In 19th Century England, there was a period of tremendous activity for women artists, primarily because of the patronage of Queen Victoria. Roadblocks still remained, however. For example, although two female painters had helped found the British Royal Academy, women were not eligible to become Academy members during the 19th Century.

The 19th century saw the rise in the number of women able to work as artists, although most of them, even the most famous, were quickly forgotten. As you read these brief sketches of these artists, make particular note of how the masculine principle influenced the lives of these gifted women.

Why should we care about the Black Madonna,? As you will learn in this post,: The Black Madonna is often found “behind and under.” And isn’t that a metaphor for women? Ponder this yourself and think about all the many ways we are kept under and left behind. Perhaps the symbol of the Black Madonna can unite women to see ourselves as the actual, earthy, fertile, creative, life-sustaining, grounded force that are.

“What the world needs now is love, sweet love,” sang Dionne Warwick…and evidently also compassion according to Charles Darwin. Yes, the father of survival of the fittest had another theory, too, which the world has never needed more to hear about. Mary shares his lost belief in the “Heart-Mind Connection” and her thoughts about Aha! or Eureka! Moments in her latest blog post.

They should be as familiar to us as Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks…what do you know about them?

 In 1851, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was introduced to Susan B. Anthony which began their historic friendship that was to have a marked effect on the subsequent progress of American Feminism.

It should not be a surprise to any woman or girl that the list of pejorative words for females may be as much as four times longer than a comparable list for men or boys. How do we change this?

Anne Langford, a health professional who became a cancer patient, describes what she learned through her journey through the medical system, sharing definitions of both the feminine and masculine approaches to healing and how she combined them to create her own path.

Practical exercises to increase your Intuitive abilities or just to remind yourself to be open to how your are reacting or feeling in certain situations.

An introduction to five resources relating to Intuition and a Questionnaire to help you evaluate your style of thinking.

More practical ideas and resources for increasing your Intuition.

This post includes several exercises and a Guided Meditation if you and/or your group or class would like to increase your own powers of Intuition.

Three quotes from Nelle Morton: “Thus ‘spiritual’ is experienced profoundly as sisterhood in its loftiest and most universal sense and, we may add redundantly, political action of the most radical sort on behalf of and ultimately including all of humanity--women, children and men.”

“For anyone to experience solidarity in world sisterhood is to break out of the patriarchal mindset that cannot think in global terms (outside the box of separation) and dualism.”

“Women are seeking to harmonize, to bring to wholeness again, something that has been torn apart and has deprived men and women of humanness.” p. 98.

An exploration of what elements a feminine spirituality might include.

The image of Eve, created for her husband, from her husband, the woman who was supposed to have brought about the downfall of humankind, in many ways has become the image of all women.  How did this come into being?

Five significant historical events that suppressed the Feminine Principle: 1. The invasion of Europe’s matrilineal cultures by “Kurgan” tribes, 2. The Codes of Hammurabi that certified Patriarchal laws, 3. Hyskos tribes took over matrilineal cultures in Minoan Crete, Homer’s myths, 5. Whoever wrote Genesis in the Bible.

 Follow this meditation and find yourself now where only a few  have journeyed, in the place of an ancient civilization now forgotten.  It is a place of joy, of serenity and peace.

“It was quite apparent that the myths and legends that grew from and were propagated by a religion in which the deity was female and revered as wise, valiant, powerful and just, provided very different images of womanhood from those we are offered by male-oriented religions of today.”

Merlin Stone was the first person to bring a full-bodied consciousness to the fact that there was a time when veneration of a female deity was central to an extraordinary number of cultures of the world. When it was first published, her book, When God Was a Woman, shocked many women into imaging that they could be included in images of the divine.

It should not be a surprise to any woman or girl that the list of pejorative words for females may be as much as four times longer than a comparable list for men or boys, but seeing the list for ourselves hits home.