Feminism and Religion

Breath, part 2 by Beth Bartlett

You can read part 1 here.

Much has been written about the last breath, but not much about the first. Recently, I happened to listen to a re-broadcast of an episode of NPR’s Radiolab on “Breath.” It began with an explanation of the ingenious, miraculous first breath in which we transition from water-dwelling beings in the watery womb to air-dwelling beings outside in the world. In the water-dwelling fetus, the lungs have no function. Instead, the fetus gets its oxygen from its mother through the placenta and umbilical cord, the oxygenated blood flowing directly from the right to the left chambers of the heart through a hole — the patent foramen ovale — bypassing the lungs that in fetuses are filled with water. But in the split second of that first breath, the umbilical cord shuts down the flow of oxygenated blood and the patent foramen ovale closes, requiring that the once water-filled lungs now be filled with air. The right and left sides now forever closed off from each other, from now on, the oxygen-deprived blood that flows into the right side of the heart must be pumped out of the heart into the lungs where it is enriched with oxygen, and then returns to the left chambers of the heart where it is then pumped to every tissue in our bodies. That first breath enables the continual flow of in-breath and out-breath, for most of us, about 500 million times in our lifetimes. I will never forget that first breath of my own child as he came in to the air-breathing world. That first cry remains, and always will, the sweetest sound I have ever heard. Aware now of all that happens with that first breath, I am filled with an even deeper awe.

Breath, part 1 by Beth Bartlett

By breath, by blood, by body, by spirit, we are all one.

The air that is my breath . . .is the air that you are breathing.
And the air that is your breath . . . is the air that I am breathing.
The wind rising in my breast . . .is the wind, from the east, from the west,
From the north . . . from the south; Breathing in, breathing out.

So begins singer-songwriter Sara Thomsen’s song, “By Breath,” bringing together many elements I’ve been pondering in the last several days – breath, air, wind, spirit.

Shadows on the Wall by Sara Wright

The following poems were written after making a decision to move into an apartment for the winter, and then struggling to understand what went wrong. Instead of community I met with hostility, and as we know one breeds the other, and for a time I got caught by my shadow too.

Called home out of necessity and need, the longer I stayed the harder it was to leave even when 16 feet of snow crashed down from the roof blocking the entire front of my house. ‘The Peace of the Wild Things’ is in my blood and as hard as I try, I can’t seem to make an adjustment to living in a town where crows and men rule, and birdsong is absent though migration is under way.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Maternal Gift Economy: Webinar Gifts

This was originally posted December 7, 2020

In the 1960s and 1970s, American-born Genevieve Vaughan was living in Rome with her husband, philosopher Ferruccio Rossi-Landi, and their three daughters. When Rossi-Landi, using Marxist models, began to write about language as a form of “exchange,” Vaughan was inspired to articulate her alternative theory based on the idea that language was developed and is learned through the gifts of the mother to the child. From that beginning, Vaughn developed an alternative theory of culture based on what she calls the “gift economy.”

Herstory Profiles: Irish Women of Faith, Activism and Politics by Anjeanette LeBoeuf

As it is March, and March is a month for me that is always devoted to celebrating my Irish roots and women, my Herstory Profiles will be on a few exemplary women from Ireland: Brigid (Irish Goddess and Catholic Saint), Margaret O’ Carroll of Éile (Paragon of Leadership, Strength, and Compassion), and Mary Robinson (Historic Leader, Activist, and Humanitarian.)

ART AND SOUL by Iona Jenkins

One day, during a holiday at the home of Italian friends in the province of Lazio, some forty-five minutes by train from the centre of Rome, I experienced a powerful impression of the Sacred Feminine. She came to me in the Vatican of all places, centuries old male stronghold, and power centre of the Roman Catholic Church.

Even more surprisingly, her presence was more prominent in the Sistine Chapel, the Pope’s own place of prayer, where Cardinals sit in all male conclave. But there she was, shining through the restored colour on that famous ceiling through the brushstrokes of Michelangelo. I was picking up loud echoes immortalised for centuries through his art, tuning into the soul of the artist, seeing his inspiration in terms of angels speaking in colour and light. But then he was called after an Archangel whose name means Who is like God. God is creative, He created heaven and earth according to the scriptures, but now it was looking like She might have created it with him. Somehow over the years in Christianity, the real Sacred Feminine has been hidden away, negated, turned into a virginal statue with little visible life energy from earth.

Oscar in the Year 2050 by Marie Cartier

Thank you to –the Oscars!

My movie SCAVENGE FOR YOUR LIFE. I’m so thrilled to be nominated and to WIN! Thank you!

In the year 2050—and here we are, right? Am I right? Right!

SCAVENGE FOR YOUR LIFE. In the year 2050 when we are lucky to have this beautiful theater in downtown Los Angeles.

Here we are! I mean…we are eating and drinking in the gorgeous ambient light of street lights! And first, I want to make sure to thank and appreciate all the efforts made here to create this stage on the site of the former Dolby Theater!

From the Archives: Awakening to the Mystery of Absolute Beginnings by Carolyn Lee Boyd

This was originally posted on February 1, 2013

As I rise at 5:30 each morning, my spirit reawakens in a between-the-worlds realm of absolute beginnings. For those few minutes of quiet and slowly revealing dawn light, I revel in mystical newness, endless possibility, a horizon that is only the future. By 7 am, when I can hear cars on the road and see television screens through windows as I walk to work, normal, plodding space-time has taken over, leaving just a shimmer to linger in my memory.

I remember living all day with this feeling of being at the very beginning of my world when I was a young child and everything that I did and thought was for the first time. I believed this sense was lost forever when I was later taught by society, as so many of us are, that I was only the tiniest, most ordinary mite in a world already built many eons ago by people with a much brighter genius than me.

And then, on my 25^th birthday, I heard Merlin Stone speak about When God Was a Woman. As I truly envisioned the Divine with a female face for the first time in my life, I felt a joyful excitement as if I had been transported back to that first second in human history when the insight dawned that a sacred presence exists within ourselves and all of creation that is unseen, but real, and that it can be expressed and shared. Because I had never been taught about Goddess or how to interact with Her, I was able to discover and act on what I knew intuitively within myself about Her in a way that was completely my own. With great fervor I began my own individual journey of the spirit and found that this exhilarating profound newness never left me because the territory I was exploring was completely unfamiliar to me in my own experience.

Myth and Legend – Guides for Transformational Times by Judith Shaw

Cerridwen, Celtic Goddess, painting by Judith Shaw

Night becomes day, winter becomes spring, children become adults who become elders who become ancestors – transformation is a theme that appears again and again in our myths, legends and natural world.

But transformation is not easy as it requires us to let go of the old, the comfortable, the familiar and make way for the new and unknown. We can look to myth and legend with their many instances of transformation for guidance through these difficult moments.

Sandhill Cranes – a Nation of Women with Wings by Sara Wright

Historically they used the Eastern flyway but were extirpated by hunting… a slow recovery is in process and the stately Sandhill cranes are once again returning to breed in Maine… so far only birders have been keeping track of their numbers but these majestic pre-historic birds have haunting cries that are often described as bugles, rattles, croaks and trumpets and can be heard 2 -3 miles away. They also utter sounds that combine a kind of brrring in unison. Their impending arrival next month calls up a chant I love…

“There’s a river of birds in migration, a nation of women with wings.
There’s a river of birds in migration, a nation of warriors with wings.”

I remember the chill that crawled up my spine as those words seeped into my body all those years ago… I wept, not knowing why.