August 1 is the Neo-pagan and Wiccan holiday known as Lammas. For many witches and pagans this is the time when the young male God identified with the harvest of the seasonal wheat crop is sacrificed in the interest of the larger cycles of birth, death, and renewal. Here in Greece August 15 is a major […]
About Carol P. Christ
The Emergence of Feminist Theology: Remembering our Roots by Judith Plaskow and Carol P. Christ
This blog is an excerpt from our book Goddess and God in the World published by Fortress Press. We remember the critical works that started us on a journey of discovery that continues to unfold. In a jointly written chapter, we describe the beginnings of feminist theology. Feminism was welling up from under during [the late 1960s]. […]
Is This How Patriarchy Began? by Carol P. Christ
In my widely read blog and academic essay offering a new definition of patriarchy, I argued that patriarchy is a system of male dominance that arose at the intersection of the control of female sexuality, private property, and war. In it, bracketed the question of how patriarchy began. Today I want to share some thoughts provoked by a short […]
Great Goddess, Mother Goddess, Creatrix, Source of Life by Carol P. Christ
The symbol of the Goddess is as old as human history. The most ancient images of the Goddesses from the Paleolithic era are neither pregnant nor holding a child. In Neolithic Old Europe the Goddess was most commonly linked with birds or snakes and only rarely portrayed as mother. Yet we tend to equate the […]
The Beauty Way by Carol P. Christ
When I learned about the Navajo Beauty Way, I understood it to be a path in which human beings respect all beings in the web of life and live in harmony with them. But I didn’t understand why this path was called the “Beauty Way.” As a young woman, I knew that my worth was […]
Black Sheep by Carol P. Christ
At Thanksgiving and the solstice holidays many of us are reminded that we are the “black sheep” of our families. In my case this means that I am too “assertive,” too “aggressive,” too “demanding,” too “political,” too “willing to upset my father,” too “opinionated,” too “feminist,” and so on. “In the English language, black sheep is an idiom used to […]
SHEELA-NA-GIG by Carol P. Christ
On a trip to Ireland several years ago, I was fortunate to have been able to see the Sheela-na-gigs in the National Museum of Dublin. Two of these Sheelas including the one removed from the Seir Kieran Church of County Offaly, pictured below, are currently on display. They stand at the doorway of a room […]
Woman and Nature – Our Bodies are Ourselves by Carol P. Christ
This earth is my sister; I love her daily grace, her silent daring, and how loved I am how we admire the strength in each other, all that we have suffered, all that we have lost, all that we know. We are stunned by this beauty, and I do not forget: what she is to me, […]
Mountain Mother – Reading the Language of the Goddess in the Symbols of Ancient Crete by Carol P. Christ
Before he told the story of how his people received the sacred pipe, Black Elk said: So I know that it is a good thing I am going to do; and because no good thing can be done by any man alone, I will first make an offering and send a voice to the Spirit […]
Maiden, Mother, Crone: Ancient Tradition or New Creative Synthesis? by Carol P. Christ
The image of the Goddess as Maiden, Mother, Crone is widespread in contemporary Goddess Spirituality. The Triple Goddess honors three ages of women, in contrast to the wider culture that: affirms young women as sex objects while shaming them as sluts; celebrates mothers on Mother’s Day, while providing few legal and economic protections for mothers; […]
