#The Politics of Women’s Spirituality

[ablueorangeintheocean]

“Why is this Haggadah different from traditional Haggadoth?” “Because this Haggadah deals with the exodus of women.” “Why have our mothers on this night been bitter?” “Because they did the preparation but not the ritual. They did the serving but not the conducting. They read of their fathers but not of their mothers.” “Why on this night do we recline?” “We recline on this night for the unhurried telling of the legacy of Miriam.” E. M. Broner, “Honor and Ceremony in Women’s Rituals,” in Spretnak, ed., The Politics of Women’s Spirituality, pp. 237–38

[lolliepopper]

keep hopeful the women of america and the world🌬️💙

this is a wretched day for women not only in America but all over the world. Create your communities, bundle together, and stay together. Help your sisters and further your bonds wherever you may be. Please send your vibrations to your sisters everywhere fighting this fight that we fought long ago.

My heart is with all of you 💙

[theeternalwombtarot]

I already feel as though women in the world especially in the United States have been purging out huge karmic cycles and healing wounded feminine energy and further stepping into the energy of high alignment, therefore closing themselves off to wounded masculines, participating in celibacy and harnessing all their power and keeping it to themselves which is what ultimately led to the agitation of wounded masculine energies, incel culture and heavily saturated misogyny and the indoctrination of young boys especially within our nation through the media. And I’ve been saying this for a long time if you’ve been with me and you’ve seen my posts and my channeled messages!!! As a woman, especially if you’re a biological woman and were assigned female at birth (and even some of you who are trans women and do not have a female reproductive system) please remain vigilant and protect yourself and strap on that chastity belt tightly!!! Please make sure that the masculines you choose are in their divine masculine energy and will love and protect you ON ALL LEVELS BOTH SPIRITUALLY AND PHYSICALLY if you’re going to choose one or be in romantic relationships that you’re going to be sexually intimate in. This time requires that you step into your power and know your worth and protect yourself on both a spiritual and physical scale. I mention trans women and individuals who are feminine presenting because there are a lot of men in the world today who are predatory and do not care whether you’re a woman biologically or not and prey on feminine energy and intend to destroy and harm anything and anyone who harnesses and has it!!! Regardless of who they say they are, what they CLAIM to like or be attracted to and that’s the truth.

[blackwomanvibes]

47 President is Donald Trump | What Does This Mean For Black Women, Femmes & Queers? @BlackWomanVibes 

Get Ready For The GREAT SETBACK‼️👀 | America voted for its next Top Imperialist In Charge. Now that we KNOW the devil in front of us, how will we organize to defeat him and his demon minions? That is to be seen for the next 4 years. Since this election cycle impacts EVERYONE who is a NON-rich White property owning cishet man, I suggest you start organizing like your life depends on it. BECAUSE YOUR LIFE DOES DEPEND ON (ORGANIZING) IT. 

As an Ace (Asexual) life outside of cishet patriarchal normativity often is lonely. Even as part of the LGBTQIA+ community, we are often relegated as a mystery due to the lack of media/social representation of Asexuals and being replaced as a + sign after the Q in LGBTQ(+). Amatonormativity may rule the day, but we still exist as the alternative and that’s beautiful. 

https://youtu.be/bjt3oqOff10

 💜🖤🩶🤍 

 Like the content? 

 Support the content creator 

 Cashapp: $BlackWomanVibes 

 Socials: BlackWomanVibes 

🔮 🧿

[selenaspells]

[returning-to-her]

I discuss the fallout of the US election and how peeling back the curtains of what we see brings us towards the cause of Mother Nature first, females second.

I read from a book about the earth's waters guiding the storms we are experiencing in humanity and how we can use Mother Nature's wisdom to heal and grow.

[keylimegreendog20]

Ok so you know how certain groups of people have created religions to take advantage of religious protection laws? (Flying Spaghetti Monster, International Church of Cannabis, Satanic temples (esp. them making abortion a religious ritual in a bid to have it protected) etc). Why don’t we do that for radical feminism? In essence, any sort of belief or value system can be called a religion, so I personally consider radical feminism to be my religion. If we were to form some sort of radical feminist religious organization and have it legally recognized in some way, then there would be a lot of legal arguments to be made about discrimination (you cannot be fired for your religious beliefs, you cannot be required to participate in certain practices if they violate your religion, you must be allowed to practice your religious traditions (think: abortion as a religious rite), your institution, even if it receives state funding, cannot be forced to go against its religious values (think: women’s shelters do not have to include males, women’s only gyms can turn away males, etc). I feel like this could be a really solid political strategy if we have to play within the framework we’re given.

(Obviously I know lots of us are against religions having special rights but like it or not that’s how America functions so it could be useful) (also idk how well this would work in other countries)

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Spiritualism was not popular in all BC towns, but when Emily Carr attended her seance, it had won a significant following in Victoria. Spiritualist associations were founded in Victoria and Nanaimo during the late 1880s, and they remained vibrant well into the twentieth century. Victoria gained an ordained spiritualist minister in 1915 and Nanaimo in 1926. In 1901, forty-three Victorians defined themselves as spiritualists, and many more attended their meetings. In the Nanaimo area, with its smaller population, eighty people told the census-taker that they were spiritualists. ...Nanaimoites typically opted for some level of fuzzy fidelity, with nominal adherence to mainstream Christian denominations. Nonetheless, the eighty spiritualists outnumbered the irreligious in Nanaimo by about two to one, as only forty-four residents defined themselves as atheists or of “no religion” in 1901. This ratio is atypical, as the irreligious in other BC towns significantly outnumbered the adherents of metaphysical religions in both 1901 and 1911.

Many Nanaimo spiritualists were miners or members of a mining family. Of the twenty-six spiritualist Nanaimo men who listed occupations on the census, twenty, or 77 percent, were miners. Perhaps the high number of fatal accidents in the mines led at least some colliers and their wives to spiritualism, which offered the hope of reconnecting with a loved one. An address of appreciation from George Campbell, chair of the Nanaimo Spiritualist Association, to visiting medium George P. Colby stressed the importance of this. Campbell thanked Colby for his work in the community as “Test Medium and Inspirational Lecturer,” noting that the association felt

grateful for the privilege we have had of communing with those of our loved ones who have joined the greatest throng of immortals in the summerland beyond – for the words of sympathy that have comforted bruised hearts bringing to them a realization of the presence of their supposed dead and a knowledge of the measureless possibilities of life.

Although spiritualism was popular among many people who sought connection with lost loved ones, it was far from popular with certain segments of BC society. Protestant church leaders attacked it as occultism and rank heresy. Such criticism was not new at the turn of the century. In 1870, Edward Cridge, dean of Victoria’s Christ Church Cathedral and soon to become the first bishop of the Carr family’s Reformed Episcopal Church, published a sermon titled “Spiritualism:” or Modern Necromancy, in which he denounced spiritualism as “divining or soothsaying by means of the dead.” He warned readers that it was

a very ancient wickedness. Its various forms are enumerated and condemned in the Book of Deuteronomy ... The Christian who meddles with spiritualism stands on the verge of an abyss.

Cridge clearly knew that at least some of his flock had experimented with spiritualism because he acknowledged that curiosity or a desire to commune with departed loved ones could tempt people to try it. However, he proclaimed firmly that

this practice is denounced in Holy Scripture under the severest penalties ... That which is hateful to God, and punishable by his law with death, cannot be a thing for a Christian to touch, but to shun with abhorrence.

Other Protestant ministers were also strongly opposed to spiritualism, and the Catholic Church declared that spiritualists were trafficking with demons and evil spirits.

Both church leaders and people of a more secular and scientific bent enjoyed unmasking visiting mediums as frauds. For example, in July 1900, a lengthy Vancouver Province article titled “Some Shady Shades” attacked a recent visiting medium as a charlatan and provided a more detailed critique of a “Professor Raymond” – a dubious traveller “in the path of easy money” – who was then in town. It described a Raymond seance, complete with several female “victims” of the deception and typical spiritualist manifestations, such as rapping and the playing of musical instruments by unseen hands in the dark. The reporter clearly believed that Raymond himself was the source of all these phenomena, and he commented snidely that

the guitar banging shade was careless, for not only did it drop the guitar, but it most reprehensibly jabbed an elbow into the eye of the little girl.

For their part, spiritualists recognized that some mediums were frauds, but they strongly defended the authenticity of most mediums and of spiritualism as a legitimate religious alternative. In late-nineteenth-century Ontario, the criminal courts did not always agree. In 1899, some Toronto mediums were charged under the witchcraft section of the Vagrancy Act for telling fortunes or conjuring spirits. The BC courts seemed less concerned with this issue, and at least some BC authorities were willing to grant legitimacy to spiritualist organizations. For example, spiritualists petitioned Nanaimo City Council in 1897, protesting a bylaw that forced local mediums and seers to pay a fifty-dollar licence fee every six months, lumping them in with fortune tellers and other occultists. They insisted that spiritualism be treated like any other church, and council complied with their wishes. The words “medium” and “seer” were removed from the bylaw, though fortune tellers still had to pay the fee. The fact that a year afterward, a leading Nanaimo spiritualist was elected mayor reinforces the acceptability of this alternative movement in the community.

Whereas orthodox Christian ministers condemned spiritualist beliefs, some spiritualists claimed that their movement could bolster Christian faith, as it proved the existence of life after death and therefore negated the arguments of atheists and other “infidels.” For example, George Colby, who gave a talk in Nanaimo titled “What Good Has Spiritualism Done,” argued that

with the advance of material science, the people became more materialistic in their opinions and boldly denied the immortality of the soul. What theology failed to prove, Spiritualism, with its phenomena practically and in a scientific manner demonstrated the truth that we continue to live after the dissolution of the body.

As Timothy Noddings notes, mainstream Christians, unbelievers, and adherents of metaphysical religions all employed the rhetorical weapons of science, rationality, and modernity in their debates with each other, with each side labelling the other as irrational and unscientific.

Although these groups often painted themselves as antithetical to the others, scholars have demonstrated that like Emily Carr, many spiritualists in the United States and Central Canada, particularly many middle-class spiritualists, saw nothing incompatible with practising spiritualism, especially in the privacy of their homes, while remaining members of Protestant churches. Some clergy dabbled in spiritualism themselves, but the Canadian Protestant churches had limited tolerance for such behaviour, as Stan McMullin reveals in chronicling the expulsion of Reverend B.F. Austin from the Methodist ministry for heresy in 1899. Robert Lowery, the infidel newspaperman of the Kootenays, certainly felt that Christianity and spiritualism had much in common, none of it good. As he explained in an article:

You are not expected to examine the Bible; neither are you permitted to investigate the seance. How like as two peas are twin sisters of superstition.

...

...prominent spiritualists also spurned the churches, despite the contrary opinions of family members. The death of a former mayor of Victoria, James Fell, revealed the complex relationship that could exist between secularism, spiritualism, and mainstream Christianity. In 1890, the Anglican bishop Hills noted in his diary that Fell had just passed away and had

left directions no other Service should be said over his body but the form used by the Odd Fellows. Poor man he held spiritualist opinions in which he persevered to the last. He used occasionally to come to the Cathedral where he had a pew. His family are much vexed at the directions left.

Fell’s son asked Hills for permission to have his father buried in the Church of England section of the cemetery, despite the lack of an Anglican burial service. Hills agreed, apparently because

Fell had many excellent qualities was benevolent and never minded what trouble he took for the poor and the sick. Under these circumstances I consented to the request and indeed felt it to be a relief that the service of the Church was not required.

...

As several scholars have noted, women were much more attracted to spiritualism than to irreligion. Owen speculates that many who turned to the alternative religions in Britain may have been alienated by the cold scientific rationalism of unbelief, as it left no room for a spiritual dimension. Women may have been drawn to spiritualism because their natures were assumed to be more spiritual than those of men. The gender ideology of the time, which defined women as sensitive and passive, made them especially suited as mediums, and many took on this role. As well, infant mortality rates in the nineteenth century were much higher than they are today. Although both fathers and mothers mourned dead children, and both sought reconnection through spiritualism, this option appears to have appealed chiefly to women, who had generally had close ties to their children. The fact that the census lists so few unmarried spiritualists may indicate that a number of wives brought their husband to spiritualism, as many did to the Christian churches. For example, the 1881 census records Mary Ann Hardy of Nanaimo as a spiritualist, whereas her miner husband, Thomas, is enumerated as a Unitarian. In the 1891 census, both Mary Ann and Thomas defined themselves as spiritualists, as they also did in 1901. A few husbands identified themselves as spiritualists, whereas their wives remained orthodox Christians (at least officially), but these cases were the exception, unlike those involving unbelieving husbands and Christian wives. Some married women differed from their husbands in defining themselves as spiritualists, as was true of well-known Victoria photographer Hannah Maynard. She and her husband were both Anglicans in 1881, but after her youngest daughter died of typhoid in 1883, she began to attend seances, incorporating ghostly figures into some of her photographic work. Her desire to reconnect with lost family members was intensified by the deaths of another daughter and a daughter-in-law within the next ten years. In 1891, the census identified her as a spiritualist, whereas her husband’s religion was “not given.”

...

An 1894 petition to the Legislative Assembly allows us to look more deeply at potential interest in and support for spiritualists on Vancouver Island. The petition, a first effort to eliminate the licence fee for clairvoyants, who were lumped in with astrologers, seers, and fortune tellers under the Municipal Act, was signed by 186 people, 58 from Victoria and the rest from Nanaimo. This is significantly more than the 123 Victorians and Nanaimoites who were listed on the 1901 census as spiritualists (a large minority of whom were children, who do not sign petitions). The petitioners stated that they were “Spiritualists, and profess that form of religious belief commonly known as Spiritualism, and others are their friends.” Many could not be linked to either the 1891 or the 1901 census, but of the Victoria petitioners who could be traced, five were spiritualists and five were infidels or freethinkers, pointing once again to the connection between the two. Ten belonged to mainstream denominations. The latter pattern was even clearer among the Nanaimo petitioners, most of whom identified with orthodox denominations, primarily as Methodists, Anglicans, or Presbyterians. Seven Nanaimo petitioners were listed as spiritualists in the census, one was an atheist, and over thirty were officially Christian (including a Quaker and a Unitarian). Perhaps the Methodist, Anglican, and Presbyterian signatories were simply friends of spiritualists, but it seems much more likely that most would have had at least some level of interest in the alternative religion, perhaps attending an occasional seance or other spiritualist event, and revealing once again that the census omitted many people who had a significant interest in this form of spirituality.

The Sivertz family, which emigrated from Iceland to British Columbia in 1888, is a case in point. Bent Sivertz wrote a detailed account of his parents’ working-class lives in Victoria and Vancouver before the First World War, and his parents, Elinborg and Christian, can also be found on the Victoria census of 1911, which lists them as Lutherans. Bent, however, tells a different and more complex story. Although his mother was raised a Lutheran, she had left the church well before 1911, disenchanted by its hellfire-and-damnation preaching. She spent some years with a Baptist church but had become much more interested in spiritualism by 1910, perhaps influenced by a female friend who had joined the faith. She “gradually over half a dozen years, left off attendance at the Baptist Church in favour of séances.” This did not deter her from praying for her children as they grew up or from attending at least one revival meeting at the Metropolitan Methodist Church. Like many other people, Elinborg created a lived religion that worked for her but did not necessarily correspond to the clear divisions preferred by theologians. Although she had a close relationship with her husband, she did not have his support in her spiritual explorations, as he “preferred not to go to church” and practised what his son termed a “kindly agnosticism.” Whereas the majority of Victoria’s married spiritualists shared their belief in the supernatural with their spouse, the Sivertzes reflect a not uncommon BC pattern of fluidity between alternative and mainstream religions, and a familiar gendered pattern of an agnostic husband and a believing wife. But this configuration was invisible to the census-taker, as either he or the Sivertzes themselves conflated their ethnic and religious identities – in Iceland, where they grew up, the Lutheran Church was the official denomination. Or perhaps, even in the religiously open climate of British Columbia, these working-class immigrants simply felt safer in naming a relatively mainstream denomination than in telling the enumerator that they were an unbeliever and a spiritualist.

The Sivertzes also reflect links between unbelief, alternative religions, and political activism that were not uncommon in British Columbia and Canada more generally. A labour leader, Christian Sivertz was president of the B.C. Federation of Labour by 1912. He was no socialist, though, and he opposed radicalism in the labour revolt of 1919. Unbelief was typically linked to the more radical BC socialists, but Christian demonstrates that it had a broader reach among at least some less radical BC labour leaders. Elinborg was involved in the major suffrage organization in Victoria, the Political Equality League, and in other social reform endeavours. Although BC suffragists tended to be Christians, some were not. Scholars have noted the link between alternative religions, such as spiritualism, and social activism, including the struggle for women’s rights, a connection that certainly applied in Elinborg’s case."

- Lynne Marks, Infidels and the Damn Churches: Irreligion and Religion in Settler British Columbia. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2017. p. 190-197.

[raspberryzingaaa]

Thinking about going to World Most Boring Bible Study Ever. Idk yall. Idk. Idek.

[uninterruptedafricans]

THE UNINTERRUPTED AFRICAN WITHIN ME… DIVESTED FROM WORK. I REST & RELAX FOR MY ANCESTORS THAT COULDN’T.

[haggishlyhagging]

Discrimination against women and denial of power to them in the public political sphere has long been reinforced by organized religion, not only through the church's promulgation of the familiar ideology that women are the "natural" nurturers and sustainers of the "private" sphere exclusively, but through the church's offering women a reduced and compensatory way of working on worldly matters through "doing good." Women in churches have served as a form of cheap domestic labor for the larger political economy, reclaiming the social landscape for the community after it has been stripped of its protective covering. Women in churches have provided the nurturance and emotional release for their families and community that the workplace could not provide. They have been used to mop up the wounds created by the cruelties of industrial capitalism—for example, in making bandages during wartime, sending mittens and canned goods to Peru after American companies have stripped that country of its ability to support its own people; and giving Thanksgiving baskets to the local poor because, in the richest country in the world, we are unable to provide meaningful employment for all our people.

-Sheila Collins, Theology in the Politics of Appalachian Women, 1977

[futurefatum]

🟡😌The ENERGETIC AFTERMATH of the US Elections! (Tone: 310)

Explore how recent elections may spark global energy shifts and consciousness changes, with insights from Marie Manuchehri. #Consciousness #Predictions

Posted on November 16th, 2024 @NextLevelSoul ABOUT THIS VIDEO: This video features a discussion with psychic Marie Manuchehri about the energetic and spiritual aftermath of the recent US elections. It explores how the election results, and broader political changes, may influence humanity’s consciousness and collective experience. Manuchehri explains the potential for collective “dark nights of…

[taratarotgreene]

Critical Capricorn Full Moon of major endings

The Full Moon was so intense I had to wait until the morning after to write about it as things are a bit clearer now. All Full Moons are completions and at that 29th degree like I told you is a major completion time, especially in governments, career, the corporate world and in your own emotional sentimental worldly efforts. The Full Buck blue Moon arrived Sunday July 21 at 3;17 am PDT, 6:17 am…

[gallusrostromegalus]

I was raised agnostic and tend to remain ambiguous on theological matters.

-but my house has a porch on the second story that affords me a terrific view of my neighborhood and the Colorado Front Range and I was partaking of some peace before the 4th Of July Finger-Loss Festivities begin, and I have had a

~*Spiritual Experience*~

I just watched my neighbor try to unload an actual wooden pallet that had to have been forklifted into the back of his insecurity pickup worth of fireworks.

Except that he does not have a forklift in his garage.

He does have so much sports memorabilia and cardboard boxes of unsold MLM Merchandise and patriotically themed camping gear and posters of women in bikinis and flags of suspect political organizations in his garage that there is only BARELY enough space for the fireworks and certainly none for his truck.

So he had to unload the individual boxes of recreational explosives from the back of his truck and stack them in the minimal space he had cleared by hand. This is a tedious and time-consuming process as this neighbor has purchased a wide variety of recreational and locally illegal explosives instead of many of just a few types, so the individual boxes are rather small.

He begins, and this is crucial to what happens next, by cutting apart the industrial-grade saran wrap his explosives dealer had so carefully wrapped his merchandise in, and discarded it unsecured on his lawn.

Where Outdoor Conditions sometimes happen.

His process for unloading the fireworks is to 1. Climb up through the gate into the bed of his pickup truck (a feat made unusually difficult due to the slope of his driveway, and this man's fascinating decision to wear the world's Siffest and least Flexible Denim Overalls. 2. Once in the pickup bed, he selects ONE (1) box from the pile He is apparently from a niche religious institution that doesn't believe in stacking things. 3. Carries it awkwardly around the palette that barely fits in the truck bed 4. His wife yells "Be careful!" when he nearly falls out of the pickup. 5. He Yells "SHADDUP!" back at her. 6. The Large German Shepherd barks from inside the house. 7. He yells "SHADDUP!" back at her too. 8. He sets the (1) box down on the gate 9. Slowly and awkwardly climbs out of the pickup bed 10. picks the box back up, and carries it into the garage.

Question: Aren't you going to help this poor man? Answer: Absolutely Not.

There's four military veterans, MANY dogs, and several people with dementia in this neighborhood, all of whom are terrified by this chicanery every year and many neighbors have repeatedly asked him to maybe do the fireworks somewhere else. (This is the Eighth Year Running he's held a major demolition event in his driveway, and for those of you who can do math, you may be able to guess the precipitating incident to this little ritual) Additionally, I live in Colorado, a state marginally less prone to spontaneous and catastrophic conflagrations than a rotting grain silo, but only marginally. Our recreational explosives laws are written accordingly.

I am in fact calling the Non Emergency line to report Fireworks violations, and reading off the brand labels to someone named Dorothy, who is gleefully totaling up a SPECTACULAR fine for my oblivious neighbor.

However, while I'm on the phone with Dorothy, I notice the wind begin to pick up. and by "Notice" I mean "The Industrial Saran Wrap he left on his Lawn earlier is suddenly swept up about 100 feet into the air by an updraft intense enough to make my ears pop" And by "Pick Up" I mean "I look up to see the sky has turned a fun and exciting shade of glass green, and the bottoms of the clouds are bumpy and rounded, and the overall effect is not unlike looking up through the bottom of the cup at God's Matcha Boba Tea."

For those of you who do not live in places with Inclement Weather, these conditions mean "You have about 30 seconds before a Major Meteorological Event Occurs."

I move under the eaves. "Hang on Dorothy." I say, nose filling with Petrichor. "The show is about to be cancelled." "Oh, that doesn't matter!" Dorothy cheerfully informs me. "It's illegal for him just to possess those, no matter if he actually gets to set them off or not." "Terrific, because he's gotten maybe five boxes out of a hundred inside."

Sometimes, the weather gods are Merciful and give you a verbal warning, typically in the kind of thunderclap that makes your ears ring.

The Gods were not merciful today.

It's not often that I am in the time, place, correct angle or in a properly observational frame of mind to see this, But I got to see it today. Huh. I thought. I've never seen a cloud just DIVE for the ground before. Oh. I realized as it got closer. That's RAIN.

Sometimes, a thunderstorm will form in such a way that the rain that would normally be distributed over an area of say, five to tent square miles, is instead concentrated into an area of say, my neighborhood exactly.

So today, I was granted the rare privilege of being able to actually see the literal wall of water descend from On High and DIRECTLY onto my porch, my street, and my neighbor's truck, and his pile of unwrapped fireworks.

The sheer impact force of the downpour immediately scatters the teetering pile of fireworks boxes in the back of the truck, like the wrath of God striking down the tower of Babel. Boxes tumble, then are washed out of the bed of the truck by the deluge. Smaller Boxes are carried down the road in a little line by the stream forming in the gutter, like little impotent explosive ducklings.

My neighbor was definitely yelling something, but I could not hear what over the DEAFENING noise several million gallons of water makes upon high-speed contact with the earth's surface, but there was a lot of arm-waving and faces turning red as he went looking for the saran wrap that had probably blown to Nebraska by now, while his wife started disassembling the complex three-dimensional puzzle of interlocking material goods in search of a tarp. They do not have a tarp. They have one of those wretched Thin Blue Line flags though, and my neighbor jogs out in a futile effort to cover what's left in the truck.

Which is when the hail begins.

"HELLO?" Yelled Dorothy. "HI!" I shouted. "WE'RE HAVING SOME WEATHER!" "OH GOOD!" she shouts back. "WE NEED THE MOISTURE!"

I watch for a minute longer, but the loss was immediate and catastrophic- the hail is the size of marbles and dense and cares not for your pitiful cardboard and cellophane, ripping the boxes asunder and punching holes in the few things covered in plastic. The colors on the Thin Blue Line Flag are seeping all over the remains of that it was supposed to protect in a particularly apt visual metaphor. Not even the few boxes that made it into the garage are spared, as the German Shepherd escapes from indoors, and in an attempt to assist her humans, jumps directly into the small stack of not-yet-ruined boxes, scattering them into the driveway and deluge. She even picks one up so her humans will chase her around the yard, before dropping it in the gutter to be swept away.

So. I was raised Agnostic -but even I can recognize when God slaps someone upside the head and shouts "NO!" at them.

---

(If you laughed, please consider supporting my Ko-fi or preordering my book of Strange Stories on Patreon)

[attictrollsidenityquest]

Self Discovery after Catastrophe

There seems to a be a small trend for women of my generation to experience a major traumatic event (Divorce, death of a spouse, end of career etc.) that totally levels existing identities leading to a need for reanalyzing foundational beliefs. After it happened to me I noticed many creators on social media and others in my community were experiencing a similar pattern. TikTok seemed to be a good place to find them.

So in the past 2ish years my beliefs and identity conceptions have dramatically changed. I was a non practicing Christian that feared hell too much to reevaluate my religious indoctrination, a straight identifying CIS woman in a marriage to a CIS man for 15 years, and a centrist democrat. I was too invested in my own personal equilibrium for any of that to change much if at all, though I had questioned much of it in a casual way. The sudden, traumatic passing of my husband served as a catalyst for literally all of it to be reevaluated.

I do not believe the trauma actually caused much real change in these aspects of my self, rather it caused me to critically examine myself and discover a great many parts of my inner self. It also served to break down or destroy the false personas I had adopted in order to better suit the expectations of others or in response to social conditioning. For example, I was socially trained from an early age that I should be straight and the option to be anything else simply did not exist, so since I now realize I am attracted to many portions of the gender spectrum, it was natural for me in childhood to foster and pursue an attraction to men and ignore or misinterpret any other attractions I felt. The same pressures dictated how I viewed my gender presentation, since I now identify as genderfluid, my desire to express masculine traits interpreted as a tomboy phase that needed to be outgrown. ]

After the event, I first began seeking to understand my spiritual beliefs due to a need to form a solid belief of the afterlife, the nature of the soul, and souls purpose. This search for spiritual truth naturally was almost immediately focused into an exploration of the my true self, integrating my shadow, and a better understanding of my inner wants and needs. Deconstruction of my evangelical christian beliefs eventually led to what I would consider deconversion from traditional christianity. As a child of around 10 I had realized that some of the foundational beliefs that were taught to me as absolute truth didnt stand up to logic or moral standards as I saw them, leaving me in a kind of spiritual limbo where I acknowledge that they aren't truth but was unable to totally discard them due to the fear indoctrination of hell doctrine. Essentially, I pushed these logical holes and problems into a box and refused to think about them for over a decade, avoiding cognitive dissonance discomfort by just never allowing myself to examine anything beyond face value.

Once I began deconstruction of my remaining religious beliefs I naturally needed to renegotiate my views on a great many things in society and politics. I had already been on the left and this reconsideration moved me quite a but further in that direction. Reevaluating my feelings on other societal issues that are not closely tied to religion happened naturally at this point simply due to the process putting me into a more open minded state. I was more willing to honestly examine how things like capitalism vs socialism, the plight of marginalized groups in the US, US foreign policy, climate issues, and the extent of corporate corruption in government. It may have helped that I was never truly indoctrinated to dismiss such issues in the same way that others were around me.

Finally being able to sever those stubborn indoctrinated beliefs led to a domino effect of honest openminded reconsideration that has now resulted in me becoming a drastically different person. I also contend that the person I am now is much closer to the truth of my soul and committed to my principles. I feel that I am a much more morally guided person now. Many might see that as ironic I think.

The purpose of this blog is to record the process of refining my understanding of these formerly hidden or rejected parts of me, or my shadows if you will, and possibly connecting with others who might be able to relate. I am certain that this drastic renegotiation of self is not an uncommon occurrence and that there is much value in hearing about the journeys of others. While I have access to thus through the TikTok app it seems that may not always be the case and the Tumblr community has always been one that I enjoyed. I particularly wish to hear from parents who resonate with any or all of this stuff about ways they have navigated this with thier children. Ultimately, even if I am not able to connect with anyone who understands, the act of blogging about my experience has plenty of value for me as well.

SO......anyone else??? Mid-30s identity crisis anyone? feeling like the you from just a year ago is almost a total stranger? Learning about your own gender identity and sexuality well into adulthood? Learning what those different expressions and relationships might look like for you? Recovering from narcissistic abuse patters at the same time? Actively exploring different faith paths searching for the answers? or maybe generally feel like the past few years in society has rocked your metaphorical shit??

We should form a guild or something. :-)