Mirabai Starr

A Fierce and Tender Wisdom: Reclaiming the Feminine Across the Spiritual Spectrum

At Sophia Institute we are pivoting because of the pandemic and learning to bring you programs that you know and love virtually in the comfort of your home.  We are pleased to announce that this program will be a VIRTUAL RETREAT.

Have you ever taken a personal retreat at home? If not, then doing so will be something worthwhile for you and a new, potentially lifelong, practice that will be beneficial ongoing.

This event will be recorded and available for viewing post-retreat for those who have registered for the event.

Sophia: Wisdom.  In the biblical traditions she is feminine.  The medieval visionary Hildegard of Bingen merrily blended Sophia, Mother Mary and Mother Earth in a lusciously creative reality responsible for all that is.  What I know is that we need her now more than ever.  We need Sophia’s wildness and her dignified containment.  We need her clear discernment and her poetry.  We need her sensual embodiment and her commitment to justice.

On Friday evening, in honor of Shabbat, we will welcome her in the form of Shekinah, the indwelling feminine, and then unveil her across the spiritual landscape as Tara and Quan Yin, as Kali and Durga, nestled in the hearts of mystics like Teresa of Avila and Rabia of Basra.  And in each other.

On Saturday we will reconnect with our soul’s innate yearning for union with the divine and open our hearts to the unconditional love of the sacred feminine as we show up for the grief we may be carrying.  Through contemplative readings, chanting and writing, we reclaim the holiness of our stories of loss and transformation.  Small group sharing and questions and responses with me help weave community at a time when we urgently need each other.  We will also have a nice long break in the middle of the day to rest and integrate, and I’ll offer a couple of contemplative prompts you can engage on your own if you choose to.

I hope you will join me.  I’d love to spend this time together.

Abrazos,
Mirabai

Mirabai Starr has written extensively on the mystics and the unifying teachings at the heart of all spiritual paths, with a gift for making timeless wisdom accessible to contemporary seekers.

A FIERCE & TENDER WISDOM: Reclaiming the Feminine Across the Spiritual Spectrum

As traditionally male-dominated structures topple across the landscape of the human community, the feminine is rising, carrying cups of mercy and spreading flames of truth-telling.  Long-buried wisdom teachings and previously ignored women mystics are revealing themselves to be urgently relevant as we pass through a global dark night of the soul and into a radically renewed humanity.  With its emphasis on relationally and inclusivity, its tolerance for ambiguity and its intimacy with mystery, the feminine reclaims the body as holy ground and blesses the web of interbeing that sustains us all.  The feminine speaks in poetry and song, she worships the earth as cherished relative, she embraces ultimate reality as lover.  In this talk, “mystical feminist” Mirabai Starr shares the fruits of many years of investigating, excavating and lifting up female voices in all the world’s religions.

Our time together will include contemplative readings, silent mediation, writing exercises, and group sharing.