Kamala Harris – Feminism and Religion

Kamala Gave us a Tremendous Gift by Karen Tate

So I’m going to assume my readers don’t think meditation is a gateway for the devil to enter our minds and it’s not too woke. I mean, it’s a pretty mainstream practice these days going way back. Meditation originated in India, a very long time ago. According to the Live and Dare website, the oldest documented evidence of the practice of meditation are wall arts in the Indian subcontinent from approximately 5,000 to 3,500 BCE, showing people seated in meditative postures with half-closed eyes. In fact today it’s a recommended self help tool and who among us didn’t need some self help after November 5?

So, I was doing a guided meditation and this figure comes toward me and hands me a box with a key inside but the meditation ended without my knowing what the key symbolized. Then a few days later I was in another meditation circle and that box and key reappeared, only this time I got the message. The key was certainty. The key reminded me of a period in my life, some of my darkest days, when the road ahead was not clear, everything I’d planned for my life seemed gone and I had every reason to despair. I felt those feelings again as I touched the key in the meditation, but I also felt that glimmer of certainty I had back then that if I just kept making my famous lists, putting one foot in front of the other, following my logic, everything would work out and in the end, it did. Actually, in the end, there were even unexpected gifts in the troubles. Call it my Higher Self, my Soul, God, Goddess, my intuition – whatever – I was being reminded in those guided meditations of my ability to persevere. Of my resilience. That good things are ahead and there are gifts in the suffering and challenges if we are willing to see them.

Harris Could Not Outrun 2000 Years of Patriarchy by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

I made this poster 8 years ago and am devastated to have to dust it off again. The safety pins came from a British idea when Brexit was passed. People would wear the safety pins on their clothes to let anyone feeling vulnerable know that they would be “safe” with them.

The political finger pointing for Harris’ loss is beyond noxious. I have heard all manner of scapegoats; Biden, the Obamas, VP candidate Walz, Harris for saying too much of one thing, not enough of another, the progressives, Liz Cheney and even George Clooney. . . .blah blah blah

How can we make sense of a world where women voted for a misogynistic abuser. Black and brown people voted for a white supremist. Latinos voted for a policy of mass deportations targeting their brethren. Youth voted for a climate denier affecting their future. And so on. Think of all the women who voted for a world where they, their daughters and their granddaughters can be denied basic healthcare. It’s a true-to-life Cinderella scenario whose stepmother cut the toes off her own daughters to please a prince. Or Chinese mothers who would bind their own’s daughter’s feet, thereby crippling them in the service of marriage.

Dear Anti-Harris Progressives: Here’s how to help Palestine (and the economy, and everything else) by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

First, understand without doubt: I agree with the anti-genocide protesters (and the progressives who are frustrated about our rigged economy). I couldn’t agree more that we need an arms embargo against Israel. I support the progressives who are protesting at Harris rallies, saying they refuse to vote for any candidate who does not commit to an arms embargo, so that no more US arms will be sent to wage ethnic cleansing against the civilians (mostly women and children) of Palestine. Harris has advocated for a ceasefire, she has met with the protesters, and she has responded politely to their protests against the genocide. But when they continue to chant that they won’t vote for her, she responds, “You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”

I do not like the hand we’ve been dealt. Our democracy, always deeply flawed, has become increasingly weak and unstable. In fact, many professors and analysts increasingly define the US as a plutocracy – governed by and for the top 1%, in which the average citizen has little to no voice or impact on policies. Monopolies have consolidated in order to help destroy democracy, driving costs of living up and wages down. The Military Industrial Complex, with its staggering domination of the international markets, has locked the US into endless war, often in support of autocracies over democracies. And the same billionaires who are causing climate change, are investing in high tech solutions to save themselves from the apocalypse while the rest of us go extinct or become their slaves.

An Incantation for 2024, USA by Marie Cartier

-please repeat and/or use in ritual, if needed

There was a time (there was a time)

We were waiting for something (we were waiting for something)

We were wanting something (we were wanting something)

We needed it to be different (we needed it to be different)

We were. We are. We are here: this is it.

We want something. We want something. We need something. We need something.

There was a time when we could make something happen.

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: Kamala Harris! “I Feel Heard”

This was originally posted on August 17, 2020

Shortly after Kamala Harris was announced as Joe Biden’s choice for his Vice Presidential running mate, a panel of black women were asked, “How do you feel right now?” “I feel heard” was the simple yet profound response of one of them. As is well-known to those who follow the polls, black women voters are the backbone of the Democratic party. In the primary election, black women in South Carolina delivered the Presidential nomination to Joe Biden. Yet all too often black women have felt that their votes were taken for granted.

Instead of focusing on the needs and priorities of black women and their communities, all too often the Democratic Party’s strategy has been to reach out to other groups—for example working class white men or white suburban women. To feel heard at this moment means to be taken seriously as a political actor and as a person. Right now, the fact that a black woman was selected is what matters most. There were other qualified women and out of all of them. a black woman, Kamala Harris was chosen. And because of this, black women feel heard. It’s about time. Period.

Daughters of Witches By Julia Park Tracey

“We are the daughters of the witches you couldn’t burn.”

That’s a popular meme going around the internet these days, as we await the joyful coming of our savior, Kamala Harris, or the End Times, with the Mango Mussolini. I say that only slightly in jest, because I do believe we are in a fraught time. A woman president could set us up for incredible progressive movement, while a Trump/Vance win could mark the beginning of the end of women’s rights altogether.

There’s no way not to be political in an essay about feminism and religion, so if the current election is not of interest to you, I say, enjoy your privileges while you can and I hope the leopards don’t eat your face, as another meme goes. Regardless, the bodies of witches and the bodies of all our women, young and old, are still interconnected, both by virtue of our gender and of our position as political pawns (again? still? It is to weep).

And Then Everything Changed: Part Two: Joy by Beth Bartlett

(part one was posted yesterday)

Author’s Note: I wrote this post shortly after Pres. Biden stepped down as the Democratic candidate for the presidency and endorsed Kamala Harris, long before the Kamala-Harris ticket adopted “joy” as their watchword. The reference to the “joy” of this campaign has now become so ubiquitous that I fear it will become trivialized and merely a slogan. I hope instead that they meaningfully embrace a politics of joy and the capacity of joy to heal divides, not just in this country, but throughout the world.

* * *

. . . and then everything changed.

What is this feeling that has been filling me of late? Ah, yes, I remember — hope, enthusiasm, excitement, optimism! It’s been so long since I’ve felt this — on the political scene, for our country, for the world. But lately I’ve felt buoyant – something I haven’t felt at least since 2016. Rather than avoiding the news, now I am eager for it, seek it out.

The energy, vitality, and yes, laughter that Kamala Harris has brought to the presidential campaign has infused myself and many others I know with a sense of joy, a welcome contrast from the doom and gloom that has been surrounding the campaign for so long. Her ability to laugh, to smile, to find the positives in people, in life, that has brought new life to this campaign. Yet for some reason, the opposing side has chosen to focus on Harris’s easy laughter as a target for derision.

Breathing a Big Sigh of Relief by Carol P. Christ

During the past few days I have begun to breathe again. As I exhale, tensed muscles relax and feeling comes back into my body. I realize that I have been holding my breath not only for the days it took for the election results to come in, but for the past four years. After a long wait, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were finally declared the next President and Vice President of the United States. Their ability to pass legislation now hangs in the balance in the two Senate run-off elections that will be held in Georgia on January 5.

The outcome of these elections is uncertain, but we can take hope in the fact that Stacey Abrams will be doing everything she can to turn out the vote. If you are thinking of donating to the Georgia Senate races, please contribute to Abram’s Fair Fight, which registered almost 800, 000 new voters over the past two years, in order to ensure that your money will be spent on an on-the-ground campaign to get out the vote and not just on advertising. Continue reading “Breathing a Big Sigh of Relief by Carol P. Christ”

Wisdom from our Ancient Female Lawgiver and Judge Traditions by Carolyn Lee Boyd

As I have witnessed both the joy of so many across the world at the nomination of Kamala Harris for Vice President and the deep sorrow at the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I am struck by the fact that, in 2020, supremely qualified women still need to be trailblazers to hold high office. After all, goddesses and wise women gave a number of cultures their systems of laws and governance and have been celebrated for their wisdom as judges for millennia.

Here are a few of the goddesses and wise women lawgivers:

the Italian goddess Egeria gave Rome its first laws and taught the correct rules for Earth worship;
the Babylonian Kadi, was goddess of Earth and justice;
Ala of the Ibo people of Nigeria is both the Earth Mother and lawgiver of society;
the Greek Themis, daughter of Gaia, symbolized the social contract and cohesion of people living on Earth;
the Inuit Sedna both gave humanity abundance from the ocean for life from her own body and withheld it when her laws were broken;
Marcia Proba, whose historical reality is unclear, is said to have created the ancient Celtic system of laws known as the Marcian Statutes that may have influenced later British law;
past and present Women’s Councils and Clan Mothers of the Iroquois and other Indigenous peoples as well as those of Societies of Peace have brought harmony and well being to their people for tens of thousands of years.

Continue reading “Wisdom from our Ancient Female Lawgiver and Judge Traditions by Carolyn Lee Boyd”

Kamala Harris, the Democratic Vice President for 2020 by Anjeanette LeBoeuf

Anjeanette
August 11^th saw Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden announce his pick for Vice President. This pick broke open the history books; California US Senator Kamala Harris. Kamala has been steadily rising as a political force for over ten years. Her nomination is groundbreaking on so many levels. So, let us talk about Senator Harris.