A Weekend of the "Feminine Divine" at National Cathedral

by Rebekah M. Sharpe
http://www.theird.org/Page.aspx?pid=943&srcid=943
February, 2009

New Age themes of self-deification animated the biennial "Sacred Circles" conference on women's spirituality at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. on February 13-14.

Rather than the masculine "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" of Christian creeds women sought out the "the Feminine Divine" within themselves.

But this time, ecclesiastical support was not limited to Protestant denominations.

The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, offered continuing education credits through its Center for Spirituality and Social Work to intrepid women journeying towards the Feminine Divine.

In contrast to its supporters, the event never purported to be Christian. Instead, the conference was possibly "the largest interfaith women's spirituality gathering in the world." Church sponsors included the Episcopal –run National Cathedral, which devoted a paid staffer as the "Sacred Circles" convener, the Episcopal Church Office of Women's Ministries, which offered scholarships, and Catholic University's Center for Spirituality and Social Work, which offered academic credit for attendance.

A partnership between the Lilly Endowment and Millsaps College's Center for Ministry also provided conference scholarships, despite Lily's supposed mission to "deepen and enrich the religious lives of American Christians.."

While well-known sponsors supported the event, representatives of the Institute on Religion and Democracy were banned from covering the "Sacred Circles" workshops, most of which concerned various types of meditation, yoga, learning to "ignite" one's inner "Divine Spark," or "encounter the Feminine Divine," the inner goddess participants were told they "embod[ied].."

A Lakota medicine woman officially opened the conference by offering up a bowl of smoldering tobacco and directing the participants to face the four directions while she went through a ritual to "invite the spirits:"

"To the sacred guardians of the East," the leader said, "all the medicine that comes from the East, we welcome you. Acupuncture, Tibetan medicine."

"To the sacred guardians of the South,"-the place of the physical body, innocence, and warriors, "we ask for laughter, healing, joy." "To the sacred guardians of the West"-the place of great mystery, the vision quest, and death, "The place of finding your own divinity."

"To the sacred guardians of the North"-the Earth element, whom she called to "gather spirit and wisdom," and regarded as the place of transformation, change, and the "White Buffalo Woman."

"Come spirit of many names, come" the medicine woman concluded. Keynote speaker Sakena Yacoobi, the Executive Director of the Afghan Institute of Learning, spoke about her efforts to educate women in Afghanistan.

She was preceded by ex-Roman Catholic nun and British religion author, Karen Armstrong.

Armstrong described her disillusionment with and subsequent return to religion when she concluded that all religions are united by the common theme of the Golden Rule. She cited Christ, who she asserted did not talk much about God or creation when he was on earth, but instead exhorted his followers to love their neighbors as themselves. "The rest is periphery," claimed Armstrong.

Encouraging those in attendance to greater compassion, she said, "If you can put an African American [President Barack Obama] in the White House, you can also build a more compassionate world." Elizabeth Lesser, co-founder of Omega Institute and guru to Oprah Winfrey, spoke about the importance of emotional and spiritual intelligences.

Karnamrita Devi Dasi led the audience in the call-and-response of Hindu devotional songs, called Kirtan, before Lesser's talk. Among those honored in her songs was the Hindu term for the feminine divine.

Lesser recalled the pagan history of what is now St. Valentine's Day, at which time the Romans honored Lupa, the she-wolf who suckled Rome's mythical founders, Romulus and Remus, and Juno, queen of the Greco-Roman pantheon. Said Lesser, "I think it's time for us women to take back Valentine's Day," to "take it back for Lupa the she-wolf and Juno the fertile goddess, and Valentine."

She observed that "you don't have to be a historian or a mathematician to know that men" have controlled most human history. And she suggested that history would look different "if there had been a gender balance" governing human priorities.

Lesser said that the strictly rational form of intelligence had been prized by male-dominated society instead of the "full range of intelligence- body, heart, mind and soul" that women possess. "We've been told as women not to trust what's in here," she said, gesturing towards her heart. But "your tender heart will save the world."

As one of Oprah's advisors, Lesser noted that she was working on a project with the celebrity to create "a television station for emotionally and spiritually intelligent programming."

Unfortunately, Lesser lamented, women "suffer from this desire for someone to come and save the day." Women need to realize, she insisted, "No handsome prince is going to wake us up. We're going to have to kiss ourselves; we have to rouse ourselves." Lesser predicted that when women achieve this, our civilization will come to identify "violence as the lowest form of intelligence" and "smarts not by the ability to strategize, but the ability to sympathize."

Meanwhile, she commented, "We are an imbalanced species and we're paying for that now."

Joan Brown Campbell, former General-Secretary of the National Council of Churches and currently the Director of Religion at the Chautauqua Institute, led the afternoon plenary. There, she recalled the story of the Biblical Esther, and said that like Esther "we all have choices to make, and our choices comprise our spiritual DNA."

According to Campbell, the three "hallmarks of the right choice" are that, "[the choice] must feel spiritually right," it "must give life beyond your own self" but "not deny yourself," and the right choice must "give life meaning and substance."

Quoting Martin Luther King's comments on the redemptive nature of undeserved suffering, Brown Campbell said that in this time of economic crisis, "if we are to fully receive the gift of recession..." our nation must acknowledge that, "we made a wrong choice, a life-denying choice, a choice that failed to require that we give up ourselves that we trust peace, that we trust the possibility for peace..."

Community environmental justice activist, Tanya Fields, spoke after Campbell, and said that "we must empower, we must liberate those who have been displaced [and] become apathetic." "Love is risky," Fields said, but "We must not let those who do not love us stop us from doing our work."

END