Feminism and Religion

Label or Be Labelled Part 2: Professional and spiritual identity

This post continues from Part 1, where I situated this essay as a reflection on Xochitl Alvizo’s article Human, Just Human. There, I questioned the difference between the power of naming versus the pressure to label. I then described my search for a personal identifier as ‘participation ticket’ to life. This feels important nowadays to join the conversation and not be dismissed by default. However, I wondered whether looking for things that set us apart emphasises otherness rather than shared humanity.

Today, I question what can we learn from autoethnography about the many selves we bring to different professional situations and how they might hide more than they reveal. I also describe the challenges of naming nature-based practices in a geographical area where 2000 years of Christianity forced our pagan traditions underground.

GRANDMOTHER MOON by Iona Jenkins

Blue Supermoon at 9.30p.m. on 30th August 2023

This year, the full moon on 30^th August, which was a Super Moon, is also called Blue Moon – the name given to a second full moon occurring in the same month. I stayed up meditating and reflecting, because the rising of this moon flooded both my front room and my awareness with a light of great beauty. Beginning gold, she changed into a robe of silver, and eventually pearl white, with a crown of pastel shades, in her vault of luminous blue flecked with white feathered clouds. The full moon is always an inspiration, a Goddess who lights up the psyche, revealing hidden shadows to be faced, firing intuition, or illuminating the soul with her timeless wisdom. She has become my good friend over the years, and in my life as an elder human being, she offers me inspiration, visions of creative wisdom and possibility on those gold and silver paths stretching between the shores of Wales and The County of Somerset in England.

Monarch Magic, by Molly Remer

When my father was a boy in the 1950’s, he had a butterfly collection. His friends would bring him dead butterflies to add his collection and ask him what they were called. He got so many monarchs that his reply would be, “Thanks! That’s a ‘common sicker,’” secretly meaning they were so common he was sick of them. Now, my father is 70 and his grandchildren rarely see a monarch butterfly, the population of them having declined by 85% or even more in just two short decades. This rapid change is one of the most clear and alarming, observable indications of the massive changes wrought by both climate change and industrialized farming in our very own lifetimes.

Each year, I watch for monarchs from my Missouri home, during their migration season that carries them over our heads and on their way to Mexico. Each one I spot feels like a brush with magic on the wing, a testament to endurance and to hope. I watch them careen along in their delicate and determined way across highways and rooftops, across cars and parking lots, across my own house, and across open fields. I watch them alight on thistles, on goldenrod and oak trees, vine and bush. I see one above the Atlantic Ocean at Daytona Beach. I see two above the weeds in the Dollar General parking lot in Alabama. I see one above the sunflowers by the overpass in Kansas City. I see two coming over the Walmart roof and into the Staples parking lot in central Missouri.

The Monarch That Didn’t Get Away –Butterfly Tagging, part 2 by Sara Wright

Part 1 was posted last week. You can read it here.

Today I learned that everyone is invited to witness butterfly tagging twice a week during the month of September. Efforts to publicize the value and ‘rightness’ of tagging are being stepped up.

Several people agreed with my assessment, namely that tagging creates trauma for the insect – and the idea that this practice may interfere with the butterfly’s ability to survive the 2000-mile journey, winter over successfully and then fly north to reproduce in the spring.

To my knowledge no one else had openly expressed their personal views to those in charge of the organization. However, some folks have come to talk with me. Most of us know that trauma weakens any organism’s immune system making it more vulnerable.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Has the Vatican Discovered that Women Should Be Running the World?

This was originally posted on February 9, 2015

So it is a [female] generativity that .. is … giving life to social, cultural and economic structures that are inspired by values, ideas, principles and practices oriented to the common good …

The above statement from the Pontifical Council’s document on “Women’s Cultures: Equality and Difference” is a response to Pope Francis’s call for a discussion of “feminine genius” and its role in the Church. If in fact women are “oriented to the common good,” then this is the best reason I can think of to elect a woman pope. And if a women are in fact hard-wired to think about the good of all, wouldn’t a woman pope’s first act be to dissolve the hierarchy that elected her? Is this why the Vatican is so afraid of the power of women?

Lilith: Evil Demon or Feminist Role Model?

Today, we celebrate Simchat Torah (the Joy of the Torah) which marks the end of a cycle of Torah readings and the beginning of a new one. Therefore, the Torah portion for October 14, 2023 is Bereshit (Genesis 1:1-6:8), the first parshah of the Torah. This parshah is most known for its myths surrounding the beginning of the world, including, within it, two creation stories, the first one running from 1:1 to 2:3 and the second from 2:4 to 2:25. These accounts of creation are followed by a story about Adam, Eve, a snake, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The parshah concludes with the happenings of Cain and Abel, the descendants of Adam and Eve, and Noah, a man who found divine favor.

I wrote briefly about this parshah in the midst of the pandemic. The writing there mirrors the chaotic and often difficult nature of that time. Thus, I want to revisit the parshah now. Interestly, I am drawn to comment on the same topic: Lilith.

My Experience at the Parliament of the World’s Religions: Build the Bubble by Caryn MacGrandle

Mid August I went to the Parliament of World’s Religions. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life: 7,500 people from all over the world coming together in love. Christians, Pagans, Sikhs, Jains, Hindus. All different religions and cultures. All with the same intention to find common ground and peace between us while respecting our individual rights, religions, preferences, etc.

The Sikhs fed us with their Guru Ka Langar lunch. ‘Langar’ started about 550 years ago with a simple, but gigantic act by Guru Nanak the founder of the Sikh faith. He was given funds to start his business. Instead, he bought food and served the hungry. This tradition is carried on by Gurdwaras all around the world to this day.

Label or Be Labelled Part 1: On the absence of meaningful personal identifiers

This triptych post is inspired by reading Xochitl Alvizo’s article Human, Just Human that appeared on August 16, 2023. I read it during my holiday as expat back in my birth country The Netherlands. Thank you, Xochitl, for your thorough and inclusive essay, which spurred on some deep reflections regarding my own journey with identity, touched on some uncomfortable feelings, and provided much food for conversation with friends as well.

In today’s piece, I question the power of naming or labelling, the insecurities that flow from the lack of clear labels for my personal identity, and the pressure I feel from outside to label myself or be labelled. I describe how the absence of meaningful identifiers lead to a desperate search for a participation ticket to life.

Nineteen months and Counting: Experiencing the Web of Life by Joyce Zonana

On February 28, 2022, I unknowingly drove into a deep snowbank, shortly after finding myself in a strangely unfamiliar landscape. Suspecting a TIA, my primary care physician urged me to go to an emergency room for a possible CAT scan. There, a lesion in my right parietal lobe was quickly discovered.

Archives from the FAR Founders: Feminist Gutter Punk Freedom by Xochitl Alvizo

This was originally posted on October 3, 2017. My brother has since died, not so long ago on June 12, 2023. But I keep needing this lessons, his wisdom. I recently (about two weeks ago) broke my foot and life is different without the mobility I am used to. So this archive post is a good word for me in yet another moment of life’s struggles.

My brother is, in this own words, an “old school street, squatter, gutter punk.” Indeed, he lives outside the system. He is an anarchist atheist and has lived many nights of his life on the streets – by choice. He has a quick and easy smile and makes friends effortlessly. Recently, while stuck in Seattle during an extended layover on his way back to Europe, where he’s been living the last few years, he passed the time making new friends and exploring the immediate area –