Collie's Bestiary

It's funny… in making up potential things to try for my 50 New Things list, I find myself adding on all the ideas and events I've wanted to try for a while, but never got around to doing. Some of them are bigger, like "climb Halfdome," but some of them are small and simple. I [...]

When I'm stressed or lonely or otherwise not at my emotional best, I find creativity enormously comforting and grounding. My first night here in San Francisco for the CIIS Women's Spirituality Intensive week of classes, I had made the hotel room "mine" by unpacking and doing a little decorating, but I was still feeling a [...]

I'm in San Francisco, the City by the Bay, for the Women's Spirituality Intensive Week — which actually goes from Saturday to the following Sunday thereafter. It's going to be an 11 night stay, including all the extra retreats, welcome dinners, and caucus demonstrations. The actual classwork is indeed extremely intense, and my brain is [...]

Had a lovely day today! Started in a panic due to realizing I had but two weeks left until end of semester, which means I have two 20 page papers to complete by then, as well as a revision of another, and a ten-minute presentation on the spirituality of creativity. Lost all the panic, though, [...]

I was recently asked the following question: "Why is it important for feminists to study and comprehend women-centered cultures?" While I thought it a good question, I also think it can and should be fruitfully expanded, in that I do not think only feminists should study these fascinating matriarchies. Learning is good, and as the [...]

My school emphasizes various forms of psychology, and this weekend there's a small conference on transpersonal psychology. Sitting in the student lounge at school, I happen to be listening to two enthusiastic and excited fellow students discussing at what moment in human history "true consciousness" emerged. They were not deeply familiar with human evolution, so [...]

Source material that is simply bad To be fair to Armstrong, I would assume much of her previously mentioned double standards arose from her source material. I do not know why she chose to lean so heavily on such dated and inaccurate material for a book written in 2006. I do not refer here to [...]

This darkly pessimistic view on goddesses is most exemplified in Armstrong's version of the myths of Inanna. I've had the pleasure of reading some rather good translations of these myths, translations which scholars themselves laud. Inanna, the Queen of Heaven and Earth, Love and War, is clearly a goddess of life, death, and rebirth, moving [...]

Blatant and inaccurate double standards As I've previously noted, I was not happy with how the second chapter was progressing. To my increasing dismay, things only got worse: we are introduced to the so-called original "High God" or "Sky God" of the "ancient Mesopotamians, Vedic Indians, Greeks and Canaanites," which is a "primitive monotheism" Armstrong [...]

The first book by Karen Armstrong which I read was A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It was absolutely amazing to me — chock-full of new ideas, fascinating religious philosophy, and beautiful writing. Since then I have read a few others as well by Armstrong, and I was delighted [...]