Tag Archive | feminism

Reawakening

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I pray for the earth’s healing, just as I also thank her— for pines, poppies, sparrows, and cottontails. In observing their beauty, I am restoring my own vitality, taking into my being their light and energy and balance. A cottontail knows how to be a cottontail. Hearing me, it dives into the underbrush. A cypress shares energy drawn from the sun. I lean my back against its trunk in wistful gratitude.

The afternoon passes. Before long the blush from the setting sun deepens the lake’s hues. Like pepper scattered in the sky, the starlings have taken to swirling. How do they swoop of one accord, a body of many? They must be attuned at a different level, synced in, like voices harmonizing and riffing and pulling together again.

Thank you, Gaia, for these daily miracles that offer their grace to me. Strengthen my desire to serve the whole—to cultivate an awareness of not just my collusion in destruction but also my participation in reawakening the truth that we are part of you, Gaia, one planet, Earth. In loving you and braving the consequences of defiance, we can we shift the consciousness of humanity, person by person. That is my prayer. That is my task.

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Drumming for Mother Earth

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“I drum for Mother Earth,” says Dionne, one of the women interviewed in Birthing God: Women’s Experiences of the Divine. Of Yurok-Karuk descent, Dionne has been a drummer since she was ten and has felt the pulse of the earth in her blood.

We all can be drumming for Mother Earth – in the drum circles that Dionne leads at herchurch*, but also in our lives, by attuning ourselves to others and by listening and responding to the rhythm of this planet. We begin by celebrating the rhythm of our own bodies as part of planet earth’s mega-rhythm. The beating of our heart. The rush of our lungs. The swish of our gait. Listen. Tune in. Awareness is the first step. And prayer is the second. “I pray for mother earth with my drumming,” says Dionne. I echo her sentiment: I pray for mother earth with my breathing. May each inhalation, each exhalation be a “thank you” borne of awareness and a desire to live attuned to those around me, all throbbing in harmony and the will to do good.

*Women’s drumming at herchurch (678 Portola, SF) is on every third Wednesday from 5:45 – 6:45 p.m. Feel free to drop by! Drumming every first and third Sunday during 10:30 a.m. Sunday service also.

Get Down into Joy

Sadaya Zimmerle transmits both lightness and spark over the phone, reminding me of her high-energy step as she led the Dances of Universal Peace that I’d attended. “At the Mendocino Sufi camp,” she says, “we get to do the dances for days. Tears come to my eyes, and I feel deeply held and loved and fully accepted. In the midst of dancing and also in chanting, I feel a deep clarity like I’m on the right track, and a deep well of joy. I might come to the Sufi dancing with all kinds of things on my chest, and it’s like that stuff gets sloughed off. Whatever pain I have gets gradually shed toward the surface, and I get down into joy.”

Sadaya’s selection is from Birthing God: Women’s Experiences of the Divine. To see a preview, click on the link and then on the Google preview button.

Click to order Birthing God: Women’s Experiences of the Divine

Spiritual Stories of Healing and Transformation

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This Sunday, I’ll be celebrating women’s spiritual stories of healing at herchurch (Ebenezer Lutheran). In other words, I’ll be preaching, singing and dancing! Join us at 10:30 a.m. at 678 Portola Drive in San Francisco. 

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Click to order Birthing God: Women’s Experiences of the Divine

 

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Birthing God:Women’s Experiences of the Divine is now part of a book club promotion! Check it out! http://www.skylightpaths.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=BOOKCLUBPROD&Store_Code=SP&Product_Code=978-1-59473-480-9Birthing God cover