Collie's Bestiary

Next is American Christian feminist theologian-scholar Rosemary Radford Ruether's 2005 Goddesses & the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History. Ruether's writing is clear and easy to follow as she elaborates her theorized connections between Neolithic and ancient Mediterranean goddesses, ancient and medieval masculine appropriations of women's power, and modern spiritual feminist interpretations of the goddesses. [...]

In 1993 a book emerges which provocatively probes ecofeminism's epistemology during its analysis of the historical roots of the oppressive conflation of women with nature. The collection of essays titled Ecofeminism, by Maria Mies & Vandana Shiva, is a biting critique of the colonization of nature, women, and the Third World by the white male [...]

In a brilliantly re-creative intellectual thread, in 1993 feminist lesbian poet Judy Grahn re-members and reclaims the sacrality of women and menstruation in her Blood, Bread, and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World. She notes with startling clarity that, "All origin stories are true" (7), as she offers us a radical new origin myth for [...]

The first movements into spiritually inspired re-embodiment which I discovered came (unsurprisingly) from men, and originated outside the United States. Morihei Ueshiba, the now-deceased creator of aikido, envisioned his martial art through the process of several spiritual awakenings: as a spirit of loving protection which is to protect and cultivate all beings in nature. Ueshiba [...]

Yay! I've finished the ecofeminism comprehensives essay — it's coming in at 53 pages with cover page and bibliography included. Since the essay's parameters were 30 to 50 pages exclusive of the cover page and biblio, all is good. Hallelujah! Now all I have to do is the tidying stuff, which is easy: make sure [...]

Passing thoughts during the days which bubble up between readings: Crockpots Crockpots are incredibly cool! While I'm familiar with them, I'd never used them to any extent before. For fun and relaxation, and to improve my cooking, I've decided to make one crockpot meal and one casserole dish per week. Last week I made "Sunshine [...]

Reflecting on spirituality vs. ethics, I was fascinated to realize I'd made one of the mistakes the author notes: considering non-violence as equivalent to passive resistance — as nothing more than yet another tactical tool to be used in accomplishing social justice. Instead, Fernandes refers extensively to Gandhi, noting his belief that non-violence is a [...]

This is a review of Leela Fernandes'  Transforming Feminist Practice: Non-Violence, Social Justice, & the Possibilities of a Spiritualized Feminism. The title of the book was the basis of an interesting personal challenge: as a friend put it to me, why apply women's spirituality to feminism or issues of social justice? For that matter, why [...]

I apologize that, due to Wolf's writing resonating powerfully for me, I'm falling back on massive quotes more than I would like to. In my defense I will note that I feel she writes with more clarifying passion than I do, and I want to share that in its purest and clearest form with my [...]

In my last posting on Vagina: A New Biography, I closed with the virulently damaging effects of rape — physically, sensually, and emotionally — for women. As the author notes, there have not yet been any books written to study if men can suffer similar ill effects from rape — though some data seems to [...]