A PANEL PRESENTATION AT THE

2023 PARLIAMENT OF WORLD RELIGIONS

AUGUST 14-18, 2023 | MCCORMICK PLACE LAKESIDE CENTER, CHICAGO

Along with panel members Roya Akhavan, Allison Stokes and Edward Price

In this panel presentation, we will present a tapestry of the embodied feminine in various world religions and spiritual traditions. We will open with an in-depth look into the life and legend of Táhirih, an influential spiritual leader, scholar/poet, and heroine of the Bábí faith in Iran (1814 or 1817 to 1852). We will then explore how her life and work continues to influence the feminist spiritual movements in the United States.

And finally, we will hold the story of Táhirih within a larger tapestry of how the feminine is expressed in world traditions, both historically and in our time. This will include an exploration of the divine imaged as mother (Gaia and a variety of mother goddesses), as ancient fertility and grain goddesses, as embodiments of sensuality and beauty, as warrior and protector figures, and as keepers of the realm of death and rebirth.

We will end with a reflection on how the spiritual and secular landscape of our world might look like, if the feminine and the masculine are perceived as two polarities of one reality: neither superior or inferior, and both necessary for generating a creative tension which leads to new birth. What might be ours to do, in bringing about a way of being where the feminine and the masculine are engaged in a creative dance?