Women-centered spiritual groups are challenging gender norms and
bringing healing to participants.
One sunny afternoon in August 2015, 19 women descended upon a
campsite in the Yosemite National Forest for the three-day Sweet Water Women’s Retreat. Many of them did not know one another
but were beckoned, as was this reporter, by the promise of a weekend of
powerful community building and spiritual transformation.
“There’s something sacred that happens when women feel safe to be
themselves and to be with each other,” said Andrea Penagos, a Los
Angeles-based acupuncturist and organizer of the Sweet Water Women’s Retreat.
Penagos and her partner, artist Dalila Mendez, designed a creative
and nondenominational experience for women seeking spiritual communion with
nature in a non-male-dominated environment.
To begin the weekend of ceremony, the women processed from the
campground down to the rocky banks of the Merced River and made offerings of
herbs and honey to the Yoruba goddess, Oshun. They made quiet
intentions to themselves and consecrated what would be a sacred and
nurturing space for the duration of the weekend.
“If we compare the lives of women and where we are in terms of
nature on this planet, we see that the oppression of women goes hand in hand
with the oppression of nature,” Penagos told The Huffington Post.
Signs of that "oppression" were present where the
river's water ran low and left smooth rocks exposed -- the result of
California's ongoing drought. But in other
areas the water was deep enough to swim in, which many of the women did
throughout the weekend.
“The way that
I relate divine feminine to spirit is through the Mother Earth who has given
birth to all of us and to everything on this planet -- human, animal, plant,
mineral, everything,” Penagos said
Penagos' relationship with spirituality is an embodied practice.
Her home is filled with sacred stones and altars. She works with her hands to
bring healing to her clients through acupuncture and herbal medicine.
An important aspect of women-centered spirituality is learning to
feel connected to a higher power within the female body, said Arisika Razak, a
professor of women’s spirituality at
the California Institute of Integral Studies. Women are taught to devalue their
bodies in overt and covert ways, which can impede their ability to see the
divine within themselves, Razak told HuffPost.
“If God is always imaged as male it reifies the idea that the
woman’s body is not holy, is not divine,” said Razak, who worked closely with
women’s bodies as a nurse midwife for years before becoming a professor.
Razak noted that many historical and contemporary cultures have
female images of divinity -- from powerful goddesses in Greek myth to sacred
grandmothers in African diaspora traditions. There have also been women
throughout time who have challenged societal norms and disrupted power
structures. Women today have that legacy to draw from as they form spiritual
communities with one another, Razak said.
“No matter what the rules were, in every culture, in every time
there were always women who did what women were not supposed to do, who broke
ground, who changed things,” she told HuffPost.
The very act of women forming spiritual communities with one
another can be radical, especially when we consider the precedent set in
history. For centuries women were restricted from studying sacred texts. Fear of women's spirituality was
so great that it fueled much of the European and North American witch hunts
that left at least tens of thousands dead.
To this day, women are frequently excluded from religious spaces. Catholic and Mormon women seeking ordination are threatened and rejected by their
churches. Some Muslim women are relegated to prayer areas behind screens
where they are unable to see the imam. Jewish women are prohibited from reading from a full-sized Torah by Orthodox Jewish
authorities at Jerusalem's Western Wall.
Many of these women continue to fight for full acceptance in their
religious traditions -- or they choose to carve out niches of their own.
Penagos first experienced the radical potential of women’s spaces
in college when she joined a women’s student group centered around creativity
and skill sharing.
“It was so profound that women would choose to get together in a
women-only environment to support themselves in the deconstruction of the
patriarchy that told them that they need to be silent, that their presence was
only validated in the presence of a man and that their creative gifts were not
important on this planet,” Penagos said.
That
experience still informs the groups she participates in and the circles she
organizes, which strive to be inclusive of transgender and genderqueer
identities as well, Penagos said.
"If God is always imaged as male it reifies the idea that the
woman’s body is not holy, is not divine."
The power of women’s communities is something Sheryl Olitzky,
founder and executive director of interfaith group Sisterhood of Salaam
Shalom, has seen time and time again.
Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom brings Muslims and Jewish women
together for dialogue and community building in local chapters and annual
conferences. Many of the women, Olitzky said, have felt seen and heard in new
ways through their participation in the group. Some of the Muslim women from more
gender-segregated backgrounds find the experience to be particularly
eye-opening.
"Women who hadn't always had their own voice or independence
during any faith services -- having to pray away from the men, going through a
separate door -- when given the chance to observe Jewish women in a liberal
setting, they get very excited," she told HuffPost.
As the women hear one another’s stories, Olitzsky said, they start
to understand and appreciate the differences between their often-polarized
religions. They learn about each other’s holidays and prayer practices. They
learn to celebrate together and be vulnerable with others.
“We create a safe environment for women to speak that’s not in a
synagogue, not in a mosque but in someone’s home,” Olitzsky said. "It's very
sisterly."
As a result, she added, the relationships that form among the
women of Sisterhood “are stronger and more emotional than your typical
friendship.”
I witnessed much the same during the Sweet Water retreat and
saw that a community had been formed by the end of the weekend. Many of the
women still communicate daily via a private Facebook group.
The
retreat left me with memories of campfire songs, meditations and uninhibited
dips in the river. It left me with new friends, mindfulness practices and a
renewed reverence for nature. The "magic" that happens when
women organize and participate in spiritual communities is something that
begins within each of us -- but it takes a village to recognize that
divine spark and help it shine.