Right now, December 19, was not a superb day for Patriarchy.
It’s the day 51 males in Avignon, France, had been declared responsible of raping Gisèle Pelicot and had been sentenced to jail. Her ex-husband, Dominique, was sentenced to the utmost 20 years in jail for organizing common rape periods and alluring different males, ranging in ages from 22 to their 70’s, to return to his dwelling periodically to rape his spouse whom he drugged for the events.
It’s stated the trial “shook France” and began a large open dialogue on rape and girls’s rights. Gisele has develop into “an emblem of feminine energy all over the world,” writes the New York Instances and a “feminist hero.” She requested for an open trial in order that the world can be taught what they did to her. And so ladies can know they don’t seem to be alone; and males can be taught that patriarchy and power-over is neither manly nor proper.
That those that abuse ladies—does this embrace our president-elect who owes $93 thousands and thousands of {dollars} to his sexual abuse sufferer?—should take obligations for his or her actions.
Most transferring to me was the headscarf that Gisele wore repeatedly to the trial created by aboriginal ladies distant in Australia signifying solidarity. These ladies, members of the oldest tribe of people on earth, additionally find out about patriarchy’s shadow.
Additionally this morning, a pal wrote me of a dream she had final evening. I used to be in a crowd exterior the gates of Trump Metropolis. A rocket-like missile was shot up into the air and it turned and plummeted to earth touchdown proper beside me. The earth shook. It didn’t detonate. It was meant as a warning (raping the earth!!). I used to be with a person and baby. He was informed he and baby may depart. I couldn’t. Very unsettling. The dream lingers. God/dess assist us all.
She included information about “the witch trial for Liz Cheney. Trump gained’t be happy till he sees her burning on the stake.”
Let each man know that true manliness will not be about power-over or the domination that rape signifies. This is applicable to deposed Syrian dictator Assad and Putin raping Ukraine (or making an attempt to) and highly effective males wanting to slide sleeping tablets into the minds of Americans to allow them to kill democracy and imitate Putin’s oligarchs.
True manliness and true virility is about advantage (vir means man in Latin). Allow us to educate our boys and males about that. Allow us to educate our unsupreme court docket judges in addition to politicians and billionaires who purchase them and run the media the identical.
Additionally this morning I acquired a letter from a co-worker who was fired 30 years in the past for studying concerning the goddess in her job at a Presbyterian church. She jogged my memory of my battle with patriarchy again then once I was silenced by the Vatican. It’s true that the primary two so-called “heresies” then Cardinal Ratzinger accused me of had been these: “1. He’s a feminist theologian. 2. He calls God ‘Mom.’”
The rising fascism at dwelling and overseas right now is a patriarchal motion—all fascism desires to regulate ladies and girls’s our bodies. The so-called anti-abortion motion is a canopy up for that political reality.
Vigilance known as for. And truth-telling. And braveness. Thanks, Gisele.
Thanks to all these ladies all over the world and males too who know that the long run is to face up for Mom Earth and the divine female. To face one’s floor. Like my pal’s dream teaches us.
* Catherine Porter, “Dominique Pelicot and 50 Others Responsible in Rape Trial That Shook France,” New York Instances, December 19, 2024.
See Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Males: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.
And Fox, Julian of Norwich: Knowledge in a Time of Pandemic—and Past.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Reworking Evil in Soul & Society.
And Fox, Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.
Banner Picture: “No Neighborhood, No Tradition, Has the Proper to Silence Their Girls.” Protestors on the 2018 Vancouver Girls’s March converse out. Picture by Sally T. Buck on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
What’s your response to the information about Patriarchy and Energy-over from Avignon and the Australian Outback and Washington D.C. right now?
Really useful Studying
The Hidden Spirituality of Males: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he reveals ten metaphors, or archetypes, starting from the Inexperienced Man, an historic pagan image of our elementary relationship with nature, to the Religious Warrior….These timeless archetypes can encourage males to pursue their greater calling to hook up with their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Each man on this planet ought to learn this ebook — to not point out each lady who desires to grasp the struggles, usually unconscious, that form the boys they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, writer of The Left Hand of God
Julian of Norwich: Knowledge in a Time of Pandemic–and Past
Julian of Norwich lived by means of the dreadful bubonic plague that killed near 50% of Europeans. Being an anchoress, she ‘sheltered in place’ and developed a deep knowledge that she shared in her ebook, Showings, which was the primary ebook in English by a lady. A theologian manner forward of her time, Julian develops a feminist understanding of God as mom on the coronary heart of nature’s goodness. Fox shares her teachings on this highly effective and well timed and provoking ebook.
“What an totally magnificent ebook. The work of Julian of Norwich, lovingly supported by the genius of Matthew Fox, is a roadmap into the center of the eco-spiritual reality that each one life breathes collectively.” –Caroline Myss
Now additionally obtainable as an audiobook HERE.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Reworking Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling writer Matthew Fox gives a brand new theology of evil that basically adjustments the standard notion of fine and evil and factors the best way to a extra enlightened therapy of ourselves, each other, and all of nature. In evaluating the Japanese custom of the 7 chakras to the Western custom of the 7 capital sins, Fox permits us to assume creatively about our capability for private and institutional evil and what we will do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a greater imaginative and prescient and depth of notion far past the grasp of anybody single science. A breath-taking evaluation.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, writer of Quantum Theology: Religious Implications of the New Physics
Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had all the time shied away from utilizing the time period “Anti-Christ” as a result of it was so usually used to unfold management and worry. Nonetheless, given right now’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables on this ebook using the archetype for the reason for justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a second, for inspecting the archetype of the Antichrist, it’s now…Learn this ebook with an open thoughts. Good and evil are actual forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, writer of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For fast entry to Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white pictures, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To obtain a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for fast obtain.
