Nurture life. Walk in love and beauty. Trust the knowledge that comes through the body. Speak the truth about conflict, pain, and suffering. Take only what you need. Think about the consequences of your actions for seven generations. Approach the… Read More ›
Nurture life. Walk in love and beauty. Trust the knowledge that comes through the body. Speak the truth about conflict, pain, and suffering. Take only what you need. Think about the consequences of your actions for seven generations. Approach the… Read More ›
Nurture life. Walk in love and beauty. Trust the knowledge that comes through the body. Speak the truth about conflict, pain, and suffering. Take only what you need. Think about the consequences of your actions for seven generations. Approach the… Read More ›
Nurture life. Walk in love and beauty. Trust the knowledge that comes through the body. Speak the truth about conflict, pain, and suffering. Take only what you need. Think about the consequences of your actions for seven generations. Approach the… Read More ›
Following up on my recent blogs on the roles of women in the Neolithic revolution and on “egalitarian matriarchy,” I have been re-reading Peggy Reeves Sanday’s ground-breaking book, Women at the Center, about the survival of the “adat matriarchaat” (the… Read More ›
When the word “matriarchy” is spoken, the first question that comes up is: what about men? Most people imagine that matriarchy must oppress men—just as patriarchy oppresses women. Sadly, concern about the oppression of women in patriarchy is less automatic…. Read More ›
Currently I am reading Peggy Reeves Sanday’s a-mazing book Women at the Center: Life in a Modern Matriarchy for the third time. In it Sanday describes the living egalitarian matriarchal culture of four million people of the Minangkabau culture of… Read More ›
A month or so ago I wrote that women need to learn what it means to choose our lovers and partners. I have just learned another lesson in this process. When I wrote about the power to choose, I was… Read More ›
In their purest form, “egalitarian matriarchies” place the mother principle at the center of culture and society. Their highest values are the love, care, and generosity they associate with motherhood. These values are not limited to women and girls. Boys… Read More ›
The blue organdy dress was a present my grandfather bought for me at the end of a summer I spent in San Francisco with my grandparents when I was six-going-on-seven. Was this the first time I crossed my father? Or… Read More ›
My dear friend Carol Lee Sanchez once told me that the women of the Laguna Pueblo– whose culture is an egalitarian matriarchy–taught her that women must choose their men, not wait for the men to choose them.* This was a… Read More ›
On February 20, 2018, the Greek government issued a Presidential Decree mandating the formation of government bodies to monitor and protect the more than four hundred bird and wildlife habitats in Greece designated as part of the European law Natura… Read More ›
In my genealogy research, I traced my father’s grandmother, Catherine, to her roots on the Iloff farm in Cherry Ridge, Honesdale, Pennsylvania, about two hours north of New York City. Catherine’s parents were Henry Iloff, who emigrated in 1841 from… Read More ›
The symbol of the Goddess is as old as human history. The most ancient images of the Goddesses from the Paleolithic era are neither pregnant nor holding a child. In Neolithic Old Europe the Goddess was most commonly linked with… Read More ›
When I was in graduate school, I learned to doubt myself. Despite having won Danforth and Woodrow Wilson graduate fellowships that paid for my tuition and living expenses, I was continually told by professors and male students alike that I… Read More ›
When I learned about the Navajo Beauty Way, I understood it to be a path in which human beings respect all beings in the web of life and live in harmony with them. But I didn’t understand why this path… Read More ›
Stories about refugees in the island of Lesbos (where I live) are no longer front page news. Yet according the United Nations Refugee Agency, 12, 742 refugees arrived here in 2017. This number is equivalent to 15% of the year-around… Read More ›
Shortly after writing “Asking for Help,” a blog in which I described losing my physical strength following a series injuries, I finally took a friend’s advice—mainly to stop her from badgering me—and went to the doctor. This is something I… Read More ›
When I began to research our family tree, my father told me that his grandfather George Christ emigrated from Germany because he was a socialist. I eventually learned that it was not George Christ but his parents, Thomas Christ and… Read More ›
It came upon a Solstice morn, that glorious song of old, with angels bending near the earth, to touch their harps of gold. “Peace on the earth. good will to all,” from heaven’s all glorious realm. The world in silent… Read More ›
By now the exit poll statistics from the recent election in the state of Alabama are well known: 98% of black women and 92% of black men voted for Democrat Doug Jones, while 74% of white men and 65% of… Read More ›
The disdain with which the work of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas has been held in the field of classics and archaeology was shown to me when I stated quietly at a cocktail party at the American School of Classical Studies in… Read More ›
My father was a very intelligent man who tested “genius” in the army. Drafted into the army at a young age, he decided not to take advantage of the “GI Bill” that would have paid for his college education after… Read More ›
My mother spent a good deal of her life defending my father to me and my brother. “Your father didn’t mean it,” she would say. “Your father loves you—he just doesn’t know how to show it.” “Your father never cried… Read More ›
We treat the physical assault and the silencing after as two separate things, but they are the same, both bent on annihilation. Rebecca Solnit When I was in my twenties and in therapy I had a recurrent dream in which… Read More ›
I climbed trees and rode my bike and roller skated on sidewalks for hours on end when I was a child. As an adult, I have always been physically strong without having to work at it. Nor have I had… Read More ›
I was at a dinner party for twelve lovingly prepared by two ex-pat friends, when the subject of Woody Allen’s most recent film came up. I don’t remember which one of them it was, because, as I said at the… Read More ›
Last winter FAR contributor Glenys Livingstone lovingly and professionally edited all of the interviews for the film on Marija Gimbutas’ life and work, Signs Out of Time, by Donna Read and Starhawk, and posted them on youtube. Though I received… Read More ›
In Crete we are always being given gifts—fresh cherries, ice cold bottles of raki, yogurt swimming in honey, and so much more. Over the years it finally hit me that this spirit of great generosity is a living remnant of… Read More ›
While the world is falling apart all around me, I have been slowly engaged in a major cleaning and cleansing of my home. It started when I began to move my summer clothes to my main closet in June. Here… Read More ›
