From our very beginnings, women have danced with time. Our bodies’ moon cycles have always been a human calendar. As the first agriculturists, we partnered with the seasons to feed our families and communities. When we served as midwives and carers for the dead, we ushered our species into and out of their Earthly lives.
Time is also embedded in the stories of goddesses worldwide. Like human gatekeepers of birth and death, goddesses are often the stewards of fate. The Greek Moirai spun the thread of life and cut it at death’s proper time. The Balkan Laima , the ancient Arabian Menat, and the Etruscan Nortia are other among many fate goddesses. Some goddesses oversee change, the physical manifestation of time, including Anna Perenna, goddess of the circle of the year as well as all the seasonal goddesses. Kali, Rhea Kronia, and other Creator/Destroyer goddesses rule over time itself.*
Now, however, time is often a weapon of oppression against women. Women overburdened with an unfair share of daily life’s tasks were never able to create millions of paintings, symphonies, and inventions, make scientific discoveries, or engage in other endeavors at great loss to themselves and the world. After just a few years of maturity, we are cast aside as being “old.” How many lives have been cut short by violence, human-made disease, poverty, and war? For how many centuries have we been told to wait for equality and freedom until another war or crisis is over or we die and go to heaven? Continue reading “Time for Change: What Do the Goddesses Say? by Carolyn Lee Boyd”
I want a new religion. I have changed to the point that I cannot be a part of a patriarchal religion and I feel that all of the major organized religions fall into that category. It has taken me a long time, but I can now see that these organized religions were created largely to support the patriarchal culture that most humans have lived in for at least the past 5,000 years.
My mother-in-law is currently in hospice and expected to cross over any time now. My wife is with her. Those two sentences alone—since I am a woman writing this blog—signify historic/herstoric change. I am a woman and I am writing about my mother in law and I am writing that my wife is with her. We are in a sea change regarding gay marriage. I will be allowed bereavement to go with my wife, when the time comes, for the services.
I decided to take the fall semester off from teaching. I wanted to volunteer my abilities somewhere in the world. With guidance from a friend and Volunteers in Global Service, I exchanged emails with Visthar: an Academy for Justice and Peace in Bengaluru, South India. “Visthar” means open space. What I discovered right away was that the work of Visthar dovetailed with my own: gender, sexuality, religion, education and theatre.
Feminism and Religion 