earth based spirituality – Page 4 – Feminism and Religion

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: How To Find Those Lost Ancestors

This post was originally published on Jan. 21st, 2013

Over the past year I have written several blogs on ancestor connection. In this blog I will share what I have learned about how to find ancestors.

I recommend the popular television series Who Do You Think You Are? which has US, UK, and Australian, and other versions, and the PBS series hosted by Henry Louis Gates, African American Lives and Finding Your Roots. While you might think, as I did, that genealogical research is about finding the names and birthplaces of ancestors, these programs set the genealogical quest in the great flow of history.

Records show that I have ancestors who immigrated to the United States from Ireland, Scotland, Prussia, and Germany in the early 1850s. Historical research tells me that more than a million people left Ireland and Scotland in the 1850s due to the “potato famine,”* which affected the rest of Europe as well. History explains why ancestors emigrated.

Begin your search by asking parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, for names, dates, places of residence, stories, and other information they remember. Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: How To Find Those Lost Ancestors”

Of Birds and Dogs –Invisible Birds and the Weaver by Sara Wright

I am not feeding my year-round avian friends in the hopes that ‘my’ phoebes can nest in peace above my door and raise their brood without red squirrel interference. Last night I startled a nesting mother by turning on an outdoor light, so egg laying has begun. Every day I apologize to my beloved chickadees who must find food elsewhere (for now).

It’s hard to ignore the truth. So many birds that used to be common around here are gone. Mourning doves and white throated sparrows are two species that I miss too much. Occasionally, I hear a solitary w/t sparrow’s call. In March one mourning dove visited for a day; the flocks are gone

In this space in between bird loss and my choice not to feed those that I recognize by sight and sound, I have gradually learned how to listen to the invisible warblers that have probably been here all along.

‘Willowing’ at the Turning by Sara Wright

My relationship with and time spent with Indigenous peoples reinforced my intuitive sense that seasonal turnings like the Spring Equinox need to be honored and experienced when the ‘time’ is right. Time, in the Indigenous sense is fluid. Because of this learning I have come to understand that although it is important to write a little ceremony that includes guardians, elements, prayer, gratitude, framing intentions/release that I also need to allow the powers of nature to determine when the actual passage occurs. Indigenous people dance their ceremonies which helped me understand that any experience that transpires around these turnings may become the body of the ceremony if it feels right though the words were written earlier. This year around the equinox darkness reigned in every sense of the word. Having set my intentions, I waited, wondering when the door would open… yesterday it did, and this is the story of what happened. Only afterwards did I realize that in every sense we had honored and experienced the beginning of spring and the rising of clear waters.

My Vet and dearest friend made one of his unscheduled visits. The moment after I got the text my little dogs began to bark. This is normal behavior for both animals who adore their Uncle Gary and are tuned into him on levels that defy explanation (he lives more than a half an hour away). They bark until he arrives, regardless of whether this is a regular visit, or one that’s a surprise. We keep track of the exact timing of his leave – taking, their behavior and his arrival for fun.

Women and Trees: Little Red Pine by Sara Wright

Women and trees belong together; our relationships with them stretches back to antiquity. They have been our protectors, guiding us through grief and difficult times. They offer us gifts of beauty, fruits, and nuts, are receivers of prayers, sometimes speaking through prophecy. Sometimes healing springs appear at their feet. And always they are wisdom keepers, these Trees of Life. It is not surprising that women’s ceremonies were and are often enacted in the forest under a canopy of trees.

Emergence magazine recently posed three questions that I want to share because I think they might help raise awareness for women who love trees and the relatively small minority of other people who are attempting to deal with what is happening to the rest of nature during this political crisis and time of earth destruction.

Some folks who are not Indigenous still love and care for the land as a beloved friend, relative and teacher and it is to these people, both women and men, that I offer up these questions because I think they may help to keep us grounded in a painful but potentially creative way. Queries like these attach us to a larger long-term perspective that allows for a ‘both and’ approach to the future. The last question invites the reader to take personal action. Feeling that reciprocal connection between an individual and some aspect of the land s/he is attached to is a key that opens a door to deeper engagement with the rest of nature.

Regeneration by Annelinde Metzner

This time one year ago, our world here in Appalachia seemed like it hadn’t changed in a thousand years. The giant, churning, awesome power of Hurricane Helene had not yet whipped our waters into a frenzy, and caused the mountains to slide downhill, carrying our lives away. And yet, from just below the earth’s surface, Spring reappears with all Her perseverance, Her steadfastness, Her fertile abundance. The slow, steady regeneration of our Mother inspires me to keep going, day by day, hour by hour.

Primavera

The newness of Spring, Primavera, ”first green,”
soft petals that banish Winter’s icy grip,
the return of the Galax, the trillium,
the return!
Full-blown rebirth,
bright, brilliant green shining in the sun,
Spring!
Rebirth decked out like a debutante
with a roomful of courtiers,
flipping the world from darkness to light.
Ferns unfurl,
fiddleheads play on the forest floor,
insects awaken and buzz
in a hundred keys of life.
Humans awaken too, reminded once more
of the richness of the return.
A breeze blows over the galax,
the Mayapples spread their elegant leaves
The promise of the Great Mother:
we will begin again.

Changing Woman’s Light, part 2 by Sara Wright

Last week Sara told the story of Changing Woman. You can read it here.

What I love the most about this story is that Changing Woman evolves from a woman who is passively acted upon into a self – directed deity who stands up for what she wants and needs. A second reason I feel so strongly about this tale is that Changing Woman demonstrates the importance of having a relationship with more than human beings – animals and plants. A third reason I am so attracted to this myth is the gender balance that eventually evolves between the two – Changing Woman and the Sun. But I think the most important part of the story for all of us is that Changing Woman never dies. She grows old and then young again reflecting the powers of the Great Round to renew All Life.

Imagine if we were all brought up with this kind of myth to guide us…

When I returned from NM five years ago, I brought home fragments of worked and unworked chert not realizing at the time that Changing Woman accompanied her stones and that they would continue to exert an influence on me. My relationship with that mountain is not distance dependent. I also continue to re – experience the wonder and awe I experienced as becoming part of that mountain, although these periods wax and wane like the moon. The Navajo call Changing Woman’s Mountain Tsip which means tree mountain and the Tewa use a similar word Tsip’in, to name this Being obsidian or flint mountain. A shining mountain crafted of stones and trees, yes!

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Connection to Ancestors in Earth-based Theology

This post was originally published on Jan. 14th, 2013

“I am Carol Patrice Christ, daughter of Jane Claire Bergman, daughter of Lena Marie Searing, daughter of Dora Sofia Bahlke, daughter of Mary Hundt who came to Michigan from Mecklenburg, Germany in 1854. I come from a long line of women, known and unknown, stretching back to Africa.”

Like many Americans, my ancestral history was lost and fragmented due to emigration, religious and ethnic intermarriage, and movement within the United States. Though one of my grandmothers spoke proudly of her Irish Catholic heritage and one of my grandfathers acknowledged his Swedish ancestry, I was raised to think of myself simply as “American,” “Christian” and “middle class.” Ethnic and religious differences were erased, and few stories were told.

Over the past two years, I have begun to discover details of my ancestral journey, which began in Africa, continued in the clan of Tara, and was marked by the Indo-European invasions. In more recent times, my roots are in France, Holland, England, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, and Sweden. In the United States, my family has lived in tenements in New York City and Brooklyn, in poverty in Kansas City, and on farms in Long Island, Connecticut, upstate New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. My parents and grandparents settled in northern and southern California during the 1930s. I have lived in southern and northern California, Italy, Connecticut, New York, Boston, and now Greece.

Learning details about family journeys has created a shift in my sense of who I am. Continue reading “Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Connection to Ancestors in Earth-based Theology”

The Grandfathers, part 2 by Sara Wright

Yesterday’s post which you can read here, ended with this line from the Grandfather, “The young people will become confused and when all is finally lost then the Creator will return to restore not just the Tewa but all tribal peoples to the land.”

I experienced wild hope surfacing… I had heard words to this effect before but assumed that the people needed that story to go on. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure… something about the way this man talked to me made me believe him. He exuded a complex sense of deep humility, knowledge and authority. I thought about the ravages of Climate Change and the disgusting cross-cultural belief that the Earth’s job was to serve humanity. My rational brain went on overload giving me a thousand reasons why what he predicted couldn’t be true, almost as if it needed to win this round (ah, Patriarchy exposes itself – if you don’t win you lose). Yes, it was true that we were in a state of breakdown… he didn’t deny it but he also made it clear that this was not the end. First we had to survive the breakdown, and living through it is a challenge that some like me live with every day. These are dark times.

Heart Drum by Sara Wright

I listened to
my heart
murmuring
softly
her voice
a viscous fluid
slow moving river
changing course
from right
to left
pumping molten minerals
over bones
tunneling around limbs
amazement
overcomes me
Whole Earth
holds heart songs
my dogs and me
whistling turkeys
scolding nuthatch
twittering titmouse
cheeping chickadee
browsing deer
astonishment lingers
I am treasuring the
sweet sounds
of this heart
thrumming through
heartbreak
submerged
in a flow
of wonder…
the kind of
awe that moves
mountains of stone
a raging body
waterlogged
by grief
– how can it be
this heart
continues
to pulse
drumming
to Nature’s rhythm
while a
crimson soul
breaks open
over and over
keens
drowning
in losses
too deep?
Twin chambers
pulse in my breast
expanding contracting
as they continue
thrumming
Life’s Drum.
Trees, birds
dear friend
(you know who you are)
My Beloved
Healer
Thank You
All
With every heartbeat
my gift to you is
the promise of
Embodied Love.

A Leaf Peeper’s Reflection by Sara Wright

Twice a year, once in May for a few days and during the first week of October I can’t leave home because I’ll miss the next moment of spring flowering or scarlet flames.

Last week I was captivated by how the golden morning light affects each deciduous leaf. For about five days I ran inside and out all morning to feast upon the astonishing leaf color changes as the sun rose higher. ‘Fire on the Mountain’, crimson, gold, seductive sultry salmon brilliance. In and out for hours. I drove my dogs crazy. Noting the bees on the blushing hydrangea, glad for dragonflies cruising around the house. Greeting little green frog framed against his log. Breathing in the Light. Infused by all too brief moments of swamp maple’s fierce fiery splendor.