Mystical writer Marabai Star was invited to contribute her answer to the question, “What might a new, inclusive, spiritual order contribute to our world?” and we share a portion of her essay here.
I had a significant dream when I was endeavoring to write this essay and asked my Beloved for guidance. I dreamed that I was being forced to sleep with a man’s dead body in my loft bed. Three days had gone by and it was starting to stink. A young woman lived with me, but she was not strong enough to help me remove the cadaver. I managed to roll the body off the bed and lift it into my arms.
I lurched out of the house with the putrid face pressed against my face, and was swept up in a line of people walking down the road. A young man walking ahead of me must have noticed my struggle and turned to ask if I needed any help. My eyes filled with tears and I nodded. He lifted the corpse from my arms and easily carried it for me.
When I woke I realized that the man’s dead body represented the religious patriarchy I have inherited, which is devoid of life. But my younger sisters and I cannot dismantle this system by ourselves. We need the emerging family of men—who also know that the existing religious institutions are obsolete and toxic—to lend their strength and assist us in shifting the paradigm toward the feminine model of cooperation, compassion, and creativity. It is, of course, the balance of the Sacred Feminine and the Holy Masculine that will restore wholeness to the soul of the world. We may hope to strike this harmonious chord by placing special emphasis for now on the feminine attributes that emanate from the goddesses and women mystics of all spiritual traditions.
It is with great joy that I discover this vision of an Order of the Sacred Earth, flowering from Matthew Fox’s decades of spiritual activism and groundbreaking theology, nourished by the fresh insight and extraordinary dedication of the youth who are drawn into his sphere. Everywhere I go now, as I travel and teach, I am seeing these seeds bursting through the ravaged landscape. The youth I meet are hungry for meaningful spiritual practice and are wary of organized religion. They embody a beautiful blend of intellectual rigor and openhearted vulnerability that fills me with hope. I want to be part of this revolutionary effort to build a holy container in which to access and express the deepest truths of love echoing from the heart of the world’s wisdom communities in honor of “Our Sister, Mother Earth,” who sustains us.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, Jennifer Listug, Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action, pp. 122f.
See also, Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To read a transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner Image: A screengrab of Mirabai Starr and Matthew Fox introducing their course, Julian of Norwich: A Bold, Gentle Visionary on Living in a Time of Pandemic, offered previously through The Shift Network.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you agree with Mirabai Star that moving beyond the reality of patriarchy is integral to saving “Our Sister, Mother Earth,” and that men as well as women must make that move beyond patriarchy?
Recommended Reading
Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action
By Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jen Listug
In the midst of global fire, earthquake and flood – as species are going extinct every day and national and global economies totter – the planet doesn’t need another church or religion. What it needs is a new Order, grounded in the Wisdom traditions of both East and West, including science and indigenous. An Order of the Sacred Earth united in one sacred vow: “I promise to be the best lover and defender of the Earth that I can be.”
Co-authored by Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jennifer Berit Listug, with a forward by David Korten, this collection of essays by 21 spiritual visionaries including Brian Swimme, Mirabai Starr, Theodore Richards, and Kristal Parks marks the founding of the diverse and inclusive Order of the Sacred Earth, a community now evolving around the world.
“The Order of the Sacred Earth not only calls us home to our true nature as Earth, but also offers us invaluable guidance and company on the way.” ~~ Joanna Macy, environmental activist and author of Active Hope.
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
14 thoughts on “Mirabai Starr on the Order of the Sacred Earth”
Matthew, Today you share Mirabai Star’s vision in terms of the OSE. She speaks of a dream where she has to deal with the corpse of dead man. She says, “When I woke I realized that the man’s dead body represented the religious patriarchy I have inherited, which is devoid of life.” And having said this she says that women cannot change things alone, they need men who also know that the existing religious institutions are obsolete and toxic, and who can assist women in a paradigm shift toward the feminine model of cooperation, compassion, and creativity. It is, of course, for it is in the balance of the Divine Feminine and the Sacred Masculine that will restore wholeness to the world.” I agree with Mirabai Star that moving beyond the reality of patriarchy is integral to saving “Mother Earth,” and that men as well as women must make the move beyond patriarchy? And I too want to be part of this revolutionary effort to build a holy community in which to express the deepest truths of love echoing from the heart of the world’s wisdom communities in honor of “Our Sister, Mother Earth,” who sustains us. Thank you Mirabai and Matthew !!!
Dear Matthew Fox,
In the early 1990s, I organized conferences featuring Tom Berry at St, Thomas University, Miami, where we gave him an honorary doctorate in 1994. Also, I am a longtime beneficiary of your life and work.
Now, I ask that you consider this topic for your Meditations, “Re-envisioning the Petrine Ministry for an Ecumenical Church in the 3rd Millennium.” With 2.5 billion Christians, collectively we should have a greater positive impact for the Shared Earth. At Antioch, Paul “ course corrected” the Petrine Ministry. Imagine what it might look like today….thank you, Joe Iannone (🌻national flower of Ukraine)
Like you, Mirabai, I often have rich, detailed dreams. This one of yours is beautiful and deeply revealing. It is a perfect metaphor for our spiritual situation. Spirit certainly gave you a gift.
I too, agree with Mirabia, that moving beyond patriarchy is intrical to saving Mother Earth, and that both women and men must unify in this revolutionary movement. What I also see is just how tethered patriarchy is to heirarchy and how they work in tandem with one another, like to faces of the same coin. My sense is that it’s vitally important to address them simultaneously, in order to uproot the chaotic imbalances their union has manifested. If we only take apart one strand of the root, it leaves the other root to regrow itself into another manifestation. This uprooting begins first, within oneself, within our personal relationship with our own inner feminine and masculine aspects of our Soul sense of self. Through this deep soul work we see within ourselves how these patriarchal and heirarchal imbalances play themselves out. Conscious self awareness and self acceptance of these imbalances, is the first step that each one of us can choose to take in this revolutionary movement that is unfolding, evolving and emerging within our hearts, minds and souls, in both an individual and collective manner. We can choose daily, again and again to uproot the entangled roots of patriarchy and heirarchy within… within ourselves… and it is this acceptance of or resistance to this transformational process that we are currently seeing… being mirrored and reflected within the world in which live.
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Jeanette, Today you make two comments that I would like to highlight: “What I also see is just how tethered patriarchy is to hierarchy and how they work in tandem with one another, like to faces of the same coin.” I too see that patriarch is tethered to hierarchy, but women do not fair well under patriarchy, and the poor or “anawim” do not fair well under hierarchy. And I also see both patriarchy and hierarchy tethered to imperialism, colonialism, slavery and racism. Then you say, “Through this deep soul work we see within ourselves how these patriarchal and hierarchal imbalances play themselves out.” And I too see that we need to do deep soul work concerning patriarchy and hierarchy–but more than this, we need to think about what can we DO about it.
As an 88 year-old woman raised WASP in a small rural community, I broke my heart (and nearly my neck) trying to crash the glass ceiling of patriarchy, and today I watch as an angry throng of aging males (often abetted by culturally indoctrinated females) work feverishly to destroy what seems to be the tattered remains of a fancied superiority. Like tyrants everywhere, what they are unable to control, or even understand, they seem to feel they must destroy. I cannot believe they will succeed. I doubt I will live to see the battle over, but my hope is strong that my descendants, male and female, will rise in freedom above the senseless fray. Love always wins. Eventually. -Lona B.
Yes, all of us must be move beyond patriarchy to equality and justice and peace . The real question is will we join together to accomplish this? Patriarchy seems very solidly baked into our culture and change resisted.
The arresting imagery of Mirabai Starr’s dream moves me deeply. Where is the rest of her essay published? I would love to read it. Thank you, also, to Matthew Fox for your inspired work.
Yes Matthew, you have taught and made us aware many times and in many ways that the unbalanced, toxic, and destructive values and behavior of patriarchy/patriarchal societal institutions have increased historically the past 6000yrs. all the way to our modern global industrial ‘civilization’ destroying Mother Nature/Earth which sustains All Life, including our own human species. We need to personally and socially, women and men, in our small communities revive the the Spirit, Values, Presence of the Divine Feminine of Loving Compassion~Wisdom~Creativity~Oneness within and among us, especially in the healing of Sacred Mother Nature/Earth….
🔥❤️🌎🙏
Yes.
Matthew Fox’s first book Original Blessing validated and confirmed my thoughts about the patriarchy and toxicity of the Corporation of The Catholic Church. Joana Macy’s, Thinking Like a Mountain: A Council Towards All Beings, made me incredibly sad. This article by Mirabai is very profound and I wonder how men can find the courage, compassion and humility to stand up and move away from a global culture that operates within the deeply embedded belief that men should and must lead economically, socially, and culturally. I am inspired by these articles of spirituality, feminism, and oftentimes, I wonder if things will actually ever change. My bet is in the very young people; the young boys, who hopefully, will examine and think critically about the misogynistic paradigm we all live in.
Just as in any work for civil rights and justice, all races, creeds, and genders must work together, we also need everyone to join together to move beyond the power over stance of patriarchy. I love Mirabai’s talk on acceptance, that we need to embrace the whole suffering world with a mother’s compassion and then determine what part we need to play. The stages of grief are a spiral staircase, but I cannot afford to get stuck on the anger or depression rung, as these will stop any good action. It is difficult, though. Those in power are literally going to do everything to keep it, as we see with Putin and the former president. How to break through these denials and defenses requires a lot of loving creativity.
Dear Mirabai, and Matthew, thank you for the vivid and prophetic dream, and the ongoing work you do to be inclusive and loving and generative of new life and new breath of the Spirit. It is exciting to see and feel this new growth, and I loved that in your dream, the young man who helped you carry the cadaver was able to do it with ease. To see young people be able to draw all the coherence of faith and love together, with deeper appreciation and deeper sense of community is like watching new stars grow in the universe! I loved the meditation from Brian Swimme, about the hydrogen molecule, in the immense generative heart of a new star, being able to produce all the elements of our universe. We are beginning to “get it”, in what some have called a secular spirituality, but to me is just spirituality without a shell of narrowing dogma. It is radiant and inclusive and joy-inspiring! Thank you!
Are there any local/regional OSE communities forming?