Do you celebrate Easter either in a religious way by going to church or in a fun way by having an Easter egg hunt? Did you ever wonder where the tradition of the Easter bunny bringing eggs came from?  So often our celebrations are a mix of the religious and the traditional. We may not stop to wonder where the elements of our celebration came from. I’ve heard Christians say they resent that pagans are always trying to steal their holidays – not knowing that Christian holidays are often adaptations of much more ancient rituals.

In the case of Easter, parts of the holiday are built on older traditions and stories.  We believe that the word Easter comes from the Germanic goddess of spring Eostre.  In her book Goddesses for Everyday, Julie Loar tells us that this holiday is “the only feast day in the Christian calendar that is still tied to the moon.”  Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon – after the spring equinox.

As the goddess of renewal and new beginnings, Eostre brings the spring each year.  Julie recounts the story that led to the Easter Bunny tradition in this way:

One year the goddess was late, and a little girl found a bird near death from the cold.  The child turned to Eostre for help. In response a rainbow bridge appeared and Eostre came, clothed in her red robe of vibrant sunlight, melting the snows. Because the creature was wounded beyond repair, Easter changed it into a snow hare, who then brought gifts of rainbow eggs.

Many ancient world religions and some current ones have celebrations near the spring equinox dedicated to fertility and renewal of life.  What does your spring ritual look like?  For me, it feels like awakening after a long sleep to see life with new clarity and new joy.

The discovery of a recent piece of papyrus that quotes Jesus using the words “my wife” and saying that “she will be able to be my disciple” has re-ignited discussion about the possibility that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus. (New York Times September 18, 2012)

In the traditional Christian view, Jesus was thought to be unmarried, but stories have continued to surface pointing to the possibility that he was married and to Magdalene. The traditional view of Magdalene is that she was a sinner and a prostitute, as well as a follower of Jesus. In our previous blog, we explored some of the stories told about Mary Magdalene that created the perception that she was a prostitute, even though there is no evidence of that in the Bible. In fact, a very different story may be true. A document was discovered in 1896 called the Gospel of Mary Magdalene that provides evidence that she was a leader in the early Christian church, along with Jesus. Read the previous blog.

By 325, Christianity had become the official religion of Rome.  The Emperor Constantine convened a council at Nicaea at which it was decided which gospels would go in the Bible and which ones would be excluded.  There were many gospels to choose from, and those chosen emphasized the idea of the divine Christ and supported the need for a church with hierarchy, rules, laws, and power.  The excluded texts, which emphasized the divine within humans, were banned, which might explain why they were buried in the desert and not found for hundreds of years. The excluded texts, including the Gospel of Mary, became known as the Gnostic gospels. They emphasized the ability of each human to know the truth for themselves, without a need for higher authorities like priests.

Women were attracted to early Christianity was because they were allowed to participate, along with men. This was a dramatic contrast to the Jewish religion and others at that time.  In fact, there is evidence in the Bible that there were women followers of Christ.  Read more…

Did you see the article about the piece of papyrus that quotes Jesus using the words “my wife?” A historian at the Harvard Divinity School has analyzed a tiny piece of papyrus with just a few lines of text written in ancient Coptic. In addition to the words “my wife,” there is the phrase “she will be able to be my disciple.” Not much more is legible, but because many people believe that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus, this new piece of evidence is enough to revive the debate about Mary Magdalene and her role in early Christianity. Read the article here.

For those who saw the movie or read the book The DaVinci Code, the new development adds another piece of evidence to support the theory that Jesus was married and to Mary Magdalene. You might not know that the basis for much of the material for The DaVinci Code came from a book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail written in 1983.  The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail painstakingly followed stories across Europe to fill in the picture of the role of Mary Magdalene during and after the life of Jesus. The story includes the children of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and and their marriage into the bloodlines of the kings of France.

Many of us know the more traditional story of Mary Magdalene, as she has been depicted in sermons, movies, and musicals.  She is often described as a fallen woman who became a follower of Jesus.  She was also known apparently as a reformed prostitute and we’ve heard that Jesus took pity on her and let her travel with him and the disciples.  Stories in the Bible depict a closeness between Mary and Jesus, saying that she anointed Jesus with oil.

Although this is a familiar story to many, it is not in the Bible.  Read more…

What is your image of the sacred and divine in the world?  In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the image is often a benevolent older white man who turns angry when his people sin.  Maybe there are other images. Eric Metaxas who conducts a lecture series in New York called Socrates in the City once stated, “I admit that the Bible does not specifically mention Aretha Franklin.  But when it comes to thinking about God, most people’s minds are full of all those familiar images and they just get stuck…So, why not Aretha?  She’s big, she’s bold and you’re going to have to listen to what she’s saying.”  Is cracking open our images of the divine one way we can begin to re-imagine it?

What is spiritual swagger and how does it help the world?

Spiritual Swagger is women thinking for themselves. It’s taking a leadership role in their church or finding a religion or spiritual practice that welcomes them and their gifts.  Some women have identified elements of various practices and built their own approach that supports them and their spiritual growth.

From a young age, the feeling of spiritual swagger can help girls to feel confident and also work for good in the world on a larger scale. Mary Pipher in the book, Reviving Ophelia, states:

“Girls who stay true to themselves manage to find some way to respect the parts of themselves that are spiritual.  They work for the betterment of the world. Girls who act from their false selves are often cynical about making the world a better place.  They have given up hope.  Only when they reconnect with the parts of themselves that are alive and true will they again have the energy to take on the culture and fight to save the planet.”

How to get Spiritual Swagger

The first step to Spiritual Swagger is for you to become aware of your own spiritual needs and notice how your current practice or religion supports you or doesn’t. If you find that you are involved in a religion that seems dominated by men, you may want to ask why. Read more…

Do you think you can swagger at church? Only a few of the women I’ve interviewed for the book The Girl’s Guide to Swagger have said they swagger in their religion.

In my own life, I’ve had an on and off relationship with Christianity.  I was raised in a mainstream Protestant church. As time went on, I drifted away and then ran away when I began to see how women were ignored and vilified.   I couldn’t understand why eating from the tree of knowledge was a bad thing.  I agreed with Eve, knowledge is good and something to be desired.  But in the creation myth, Eve was the sinner and therefore all women after were sinners and condemned to suffer in childbirth.

I returned to Christianity for a while after reading Marianne Williamson’s books, A Return to Love and A Woman’s Worth.  I thought I could see a way to be a woman and go to church.  At the same time, I found a church that seemed open and tolerant and actively encouraged critical thinking.  “Come let us reason together, that’s what God says,” was one of their hymns.  The church was a good place; the people did good works in the community and they were thoughtful and supportive of their members.  However, I noticed something odd. Whenever the pastor was gone, the church sent another man to preach in his place.  One time, it was a member of our congregation, also a man.  While the guest minister and the person from the congregation who led the service both did a fine job, I didn’t see what unique qualifications they had other than perhaps that he had a penis.

I suggested to our minister to perhaps have a group of women lead the service the next time he was away.  He said that would be fine, but he would be fired.  Our branch of the church it seemed, did not allow women to be ministers.  I was stunned. Apparently the church founder believed that men were designed to think and women were designed to feel and that if women were ministers, they would let their emotions influence their interpretation of the teachings.  I talked, I read, I struggled to understand.  But I ended up throwing a book across the room that explained that it was best for women to sew and embroider and defer to their husbands in matters of faith. Read more…

“It is each individual’s right and responsibility to exist in spiritualism in whatever way they choose.” ~Lorie Fuller

Have you ever been part of an organized religion and realized that your beliefs didn’t match that of the group? If so, you know what standing up for what you believe can be challenging.  Recently,  the Catholic school that Lorie Fuller’s daughters attended decided that two students could no longer attend.  Their sin? Their parents were gay. Read Lorie’s letter to her girls about doing the right thing, even when it is hard.

Read more…

When I ask women where they swagger, not too many identify church!  I love hearing the stories of women who do swagger in their spiritual lives. Thanks to Erin Counihan for this great piece on following your heart, being yourself, and answering the call.

Guest post by Erin Counihan

I’ve got a bit of a church swagger and I’m not afraid to admit it. I think I’ve always had it. I was that kid wore the white rug duct taped to my back in the nativity play but acted like she had on a full on Academy Award winning designer made sheep costume. Today, I am the woman who wears red shoes to church and sings the hymns, in harmony, from memory, quite loudly… because I can. I’ve always felt at home in the sanctuary, in the choir loft, and in the fellowship call after services (um, hello, that’s where they keep the cookies). With the exception my few uber teen-angsty high school years, I just always loved church. I loved seeing people around me caring for each other and caring for their community. I loved our pastor, who each Sunday who both inspired and challenged us. I loved being a part of that big, messy, lovely church family. And I loved who I was when I was with them.

In college, I felt a call to ministry, to serve that great church family, but I resisted that feeling. I knew I church work would be a good fit for me and that God had put a tug in my heart, but I didn’t know any lady pastors. I saw a church run by men my grandfather’s age. They were smart and kind and caring, but they didn’t joke like I did. They didn’t play field hockey. They didn’t listen to Nirvana. They didn’t toilet paper people’s houses. They certainly didn’t date or dance or read US Weekly. Read more…

There are many who feel that we stand on the verge of massive global change and that women will be at the forefront of that change. Leaders are emerging in many disciplines, including the arts. Painter Kimberly Webber feels compelled by a burning desire to create as much art as she can that depicts the divine feminine. Her inspiration comes from “the voice of the earth herself,” and the hope is that the work personifies mother earth and empowers the viewer. Images and ideas appear to her in dreams or through nature where the feminine archetypes bubble up from the chthonic into consciousness. “They are asking to be heard now,” Kimberly says.

Kimberly started painting as a 3 year old and went on to train formally as a painter including studies in Florence, Italy of traditional Renaissance Masters. After leaving the university, she spent six weeks hiking in Northern California and Southern Oregon on the Pacific Crest trail, which runs from Canada to Mexico.  The redwood forests and ocean in California beckoned her to a different kind of learning.  “I wanted to unravel all of my formal academic training and programming,” she says.

Entering a time of earth-based training; she studied with a female shaman and lived deep in the redwoods.  Feeling gently supported and nourished by the forest, Kimberly hiked regularly in the dark, without a flashlight, exploring the night.  Moving out of her head and into her heart, she says it was a time of quantum growth for her and propelled her to a more sensitive, subtle level of painting.

After a year in the redwoods, a quiet but insistent call led Kimberly to Taos, New Mexico. She packed up her tipi in a pickup truck and moved, without ever having been to Taos.  Within 24 hours, she had a work-trade arrangement at the New Buffalo Bed and Breakfast – in exchange for studio space.  Living in her tipi, she bartered for most of her needs and continued journeying deeper into the heart and rhythms of nature.

Kimberly began painting goddesses – a bird goddess on a pile of skulls, a series of figures submerged in their backgrounds. Her paintings reflect sacred geometry and other underlying natural orders. She uses lapis, mica and gemstones to add an inner luminosity to her work. Her current work in progress features the Crete snake goddess manifested in huge eight feet tall images. Read more…

If the first swagger tool is intuition http://www.girlsguidetoswagger.com/?p=1772 , the second one is centering.  Intuition is developing the ability to listen to the small, still voice inside yourself for wisdom and direction. But how can you hear that voice if you are rushed, off balance, and anxious?

Many times during a day, you might feel off-center – it is bound to happen.  Driving in heavy traffic, deadlines, a crying baby, and complaining spouse can push us off our center and cause us to act from fear, rather than inner wisdom. When we are in fear – we don’t feel our swagger and can lose touch with our self-esteem.

If you find yourself disconnected from your center and your swagger, here are a couple of things you can do:

1.  Get grounded:

* feel the ground under your feet

*feel your connection to the solid and nurturing earth

*take a deep breath.

2. Get centered:

*take a few deep breaths

*you can close your eyes or keep them opened – whatever keeps you most connected to the world

*feel into your length, feel your spine stretching and expanding – notice what you feel inside yourself – strain, pain, worry?

*feel into your width – feel the edges of your body, allow your awareness to expand out beyond yourself – what do you notice? Sometime I feel a tug at my back – like my angel wings emerging.

*feel your past – at your back is everything that has come before and brought you to this place – what do you see?

*look ahead – what is coming, what are you excited about, what is inviting you to the future?

I like to think of this poem by Hafiz:

The God Who Only Knows Four Words

Every

Child

Has known God,

Not the God of names,

Not the God of don’ts,

Not the God who ever does

Anything weird,

But the God who only knows four words

And keeps repeating them, saying:

“Come dance with Me.”

Come

Dance.                                                     -Hafiz

With thanks to somatic coach and wise woman extraordinaire Renee Gregorio and Strozzi Somatics http://www.strozziinstitute.com/about/history+and+mission.

Guest blog by Aunt Erin

As a responsible, single woman of a certain age, part of my whole  quit-your-job-and-go-back-to-school plan included taking good care of the financial resources I’d accumulated over a decade of gainful employment. In other words, Erin’s too cheap to pay the Red Cross an annual custodian fee to keep my 401k.

I took an Econ class in undergrad, but admit that I retained about none of it. IRAs, CDs, Money Market Accounts- I know nothing. I needed help. So I went to see an expert. I made an appointment with the financial advisor at my bank. Little did I know that when I walked through those doors, I’d be walking back in time about 5 decades. I sat down to discuss my financial situation and saving options. The financial advisor asked me why I quit my job. I explained that I was studying at seminary. Blah, blah, I’m getting used to this conversation by now and have some stock answers ready to go for all inquiries and reactions. I know how to handle the shocked reaction, the curious reaction, the concerned reaction, the excited reaction and the why-are-you-becoming-a-nun reaction. But Mr. Finance threw a new reaction at me. Well, and old-new reaction. He asked me, in all seriousness, if I was in seminary studying to be a pastor’s wife. Read more…