Tag: connection

The Sound of Silence: a mother’s day reflection 2019 by Sara Wright

Here in the high desert it has been raining off and on for the last few days. A giant puddle sits in the driveway and all the trees range in color from subtle shades of sage to emerald. Fringed Chamisa, spun gold and salmon wildflowers are bent low but stems are luminescent. Seedlings are sprouting in unlikely places.

I can’t think of a better mother’s day present for the desert than these ongoing cloud-bursts that are nourishing the earth with water and minerals from the sky. I am profoundly grateful for this year’s spring greening.

The earth is experiencing a sense of renewal. I wish I could say the same for me with respect to mothering and mother’s day. I cross this cyclic threshold with the same feelings of dread and grief that overpower me each year. Neither of my children acknowledge me as the mother who once loved them so fiercely, but oh so imperfectly in her own confusion and despair.

I was such a young wife, barely twenty when I became pregnant with my first child. Two years later I was a mother of two sons. Within five years I was divorced and on my own.

Although I tried to repair the damage as soon as I was able, neither child was willing to join me. I desperately suggested counseling – many times. As adolescents and young adults both Chris and later David, responded with chilling silence and apparent indifference to every frantic attempt I made to bridge the gap.

Continue reading “The Sound of Silence: a mother’s day reflection 2019 by Sara Wright”

Generosity and Community: the Alternative Worldview of Women’s Ritual Dances, Part 2 by Laura Shannon

Dr. France LeJeune Milchberg taking her turn to lead the dance line, Lesvos 2007. Photo: Sheryl Ackerman

Starhawk describes the work of her Reclaiming collective as the creation of ‘spaces of refuge from a harsh and often hostile world, safe places where people can heal and regenerate, renew our energies and learn new skills.’[i] These words also apply to the women’s traditional dances. One participant on my courses expresses it thus: ‘In the circle no-one is left out, no-one is ignored, all are held and included, all have their place, all are connected.’[ii]

Crucially, women’s ritual dances empower everyone to develop leadership skills. Every woman must know how to lead the line at the appropriate time, and she must also know how to pass on the responsibility afterwards. Continue reading “Generosity and Community: the Alternative Worldview of Women’s Ritual Dances, Part 2 by Laura Shannon”

Generosity and Community: the Alternative Worldview of Women’s Ritual Dance, Part 1 by Laura Shannon

My life’s work with traditional women’s circle dances of Eastern Europe and the Near East has been a natural interweaving of feminism, activism and Goddess spirituality. In more than thirty years of experience, my students and I have gained valuable insight into their potential as tools for healing and transformation.

These simple and ancient dances connect us with women’s ritual practices from the past which are rooted in a Goddess-reverent paradigm honouring the earth, the body and the female face of the divine. In the present day, the practice of mindfully dancing traditional circle dances which embody this worldview can help us imagine and create a more equitable society in the future.

Continue reading “Generosity and Community: the Alternative Worldview of Women’s Ritual Dance, Part 1 by Laura Shannon”

Women’s Ritual Dances and the Nine Touchstones of Goddess Spirituality – Part Four by Laura Shannon

In Rebirth of the Goddess, Carol P Christ offered Nine Touchstones of Goddess Spirituality as an alternative to the Ten Commandments. The Nine Touchstones are intended to inform all our relationships, whether personal, communal, social, or political.[1] In this four-part blog (here are parts 1-3 Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) I am exploring ways in which these Nine Touchstones are inherently embodied in traditional women’s ritual dances of the Balkans, which has been my spiritual practice for over thirty years.

Carol’s Fourth Touchstone is: ‘Speak the truth about conflict, pain, and suffering.’ Many women’s dance songs which allow the women to speak and sing their grief and pain. When we bring that pain into the healing container of the circle, sharing simple steps, Dancers in the circle simultaneously give and receive support for their own and others’ sorrow. Ultimately, the sense of community  and solidarity in the circle transforms our grief so that the burden becomes manageable. Many historical songs, too, tell stories of women being abducted or abused, and how they fought back or got away – or not – so that they are remembered and honoured by future generations.

Continue reading “Women’s Ritual Dances and the Nine Touchstones of Goddess Spirituality – Part Four by Laura Shannon”

A Precious Gift by Natalie Weaver

This has been another hard month.  I don’t feel it to be hard.  I just know objectively that it is.  The typical challenge of balancing my work with the children’s needs and the management of a household has been intensified by the onset of a serious medical condition in my family.  I now enter that phase of elder care, which I understand is more or less bound to bankrupt the average household.  I have become the much-begrudged adult child, compelled to make decisions for other people’s lives and regarded in the fog of suspicion. My intentions are now under scrutiny; my time is usurped; my efforts are thankless.  I’m not complaining really.  I am just describing.

In the midst of things, I have managed to take my older son to the seeming ends of the earth to visit potential high schools.  I am managing a Destination Imagination team for my fourth grade son’s class.  I am teaching six courses, and my home is relatively clean.  I am running a weekly lecture series, I volunteered at the Church this month, and no one has missed any meals.  I even managed to sew a blanket for a friend’s new baby. There are many more serious family, medical, and economic issues that underlie my day-to-day, but along with everyone else, and perhaps a little more so than some others, I just accept that I am amazingly over-extended.

Continue reading “A Precious Gift by Natalie Weaver”

Opening Our Hearts Through Armenian Dance by Laura Shannon

The candle represents the light of love, compassion and connection kindled in our hearts as we dance.
In these challenging times, one of the hardest things to do is to keep our hearts open. Grief and despair tend to shut them down. And even among close friends, colleagues, family members, and people with whom we share worship, when we clash over differing political opinions, trust can swiftly erode. These kinds of losses and sorrows can make us just want to close the doors to our hearts.
Yet hardened hearts and minds are not going to help us overcome conflicts and affirm connections. Only if we can open our hearts to one another, holding the fullness of our (and others’) feelings in a compassionate way, can we weather the storms which threaten to divide us further. And only if we are united can we find our way together through those storms.
One of the best ways I know to connect with others and to open my heart is through the joyful experience of traditional circle dance, particularly Armenian dances. I have written previously on this blog (The Dance of Memory, The Wishing Tree) about Armenian dances and their ancient roots, their links to the pre-Christian Goddess, and how they affirm survival throughout the traumas of history. I have also written about my friend and colleague Shakeh Major Tchilingirian and her inspiring Circle of Life project, which brings Armenians, Turks, Kurds, Assyrians, and other survivors of atrocities and genocide to dance together for reconciliation.

Continue reading “Opening Our Hearts Through Armenian Dance by Laura Shannon”

Family, Interdependence, and Mutual Support by Chris Ash

Christy CroftOver the past few months, a precious person has come closer into my family’s life in such a way that their presence in my home, among my loved ones, has come to feel natural and easy. This is someone I love, someone who adores my children and appreciates my partner of 18 years and whose sweet spirit and vibrant laughter have added joy and mirth to our family home.

Yesterday, they rode with me to drop my freshly-mohawked teenager off at a farm to help with preparations for an upcoming arts camp. I introduced them by name to the camp assistant and walked over to chat with the camp director for a bit. Later, as we got back into the car to head to lunch, I asked what they thought of the farm.

“It was nice,” they said. “I’m glad your children have a place like that. Also, while I was chatting with the camp assistant, she asked if I was family.”

“What did you say?”

“I said yes.”

They weren’t wrong.

The meaning the word “family” holds for me is something I’ve given much consideration over the years. For generations, many of us have been expected to turn a blind eye to the ways patriarchal domination of women’s and children’s bodies perpetuates abuse in our own family systems. My inability to sweep these abuses under the carpet, to keep silence and pretend all is well, has led to my estrangement from one entire side of my family. It’s an estrangement I feel will be permanent, and while I grieve the loss of an ideal I never had, I welcome the opportunity to live authentically and boldly, confident in my dedication to my ideals, which include honesty, justice, and the unconditional protection of children and vulnerable populations.

For a while, I sat with the gap this estrangement created in my life, unwilling to fill it with harmful relationships with those to whom I am blood-related, yet hesitant to broadly redefine it in a way that negates the importance of those who have chosen to love and raise up a child, however imperfectly. Continue reading “Family, Interdependence, and Mutual Support by Chris Ash”

Religion, Race, and Feminism in an Era of Elusive Enlightenment by Salaam Green

The warrior spirit is not only the coherent ability to resist circumstances outside of one’s making; but the ability to fight the war within all of us thus managing discomfort and chaos with the force of authenticity.

Recently an enlightened friend on social media reminded me of the importance of not only portraying an awakened consciousness in the fight towards enlightened morays in an age of fascist’s dictatorships but actually waking up to unresolved veracities.

Hurriedly, I searched for a working definition of enlightenment consistent with my Christian beliefs. I finally found several however, none exactly measured up to the values that are interlaced within scriptures and thus are founding principles of Christianity and religious fundamentals.

Continue reading “Religion, Race, and Feminism in an Era of Elusive Enlightenment by Salaam Green”

Stillness by Oxana Poberejnaia

oxanaI am visiting my home town in Russia for holidays. I have not been home for 3 years and I have not lived there for 12 years. Many things surprise me. One of the features of contemporary life in my home town is the relentless and often destructive onset of capitalism. As I have said already, currently patriarchy has joined forces with capitalism in order to suppress nature and oppress women.

One of the ways capitalism does this is by involving women and men into an endless rat race and by substituting their Wild Nature (as Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estés describes it) with an identity of a consumer. People willingly put on masks of consumers who live to make money and to spend it on entertainment which is sold to them.

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The Transformative Power of Daily Practices by Ivy Helman

My simple daily rituals and spiritual practices are what keep me mindful of G-d and G-d’s presence in my life.  They also remind me of G-d’s call to justice, care, compassion and love. 

“I find by experience, not by reasoning,

but by my own discovery that G-d is near me,

and I can be near G-d at all times.

I cannot explain it but I am as sure of my experience

as I am of the fact that I live and love,

but I know I do.

In the same way, I know I am in contact with G-d.”

This poem by Lily Montagu speaks to me.  I read it most mornings as I say my morning prayers, and it is one of those mantras I try to live by.  I have found that contrary to popular belief, sustained religious practices can be just as transformative as instantaneous conversion experiences.  This is why I have developed certain spiritual and specifically Jewish practices (For more about my joinery to Judaism, see one of my previous blogs “Reflections on my Spiritual Journey: Claiming Judaism”).  I find that they help me develop and cultivate a strong relationship with G-d.  For example, I keep a kosher home; wear a kippah daily; try to pray at least twice a day and before snacks and meals; practice the principles of Mussar; attend regularly Shabbat services Friday evenings at my Reform Congregation in Lowell and Saturday morning services at a Conservative congregation in Nashua, NH; light Shabbat candles; try not cook or create on Shabbat; make Havadalah to mark the end of Shabbat; give tzedakah as much as I can and study Torah with my friends.  This list is not all encompassing and there are quite a few areas of my practice I wish were more disciplined as well.

Continue reading “The Transformative Power of Daily Practices by Ivy Helman”