Sisterhood of Avalon – Feminism and Religion

It’s Called Practice For a Reason by Kay Bee

My daily practice isn’t what I’d like it to be these days what with working two jobs, raising three teenagers, and going to grad school. I am clocking about 60 hours of work and school every week, which doesn’t leave very many spare hours for formal ritual, prayer, or meditation.

During previous phases of my life, I’ve had a daily devotional practice that’s taken on many different forms as my spiritual studies deepen. I’ve learned to use new tools, and gone from singing other people’s chants to writing my own and creating my own prayers. As my path unfolded, my practice evolved. But last autumn, life shifted when I went back to school and shifted again a couple of months ago when I added a second job to the mix. My spiritual practice over the last month has been sporadic, random moments stolen from other obligations to say a rushed prayer, a chant sung on the drive to work, or an energy center balancing done in the shower before bed.

Meanwhile, in the back of my mind was the fact that I had committed to attending a 4-day training intensive within the Avalonian Tradition, followed immediately by a 4-day leadership retreat for the Sisterhood of Avalon. A couple of weeks ago, with my daily practice in what felt like utter shambles, I suffered an bout of extreme self-doubt. What was I thinking committing to this training intensive and leadership work when I couldn’t even manage to find 15 minutes every day to engage the practice of my faith? How on earth could I think I was ready for this? Should I even still go? Continue reading “It’s Called Practice For a Reason by Kay Bee”

Refrigerator Poetry by Kay Bee

I am at such a loss over the state of things these days. What’s left for me seems to be a process of assessing where I have agency at this exact moment and of taking refuge in small things.

After a terrible drought year and an awful fire season, it is raining once again in the mountains. This morning, I look out my kitchen window – thankful I have a kitchen – and gaze lost in thought at wet aspen leaves, kelly green at their centers and ringed with autumn gold. What do I want to convey today? Continue reading “Refrigerator Poetry by Kay Bee”

The Forgotten Art of Integration by Kay Bee

It’s suddenly mid-July. I’m in the throes of managing my library’s Children’s Summer Reading Program. My own children are galavanting about through the swirling, time-bending vortex that is summer break. My grad school program starts in 22 days. Each sun-soaked hour seems to both last forever and zip past at the same time. The calendar is packed, the laundry & dishes are overflowing. We’re constantly running out of something. There are endless balls in the air at work, at home, within and around me. I worry I am going to fail to catch and release one (or more) at just the right time. There is so much in motion, I often feel poised on the brink of.… Well, I’m not even sure what of, but it certainly feels precarious more often than not.

My life is bountiful and blessed right now. It is also chaotic and anxiety-producing. And I’m trying to get a handle on myself somewhere within all that. I have learned, after just shy of a decade’s worth of practicing the Avalonian Tradition as a member of the Sisterhood of Avalon, that what I need right now is a little dash of Integration. Continue reading “The Forgotten Art of Integration by Kay Bee”

Sisterhood, Service, Sovereignty: The Living Spirit of Avalon by Elizabeth Cunningham

Like so many women, I read Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon and got caught up in her vision of the Holy Isle and the priestesses who knew how to navigate those mists and travel between the worlds. Like so many women, I wished Avalon existed still.

In fact, Avalon does exist, because Jhenah Telyndru did more than wish. In 1995 she founded The Sisterhood of Avalon. Twenty-two years later, the Sisterhood is going strong and growing, attracting members from all over the world. I urge you to explore their website where the Sisters speak eloquently about their vision, structure, and purpose.

Continue reading “Sisterhood, Service, Sovereignty: The Living Spirit of Avalon by Elizabeth Cunningham”

Choice Feminism & Celtic Pagan Spirituality’s Quest for Sovereignty by Kay Bee

Years ago, in an early postpartum blur, I took a crack at writing a piece on an old personal blog about the question of an at-home mother’s claim to the feminist label. The process of writing it was really an opportunity for me to work out some of my own thoughts about my lived feminism within the framework of my life at that moment as a mother who was at home full time with three young children; a toddler and a brand new set of infant twins. I was completely unprepared for what happened in the comments section of my personal online musings.

While many self-identified feminist mothers seemed to resonate with the underlying personal themes of my post, many, many other feminists felt the need to comment on what they saw as my harmful attempt to justify choice feminism; a feminist theory they felt needed to be forcefully shouted down. While some of the comments were jarring, to say the least, they did serve to introduce me to the concept of choice feminism and the critiques surrounding it. I did not necessarily agree with the style or content of many of those comments, but they did deepen my thinking around reconciling my lived experience of at-home motherhood and my ethical commitment to feminism.

My twins will turn eleven this summer and I am still mulling this all over; especially now that I belong to a spiritual tradition that holds as probably its most important thealogical tenant, the sacred nature of a woman’s quest for Sovereignty. Continue reading “Choice Feminism & Celtic Pagan Spirituality’s Quest for Sovereignty by Kay Bee”