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Bare Your
Soul: The Thinking Girl’s Guide to
Enlightenment
Edited By Angela Watrous
A provocative look at how today's young women
celebrate and repudiate religion and, ultimately, find answers
that fit Whether brought up within a specific belief system or
warned against all things religious, women today have been left
with questions and conflicts about life and spirituality that
pop feminism and dating guides simply can't resolve. Bare Your
Soul offers wisdom and validation and reveals how women can
negotiate an empowering spiritual existence in our pop-culture
inundated world.
This liberating collection of spiritual
writings by women represents a fascinating spectrum of religious
and spiritual backgrounds—from Buddhism to Islam, Judaism to
Goddess-worship, Catholicism to atheism, and many others.
It reveals the multiplicities, divergences,
and commonalities of our experiences, allowing us to emerge from
isolation and share in each other’s journeys. Speaking to
neo-traditionalists, reformists, and skeptics alike, these
refreshing essays illuminate a unique truth--the fact that we
don't need to know or have all the answers—while speaking to
each other in a way that gives the collection greater resonance
and scope. In these days of frightening fundamentalism of all
kinds, the flexibility and fluidity found here is a much-needed
glimpse of a more holistic, less judgmental tomorrow.—Rebecca Walker
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Table of Contents
My Sister's Keeper, Twilight Greenaway
I expected her to shave her head, or
experiment with drugs, or start dating an ex-con. I thought
maybe she'd become a vegan. Instead, she started going to church.
Coming Clean, Angela Watrous
I’d long since realized that in some circles
it was assumed that I wasnt religious--presumably because true
queer liberal types could never be involved with an organized
religion, never get sucked into something so pass as faith.
The Road toward Islam: A Traveler s Tale,
Claire Hochachka
A few hours later, as I in-line skated home
over the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan, I realized I had just
been called to the Islamic faith.
The Culture of Faith, Shoshana Hebshi
I'm bound to both Judaism and Islam by the
laws of religious lineage--through my mother I am Jewish;
through my father I am Muslim.
The Last Conversation, L. A. Miller
I didn t believe in God. In truth, I thought
of him as a little like Ronald Reagan, if he existed at all.
Glitter and the Goddess, Kara Spencer
I became more than myself, my awareness
expanded to sense the gestalt of ravers, humanity, bonded to the
universal flux of life.
Million-Step Program, Stephanie Groll
I swallowed forty-eight sleeping pills. And
that was that. Good thing I didn’t believe in God or I might
have been headed straight for hell.
Practicing Faith, Maliha Masood
It never occurred to me how far I had strayed
from the principles of my religion because I still considered
myself to be a Muslim in spirit.
Daughter of a Preacherman, Andrea Richards
Growing up as the child of a minister makes
you a ready-made rehab case. . . .Its almost like being a
Kennedy--at birth you are set up to flounder on a very public
scale.
The Church of Godly Men, Tanessa Dillard
They marched in gay parades, prayed for their
enemies. Instead of abandoning their spirituality, they created
something that worked. Their example inspired me to stay true to
everything I believed.
The Playhouse and the Altar: Householder
Buddhism, Liesl Schwabe
While I felt his soundness and his wit would
make for a dedicated father, I also knew that his understanding
of the Dharma would be what would ultimately make becoming
parents together the single most important and beautiful thing
in my life.
Raising a Family the Good Old-Fashioned
Way, Juleigh Howard-Hobson
Andrew asked me recently, Would Luke Skywalker
know the Goddess? . . . Of course, but they would call Her I
answered.
The Sound of God, Lisa Shiffman
Voice. Melody. Song. Each held answers.
Answers about a deeper part of myself, about the essence of
Judaism, about being human--and perhaps even something about
God.
Worshiping in Color, Bernadette Adams Davis
American obsessions about race keep most of us
apart on Sunday mornings. The worship hour is still one of the
most segregated times of American life.
Pilgrimage on Mission Street, Griselda
Suarez
At that moment, I lost my Virgen de Guadalupe
and found my goddess Tonantzin. . . . She talked to my heart in
a familiar voice, my own.
Just Another Anarchist Antichrist
Godless-Commie Catholic, Sonya Huber
A true anarchist would certainly have no soft
spot for the ladies in black and their days of prayer.
A Flash of Lightning: Inner Revolution and
Social Transformation, Diane Biray Gregorio
I saw for the first time the connection
between my spiritual practice and my work in the world. They
both sprung from the same source--the yearning to understand
suffering and experience freedom--whether in myself or in the
world.
A Yogini in New York, Deborah Crooks
Then a collective gasp sounded and we raised
our eyes from the drawing to see the second tower go down in
flames. For a second everything stopped as nearly everyone on
the street seemed to suspend their breath.
God is Grape, Gail Hudson
Grape was an ideal container for my
understanding of God. . . . It taught me that what we revered,
what we gave thanks to each night at dinner, was something that
resided in the beauty of everyday life.
Agnostic Dyke Seeks Goddess, Jennifer
Collins
I am: Butch agnostic, freelance writer, NS/ND,
social drinker. You be: Omnipotent, with whole world in hands,
good with cars and words.
After Christ, Teena Apeles
The choice of Catholicism was not my parents
either. My familys faith was determined hundreds of years ago
when Spanish explorers and missionaries brought the religion to
the Philippines and forced it on the island peoples.
Pilgrimage, Pramila Jayapal
I could not feel the same devotion as do the
millions of people who come to Badrinath, the devotion that I
thought every true Hindu Indian should feel.
Sex and Catholic Girls, Caurie Miner Putnam
For the first sixteen years of my life I was
the quintessential good Catholic girl. Then, I went on my first
date.
A Call to Service, Trudi M. H. Frazel
The first time I heard that suffering comes
from wanting things to be different than they are . . . I began
to see that simple awareness is an act of service.
On Ki, Eleanor Martineau
I still want to be very careful. Poking into
ki pokes at the Tao, at Zen, at nothingness. About which I know
very little.
Bare Your
Soul: The Thinking Girl’s Guide to
Enlightenment
 |
ANGELA WATROUS is
the author of After the Breakup: Women Sort Through
the Rubble and Rebuild Lives of New Possibilities,
and the recently published Love Tune-Ups: 52 Ways to
Open Your Heart and Make Sparks Fly. Before becoming
a freelance writer, Angela worked as an editor in the
book publishing industry for five years. She lives in
Oakland, California. |
Publication Date: November 2002
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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