing, feminist interpretations of scripture could also be constructive. Religious feminists may highlight values, teachings, and images that affirm women’s lives. They may incorporate documented history into their interpretations as proof of expanded roles for women. That would then contextualize or negate later traditions that deny women such roles.