goddess – Page 3 – Feminism and Religion

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Two Ultimates: The Ground of Being and Goddess

This was originally posted July 15, 2013

The concept of two ultimates, the ground of being and Goddess, can be helpful in understanding differences of emphasis within and among religions. Some religions or strands within religions focus on relationship with or worship of a personal God, while other religions or strands within religions focus on identifying with or merging with the impersonal ground of being or the whole of which we are part. These two ultimates are found in feminist spiritualities and theologies.

In “Being Itself and the Existence of God”* process theologian John Cobb identifies two ultimates. The ground of being as the metaphysical principles that structure all of life is unchanging; as the whole of which individuals are part, the ground of being is impersonal. God, on the other hand, is an active presence in the world, is personal, and cares about individuals in the world. If God is understood to be in some sense an individual in relation to other individuals, then God cannot be identified with the whole, because the whole is made up of God and other individuals. Yet God is not simply one individual among other individuals. Only God has perfect knowledge of the world and every individual within it and only God cares for the world in light of perfect knowledge of it.

The Impresa of Great Mystery by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

The Fibonacci series has been called the fingerprint of god. That is because they are a sequence of numbers found ubiquitously in nature. I’ve been thinking up new names for it. It is a progression created by adding each number to its previous number after starting with the number one. It looks like this:

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 and so on to infinity.

The Fibonacci Sequence was first described in the 12^th century by Leonardo Pisano Bigollo, an Italian mathematician. His nickname was Fibonacci, which translates to “son of Bonacci.” He has been called the Leonardo of Pisa, the city of his birth. The series is unique. When you take the ratio of any two successive numbers in the series (after the three), the resultant numbers have a pattern. They fall into an increasingly narrow range with the sequence revolving around a ratio called the Golden Mean, the golden ratio, or the golden number. It is 1.618. Below is an example of how the number sequence works:

5 / 3 = 1.666
8 / 5 = 1.600
13 / 8 = 1.625
21 / 13 = 1.615
34 / 21 = 1.619
55 / 34 = 1.617

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Bird Watching and Geology in the Body of Goddess

The notion of the earth as the body of Goddess has taken on deeper meaning for me in recent years. I have felt connected to nature all of my life. Yet often, though not always, I have related to nature in general rather than in specific ways. Some years ago, after reading Hartshorne’s essay “Do Birds Love Singing?” I stopped for the first time in the wetlands of Kalloni, Lesbos, to see the flamingoes that live in the salt pans there.

Mountain Mother: Earth, Woman, Goddess (Part 2) by Jeanne F. Neath

Part 1 was posted yesterday.

In Part 2 we’ll complete our travels into Mountain Mother’s realms, as we explore female-centered economics and spiritualities as a means toward creating earth- and female-centered communities and small-scale societies.

Imagine living on Turtle Island prior to 1492. At that time Indigenous peoples had been living in respectful relationship to nature, tending her for thousands of years. European invaders and colonists were amazed by the abundance, but assumed they were seeing wild nature. These were subsistence societies! People’s needs were met by the Earth, her plants, animals, waters, and human efforts. No one charged a fee. Everything was a gift.

Mountain Mother: Earth, Woman, Goddess (Part 1) by Jeanne F. Neath

Growing up in the 1950s in the U.S. I was deeply immersed, trapped like so many girls and women, in capitalist, colonizing, patriarchy. I rescued myself in the 1970s when I jumped head first into the Women’s Liberation movement. I found that the currents pushing communities of women were wild at times, yet taking me where I wanted to go. At that time, it was possible to live one’s life, as I did, largely within this subculture and its women’s dances, bookstores, battered women’s shelters, women of color organizations, festivals, land groups and more. These female-centered and female-only spaces gave women a gut level knowledge of what a world without patriarchy could be like. We could imagine a female-centered world because we were, in many respects, living in one.

Thanks to a decades long assault by the right wing and other anti-feminist forces, women’s spaces became difficult to access. Now the grassroots women’s movement is making a comeback. Over 50 years of second wave feminist thought, research and organizing inform our work. Women’s communities are on the rise. These communities have the potential to become the base for an earth- and female-centered future, as I’ll discuss below.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: SHE WHO CHANGES*

This was originally posted on May 21, 2012

She changes everything She touches and everything She touches changes. The world is Her body. The world is in Her and She is in the world. She surrounds us like the air we breathe. She is as close to us as our own breath. She is energy, movement, life, and change. She is the ground of freedom, creativity, sympathy, understanding, and love. In Her we live, and move, and co-create our being. She is always there for each and every one of us, particles of atoms, cells, animals, and human animals. We are precious in Her sight. She understands and remembers us with unending sympathy. She inspires us to live creatively, joyfully, and in harmony with others in the web of life. Yet choice is ours. The world that is Her body is co-created. The choices of every individual particle of an atom, every individual cell, every individual animal, every individual human animal play a part. The adventure of life on planet earth and in the universe as a whole will be enhanced or diminished by the choices we make. She hears the cries of the world, sharing our sorrows with infinite compassion. In a still, small voice, She whispers the desire of Her heart: Life is meant to be enjoyed. She sets before us life and death. We can choose life. Change is. Touch is. Everything we touch can change.

Powerful Women in Pre-History by Rachel Thomas

*Image of a Goddess, maybe Inanna. Could she also be a Shaman and/or Queen? From 2400 BC, Sumeria.* *Photo by Rachel Thomas at the* Morgan Library, on loan from the Vorderasiatisches Museum of Berlin.

Women’s History Month brings our attention to women of the present and the recent past. What about those women from our distant past? Those whose great stories go back thousands of years?

Scholars are discovering more and more evidence of powerful women in pre-history. Here is a snippet of the true herstory of my ancestral grandmothers.

Every day there is more research showing that women played leadership roles in the earliest large-scale civilizations of Western Asia, North Africa and Europe. We know that these areas had international trade and exchange of ideas going back at least 5,000 years. Maybe more.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: EASTER OF THE GODDESS: A VIEW FROM GREECE

This was originally posted on April 16, 2012

On Good Friday, Easter Saturday, Easter Sunday, and Easter Monday the blogs on feminismandreligion.com celebrated mothers and God the Mother.*

This is my body, given for you.
This is my blood, given for you.

While these words are the center of a Christian liturgy celebrating the sacrifice of Jesus as the Christ, they are more appropriately spoken of our own mothers. Your mother and my mother and all mothers, human and other than human, mammalian, avian, and reptilian, give their bodies and blood so their offspring might have life. True, mothers do not always make conscious choices to get pregnant, but almost all mothers affirm life in their willingness to nurture the young who emerge from their bodies and from their nests. Had mothers—human and other than human–not been giving their bodies and their blood from time immemorial, you and I would not be here.

In Our Right Minds: On the Sacred Feminine, the Right Brain and Restoring Humanity’s Natural Balance by Dale Allen

TODAY • BOOK LAUNCH ON AMAZON! Launch Discounts underway now!

There’s something about a book. I make a lot of things: podcasts, videos, a film, a musical production, paintings, lots of articles for publications, but this… this feels huge to me. A book. A book that represents 25 years of my life as a spokesperson and champion of the feminine side of humanity – a part of all us.

Here’s the official Press Release:

Veteran of corporate and commercial communications, host, interviewer, and filmmaker Dale Allen has now released her new book, In Our Right Minds. This new book is an in-depth exploration of the sacred feminine and its power to heal humanity as a whole. Sharing her profound journey of exploring the goddess archetype, the author combines science, art, and history for a transcendent literary journey.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Why a Goddess Pilgrimage?

This was originally posted on October 1, 2012

What is a Goddess Pilgrimage and why are so many US, Canadian, and Australian women making pilgrimages to ancient holy places in Europe and Asia? The simple answer is that women are seeking to connect themselves to sources of female spiritual power that they do not find at home.

Traditionally pilgrims leave home in order to journey to a place associated with spiritual power. “Leaving home” means leaving familiar physical spaces, interrupting the routines of work and daily life, and leaving friends and family behind. For the pilgrim, “home” is a place that has provided both comfort and a degree of discomfort that provokes the desire to embark on a journey. The space of pilgrimage is a “liminal” or threshold space in which the supports systems of ordinary life are suspended, as Victor Turner said. A pilgrim chooses to leave the familiar behind in order to open herself to the unfamiliar—in hopes that she will return with new insight into the meaning of her life.