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    Women and Spirituality: The Roles Women Play in Religion and Society
    Women and Spirituality: The Roles Women Play in Religion and Society
    Women and Spirituality: The Roles Women Play in Religion and Society
    Ebook108 pages1 hour

    Women and Spirituality: The Roles Women Play in Religion and Society

    By Kristina Benson

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    About this ebook

    Interested in discovering and nourishing the goddess within you, but unsure as to how to find her? Contained within are discussions and descriptions of a vast collection of religions and traditions that have embraced and celebrated
    goddesses or feminine spirits, as well as suggestions as to how to incorporate elements of these traditions into your own life as a modern woman. People of all faiths and sexual identities can enjoy this collection of myths and magick, and learn from descriptions of the basic principles and origins of yoga, energy work,
    herbal medicine, holistic healing, and belly dancing also contained herewith.

    No prior knowledge of non-Western religions, healing techniques, or meditative techniques is assumed, and "spirituality", as used here, should not be confused with "religion”; people of all faiths will feel welcome!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEquity Press
    Release dateOct 8, 2011
    ISBN9781603322577
    Women and Spirituality: The Roles Women Play in Religion and Society

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      Book preview

      Women and Spirituality - Kristina Benson

      WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY?

      Spirituality, as we refer to it here, is not a synonym for religion, or faith. Spirituality is about the never-ending quest for wholeness and alignment between the emotional, intellectual, psychic and physical selves. 
And Women’s Spirituality is that which comes of being within the body of a woman, valuing and giving special importance to connection to creativity, empathy, and nature. It values the ordinary daily rhythms of living and the body of women, and regards the body of women as a piece of the divine.

      Each woman, in fact, embodies the presence of the Sacred Feminine Spirit. We are her eyes, her temple, her womb. We are her compassion, strength, and power.

      WHAT IS WOMEN’S SPIRITUALITY?

      Although the world’s major religions often refer to women, few take the trouble of carving out a specific place for them. In many major faiths, women are explicitly referred to as inferior, under the command of men, or incapable of taking a leadership position within the spiritual community.

      Whatever your faith and whatever your gender, it is possible to forge a relationship with the divine or the unknown. This book is not intended as an in-depth social or gender history of religion, or as a work of comparative religion. Rather, the book highlights the place of woman in the world’s major faiths, past and present, and seeks to offer a new way to honor the divine—a way that accounts for woman as the giver of life and an inherently spiritual being.

      How Do We Find and Honor the Sacred Feminine?

      This experience, like most spiritual experiences, is a very personal one. Some feel that in touch with the Sacred Feminine when meditating, some when taking a hike in nature’s beauty, and others simply when bleeding as part of the menstrual cycle. Others look towards forging a mind/body connection via yoga, belly dance, or other forms of exercise.

      Ultimately, the path to honoring the divine in you is the path towards self love, and no path is the same as another.

      WOMEN IN VARIOUS RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS AND BELIEFS

      The Abrahamic religions, though monotheistic in nature, do have many important women that figure into their traditions, stories, and beliefs. And before Christianity, Judaism, and Islam captured the hearts and spirits of the Western world, there existed a rich variety of Goddesses and demi-Goddesses in most, if not all, cultures and groups. To this day, followers of Hindu, Voodoo, Shinto, and Native American religions make room for Goddesses in their views of the divine.

      THE BIBLE

      Eve

      The story of Adam and Eve marks the first appearance of a woman in the Bible, and of course, as we all know, things don’t end well for Eve. As the story goes, when God creates the first man and the first woman, he commands them, Be fruitful and multiply.

      The extent of their attempts at fruitfulness are undocumented, however, so the nature and frequently of their couplings are left up the imagination. The fact that they don’t have any children might suggest that they didn’t follow his directions. After all, until their loss of innocence Adam and Eve are not even aware of their nakedness.

      Some take this to mean that Adam and Eve before the Fall are not aware of sex or sexuality, however, if that’s the case, God’s direction to be fruitful and multiply makes little sense. The fact that they become aware of their nudity after they eat of the apple (for which Eve takes the blame) may be the foundation of the Abrahamic view of sex as sinful and shameful.

      Sex, in any case, is unrelated to the Fall: the Fall occurs because a serpent tells Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit and Eve then offers it to Adam. He partakes, and God immediately is angry. Eve’s punishment is pain in childbirth and having to be ruled over by her husband.

      Perhaps Genesis makes no mention of Adam and Eve getting it on in the Garden of Eden because it is assumed and not really worth mentioning. Many Christians, in fact, are not aware that According to rabbinic tradition, Eve is not even Adam's first wife. His first wife is Lilith.

      Lilith

      Lilith, Adam’s first wife, is actually a famed female demon in Jewish mythology. She also appears once in the Bible (Isaiah), associated with demons of the desert, and again in some Dead Sea Scroll passages based on the Isaiah reference.

      Somewhere between the eighth and tenth centuries, CE, she makes an appearance in a satirical work entitled the Alphabet of Ben Sira. It is here that she is first given what has become her most famous persona: the first wife of Adam (before Eve). In this story, she is created at more or less the same time as Adam, and, as was Adam, out of the ground. Because of this she tries to assert her equality but Adam isn’t quite on board with this idea. Refusing to be treated as a subordinate, she leaves Eden, and is replaced by the more subservient Eve, who, unlike Lilith, was made from Adam’s rib instead of from mud, as Adam was.

      Lillith also appears in Christian iconography, as the head of the snake that tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit and take the Fall.

      Mary of Magdalene

      Among Jesus Christ's followers was Mary called Magdalene. It was to Mary Magdalene that Christ first appeared following his resurrection, and when she saw him, she cried out in joy and embraced him.

      Although Mary came from the wicked town of Magdala, there is little to suggest that she was a prostitute, as is commonly believed. She did, after all, leave the town, and although she was healed by Jesus of demon possession, possession is a form of spiritual sickness and not a sin.

      There is also virtually nothing in the Bible to suggest that Mary Magdalene was Jesus' lover or wife but there is a possibility that she and Jesus were close friends. According to the third-century Gospel of Philip, Jesus loved his companion Mary more than all the other disciples, and often kissed her on the mouth, despite the fact that other disciples felt slighted and/or annoyed.

      Though suggestive, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the two of them were getting them on. And even if they were, there is no Biblically supported reason to assume that the son of God would engage in behavior that was less than divine.

      Sophia

      For the early Christians, Sophia was a central figure in their understanding of theology and the universe. A Feminine figure, somewhat like the Holy Ghost, but also one of the Feminine aspects of God, as well as the Bride of Christ, she resides in all of us as the Divine Spark. According to some Christian sects—particularly early

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