Call for Submissions: Women's Sovereignty and Body Autonomy Beyond Roe v. Wade

 

Girl God Books is accepting submissions for our upcoming Anthology of writing: Women's Sovereignty and Body Autonomy Beyond Roe v. Wade.

Personal essays or accounts (up to 2,000 words), academic papers, poetry, prayers, and art are welcome.

We want to hear how the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade in America impacts you, no matter where you live in the world. 

• What are your thoughts and feelings concerning the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent overturning of this 1973 landmark decision, which granted American women the right to determine what happens in and to their own bodies (bodily autonomy). 
• Share your thoughts on how this affects you, your daughters and granddaughters, your nieces, or your neighbors if you live in America; or how it causes concern for your own bodily autonomy if you live anywhere in this world. 
• Do you feel a sense of unrest, fear, or full-blown rage? 
• And how might such feelings empower you and motivate positive actions?

Edited by Arlene Bailey, Pat Daly, Sharon Smith and Trista Hendren

Cover Art by Ravynne M Phelan

Instagram: @ravynnephelan

https://www.facebook.com/ravynnephelan

Scheduled publication: TBA

Submission Guidelines:
Please send your finished piece in a Word document. Please send your finished piece in a Word document. Calibri size 12 font is preferred. Please do not use any fancy formatting or fonts as it creates a lot more work on our end. Make sure to spell check before you submit. Art should be sent in high resolution as a JPG. You may submit more than one piece for consideration, but due to the volume of submissions, please only send your best work and keep it on topic.

Please also include a bio in the third person under 150 words.

Please send your submissions to submissions@girlgod.org by September 30, 2022 with the book title in your subject line. Please note that we cannot accommodate any late submissions or corrections.

Where Does This Rage Come From? by Kaia Tingley

 

Medusa's Scream II by Claire Dorey

There has been a deep trauma

^{To all of us.}

^{In all of us.}

^{By all of us.}

^{Against divinity herself.}

^{We have been the victims. We have been the perpetrators too.}

^{I do not know the name. I cannot describe the agony. But I bear witness to it nonetheless. It is real. It happened and we can no longer afford to pretend that it did not.}

^{I don’t have to know what happened. I don’t have to feel it all over again. But the bedrock of truth is unyielding. A steady place to rest, if even for just the briefest moment.}

^{There is no blame, actually. It just is a thing. A block in the vibration of infinity. A hiccup in the grand scheme of things.}

^{But it was painful all the same. Deeply painful in the way of giving birth. The ring of fire.}

^{THIS is where the rage comes from.}

^{Deep within us on a primal level.}

^{The trauma happened a very long time ago. When some people discovered that they could rule others through fear and power. Since domination became the foundational zeitgeist of human progress. Since we started trying to put an infinite, linear progression on top of the cyclical rhythm of nature.}

^{Since we decided a global economy (and its flow of profit to the few scions of power at the top) was more important than the very skin of the earth, and the stability of our families.}

^{We will continue to pass on the block in the darkness of unawareness for so long as we continue to flee towards what we perceive as safety rather than embrace the light of truth. Our physical gender in this lifetime is irrelevant to this process.}

^{The trauma shaped us. It brought us collectively to the point that we are experiencing right here. Right now.}

^{Do you see the edge? Do you feel it?}

^{Forgiveness is not a logical thing.}

^{It is not something the mind can decide, or religion can dictate must happen.}

^{It is not something to be broken down, analyzed, or understood.}

^{It is not even a one-time thing.}

^{Forgiveness is a mystery. She’s the sister of Eros herself. We aren’t built to understand. That’s ok.}

^{She’s the muse Dona Mwiria speaks of seducing. The harbinger of pleasure. The very essence of what it means to be alive and to know it.}

^{She calls us back to beauty. She calls us to the bright blue sky and the perfect beauty of the clouds chasing one another home. She sings the siren song of coherence in a world gone mad. She is the ground under our bare feet and the wind in our hair.}

^{Do you hear her singing?}

^{Her voice is beautiful despite the trauma she’s endured. Her seeds will always sprout, even after they’ve been crushed and burned and smeared into nothing. They will still grow if we can imagine that love still exists.}

^{She’s more powerful than anyone can possibly imagine. The definition of juicy. Forgiveness, dressed in her modest clothes, holds the secret of the future in her small, carefully cupped hands.}

^{She offers us a cup of calming tea.}

^{Do we dare to allow her softness again?}

^{It seems imprudent, but…}

^{I take the cup of tea.}

^{The world has always seemed to be trying to crush me into a tight little square space when my nature has demanded flow. Get a job! says Amanda Palmer. I feel that…}

^{But I crave circular spaces. White walls and dark wooden floors. Healthy dark green plants, soft breezes, wide-open skies. Cool pools in the dark evening and the enchanted sound of music sung in low harmonious voices. A warm hand on the small of my back. Permission granted to be as I am. No different.}

^{I’ve struggled with structure imposed upon form, and form animated by flow, in a never ending cycle. Haven’t you?}

^{Is this, at its heart, a problem of perception? Or is it the law of the Tao?}

^{Must there always be pain? Is the pain the necessary precursor to beauty?}

^{Is this just the way it was supposed to be?}

^{I don’t feel in my heart that it is. But I release the attachment to knowing.}

^{I release the story that I am supposed to be someone else in order to have the right to know this. That I should suffer more. Enough with the suffering!}

^{If these words come through me to you, then so be it! It is up to you now to decide whether or not to receive them. I will never take that from you.}

^{Contrast doesn’t have to mean control.}

^{We can learn to allow for fluidity within a structure, can’t we? Coherence is after all just an adjustment to the frequencies of previously negating waveforms.}

^{The inexorable pull of the tide brings me back to the place of stillness. The space between the inhale and the exhale. The exhale and the inhale.}

^{There is beauty in both sides. The union of the opposites could be just fine.}

^{We have been given the choice. It is upon us. Do you see it?}

^{All I can do is bear witness.}

^{I am content with the choice I have made.}

^{I sip my tea and smile.}

Art and essay from  Re-Membering with Goddess: Healing the Patriarchal Perpetuation of Trauma.

^{Kaia Tingley is a writer, artist, podcaster, digital strategy nerd, and sometimes hot-tempered supernova with a wild, free soul. You can find her on Instagram or on LinkedIn.}

https://www.instagram.com/muse.of.creativity https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaiamaeve

Call for Submissions - Kali Rising: Holy Rage

 

Girl God Books is accepting submissions for our upcoming Anthology of writing: Kali Rising: Holy Rage.

Personal essays or accounts (up to 2,000 words), academic papers, poetry, prayers, and art are welcome.

We want to hear about your insight into this Goddess - and how you have used Her story, myth and dance of destruction to transform your life, take back your power and realize Sovereignty is a Human Right. How has Her justified rage empowered you?

Edited by C. Ara Campbell, Jaclyn Cherie, Pat Daly, and Trista Hendren

Cover Art by Kat Shaw

Scheduled publication: TBA

Submission Guidelines:
Please send your finished piece in a Word document. Please send your finished piece in a Word document. Calibri size 12 font is preferred. Please do not use any fancy formatting or fonts as it creates a lot more work on our end. Make sure to spell check before you submit. Art should be sent in high resolution as a JPG. You may submit more than one piece for consideration, but due to the volume of submissions, please only send your best work and keep it on topic.

We plan to do three anthologies dedicated to Kali - details to follow. 

Please also include a bio in the third person under 150 words.

Please send your submissions to submissions@girlgod.org by August 30, 2022 with the book title in your subject line. Please note that we cannot accommodate any late submissions or corrections.

COLLAPSE, MOTHER by Dawn Perez

 

Painting by Leticia Banegas 

All your life,

you’ve been told to hold it in.

Hold in your gut, woman,
Don’t let them think you’re fat.

Hold in your feelings, mother,
Don’t let them think you’re hysterical.

Hold in your worry, dear,
Don’t let them think you’re psychotic.

Hold in your grief, mama,
Don’t let them see the pain in your heart.

Hold in your rage, woman,
Don’t let them think you’re unrefined, wild, feral, magick.

When you hold it all inside you,
Do you feel empowered?
Or do you feel exhausted?

You don’t have to hold it in any longer, child,
I’m here.
You’re safe.

Give it up.
Let it out.
Release it.
Let it go.

Collapse, mother.
Cry your tears and let them
Permeate the earth with their healing power.

You gut,
Your feelings,
Your worry,
Your grief,
Your rage.

It’s all love, mother.
It’s a part of you.

Embrace it, allow it.
Breathe it in.
Let it go.

Poem and painting from Re-Membering with Goddess: Healing the Patriarchal Perpetuation of Trauma.

Dawn Perez is a writer, mother, and feminist. Formerly, she was a music teacher in the public schools for ten years. She lives in NewvMexico with her amazing husband and two sons, who are the joy

of her life. When she’s not writing, she spends her time hiking, singing, and rock climbing. You can read more of her work at wildsimplejoy.com, which focuses on healing our bodies, minds,

and spirits as women and mothers.

Finding Myself by Caroline Selles

 

I open the box of puzzle pieces that are my pain.
As I sort through the jumble of jagged bleeding pieces, I notice
My illusions
My faults
My failures
My trauma.

The edges form the suit of armor so familiar, comfortable, and suffocating.
The colors are muted and faded.
The design prescribed by others
My family
My peers
My rapist
My newsfeed.

Edges no longer match.
Pieces no longer fit.
The picture on the box, so attractive and acceptable to others,
The image I am told I should want to form seems
Grotesque
Artificial
Offensive
Unacceptable to me.

One by one, I lovingly scrape off the blood and reshape the pieces.
I add vibrant colors
Of laughter
Of tears
Of dancing
Of truth.

The suit of armor is replaced by a blanket, warm, cozy, comforting and fluid.
I allow the tenderness to mold, not an image, but a feeling. A feeling
Of love
Of belonging
Of connection
Of safety.

I am finding myself, one piece at a time.

Poem and art from our upcoming anthology, Re-Membering with Goddess: Healing the Patriarchal Perpetuation of Trauma
 

Caroline Selles is a veterinarian, reiki practitioner, poet and painter. A self-taught intuitive artist, Caroline began painting as a way of healing thru decades of physical and emotional trauma and illness. What began as a meditative practice with a desire to see more diversity of form and culture in art, has become a spiritual and healing practice and the pathway to finding Goddess and reclaiming her own suppressed cultural inheritance and feminine power. Essential themes of her art and poems include reclaiming female empowerment, female divinity and diversity, integration after trauma and nature as goddess imagery. Born in Valencia, Spain, she currently resides in the United States. She can be found on social media as @thegoddesswithinart or at https://thegoddesswithinart.square.site.

Warrior in Woad Ritual Meditation – The Spirit Marking Warrior of Andraste by Joey Morris

 

Art by Kat Shaw

“Hail to You
Andraste
Goddess who will not be felled
By Time or Suppression
As the Light and Dark hold their balance
We too hold our heads high
On the precipice of all our battles,
Internal and against those
Who seek to claim and destroy our Land.”

Warrior in Woad Ritual Meditation – The Spirit Marking Warrior of Andraste

After we have cast the circle, called in the trees, spoken to the Mothers of the Elements, and called out to Andraste and perhaps Boudicca also, we may wish to invoke the spirit of the Equinox through the Warrior in Woad.

This calls back to the Celtic people marking themselves with the blue ritual paint made from Woad.

To mark one's self before battle was a powerful act; you crushed herbs and dyes in a form of battle potion making, calling on the essence of these plants and the land to infuse you with their blessing, and called on the War Gods to recognise you as being ‘marked’ as theirs on the battle field, and ‘marked’ for protection and victory.

Prior to the ritual you may wish to use the following chant:

The Warrior in Woad
“I am her
And she is me
The guardian in woad
A story screams
Across the void
Marked in battle lines
I hear her scream
Guttering
The pitch black chord of night
I am her
and She is me
There is no true divide
I cross the ocean bruised

And weary

To speak at fire side

The lightning calls

As once it did

The drums of war unfold

I am Her

And She is me

The Warrior in Woad.”

Close your eyes and visualise Andraste before you, standing on the top of a grassy hill in Ancient Briton.

You can feel the wind whipping around you, cold and bracing, with Spring rain thrashing about.

You are here to scout the land, the threat of Roman invasion and those who wish to take away your inner Sovereignty.

In this space you will not fight anyone, but you watch as the light breaks through the clouds, listening for the Land Spirits and for Andraste herself to speak to you.

Messages of Rebirth, Re-emergence, and Reclaiming the self are all of pivotal importance going forward – hear the words that are only for you. How does Andraste appear to you? What does She say?

Turn to face Her, to listen, to seek to understand.

In this process of remembering, Andraste reaches out, her fingertips rich with Woad, to paint your face and body with markings that are unique to you.

Your battle paint – reminders of your inner essence and that you can do anything you set your mind to!

As the paint swirls against your skin, see it moving and glowing with an Otherworldly energy – it is more than just paint. Feel and know that you are a part of something greater; sense that you are not defeated, you will not give up on yourself, your sovereignty.

You are not alone in your birthing of a new sense of yourself.

Feel yourself grow stronger, more courageous, more connected to the Land, to the Goddess, to Yourself.

Offer your gratitude to Andraste and come back to the mundane world.

The Land remembers…

How the changing nature of Warfare has impacted the Land.

For a moment, I want you to consider what affect ancient Warfare versus modern Warfare might have on the land and the Spirits of that Land.

As I have already mentioned, modern Warfare has been moved ‘elsewhere’ by the powers that be – in what can be described as a political, social, and economic shift to benefit the powerful.

War often follows the resources, and with the current choke hold the powerful have over their own land in Europe (and the UK which is sadly no longer part of Europe), and indeed in the USA, there is little to be gained from fighting at home.

Instead, modern Warfare follows the Oil and benefits the powerful by providing an “us versus them” narrative which fuels hatred against the other.

War is as ancient as human history, as is the grasping at territory and the resources that land would provide.

To the ancient Celts, it was an intimate part of everyday life, having skirmishes with neighbouring tribes, seeking riches, land, and horses or cattle from battle.

War, such as it was, fed into their honour system, with self-worth and Sovereignty being claimed through battle.

There would be no sense to the ancient Celts in obliterating the land they wished to inhabit.

Indeed, the idea of conquering armies of ancient times salting the Earth to make it uninhabitable, which was a popular folklore motif by the Middle ages, is thought by historians to be largely fanciful.

There may have been rituals involving salt that was said to ‘curse’ the land so that the defeated could never return and grow there, but the idea of using so much salt that the Earth would be harmed beyond repair is fairly ridiculous given the precious nature of salt, the expense, as well as the logistics surrounding the amount needed to be transported to a place to kill the Earth.

The application of toxic chemicals to the Earth in modern history, however, is one of the travesties again the planet. I have said before through my work with The Morrigan, that I view Celtic battle and the life force spilt through blood on the Earth as a kind of offering to the Goddess of War. This is tied to the sacred nature of Life force within Blood.

The idea of sacrifice we have mentioned being tied to ancient mythos still survives in pagan tradition; albeit metaphorical rather than physical.

It is also usually applied to the harvest months rather than Spring, but as we know the Celtic people performed sacrifices, both animal and human, and this was directly tied to the well-being of the Land, I find it unlikely that this was not part of their spiritual path in Spring as the new seedlings sprouted.

“The best archaeological data supporting Celtic human sacrifice is the body of the man placed in Lindow bog in the first or second century C.E. We actually have the body (well, most of it) so well preserved that scientists were able to analyze his stomach contents to discover his last meal (a partially scorched grain cake). Lindow man was almost certainly a ritual sacrifice; he was strangled, hit on the head, and had his throat cut, in quick order, then surrendered to the bog. This pattern fits the “three-fold” death referred to in medieval Irish tales. What’s more, the man seems to have been of high social rank, and a willing victim.” - digitalmedievalist

Once again this highlights a key lesson of War Goddesses; that there can be multiple reactions to complicated energies. War is not a pleasant business, but it condenses your life force into a single moment, bringing complete clarity – all the reasons to resist death and keep fighting.

It also shows in my mind, how the Land may have received the blood of humans as a part of the ritual aspect of Death.

Warfare, to the Celts, was a part of life, and in so dying the balance between humankind and other life (the Land, the trees, the plants, the animals, etc.) was more maintained.

Overpopulation and destruction of the Earth is a modern issue.

Ancient forms of Warfare maintained a balance which is no longer the case.

Instead, we have to alchemize our Warrior energy, and fight to protect the Land, whenever and how so ever we can.

This does not mean sacrificing a noble to the bogs anymore (tempting as that thought can be sometimes with the rich!)

It does mean fighting those in power who see the land as something to serve their ends, which, inevitably, will be the end of the human race as well.

The Earth will outlive us. We will not survive if we keep damaging the planet this way.

I do not tell people how they should act. I think it is important to raise the issue for consideration and allow a person to find their own way.

But be it changed behaviour in ourselves, charitable donation, raising awareness… whatever we do, is echoed throughout the spiritual ecosystem.

The Land Spirits know how we are behaving, and they remember.

Joey Morris is a Celtic Creatrix and UK-based daughter of The Morrigan. She is an author, creatrix CEO of Starry Eyed Supplies, and co-owner of the What the Flux podcast.

Within the spiritual landscape, her soul mission is to deepen the understanding of our interconnectedness by honouring the sacred and exploring the masks of the self through channelling relationships to the Divine through written work, poetry, videos, products, and services.

Reclamation of the Broken Spirit by Joey Morris

 

Art by Arna Baartz

We remember.

The lost ones, the broken ones, the hurting.

We remember the moments where we stared vacantly out into the world, feeling disconnected from it.

Our illusions shattered, the promises of a fair, safe, world dissolving at our feet.

For myself, it was a moment in the back of a car, being driven away at 3am, watching the street light blur into one another in a seemingly endless parade, each light stretching thin and eventually disappearing, a weird recollection through hazy vision.

The distinct memory of dirt on the glass, and feeling like it ought to be raining.

The rain was conspicuous by its absence.

And telling myself that life would never be the same again.

It leaves a mark somewhere, those kinds of memories, that if we are not careful, we can slip back into the state of disconnection, feeling present only in body to the world around us.

The world can be a hostile place, with an aggressive stance on conformity played in front of our eyes on a seemingly endless loop, whilst we are taught to always be ashamed.

The reclamation of self begins as we start to reject conformity; the authentic self is seeking the courage to let the world see who we are without concealment of all the idiosyncrasies peculiar to our unique blend of human.

It is the acceptance of the broken self that lends itself to reigniting the fires within ourselves.

We know what it is to feel the icy grip of despair, a cruelty that goes beyond the painful into the realm of self-abandonment; we have lost touch with the world around us for moments, leaving us an observer to the patterns of it; we study and examine from a peculiar vantage point.

It is in nature that I am reminded I can be moved by what this world has to offer.

When the atmosphere cracks in thunder and destructive elements grip the sky in a ballet of force so beyond us, or the rain rolls down a leaf in softly spoken prayer, running its length before slowly descending to the dirt beneath.

Everything seems to shift in these moments, time takes on a personality of its own, slowing everything down or racing it forward, as the crows cry out or the soul feels lifted into an endless night of stars.

Was the Witch always within me? For to see the world through 'other' eyes is surely connected to that title, for all the good that titles do.

I think perhaps it was, as I stumbled through forests as a child telling stories of ancient lands and magical spirits that others could not see.

So how does one hold onto a spark of something wondrous when all else has been forcibly removed from you, when hopelessness and violence and abuse cling to your memories like dried on gory splatter?

I tell the monsters that they do not own me.

They cannot have me; I am still here.

I will mark the world in every way I can—with honour, with truth, with beauty.

In the retelling of stories both horrifying and true, refusing to be ashamed or allow others to be so conditioned, help them to refuse to be the same as one another, to discard the notion that there is a safety in those numbers, when instead, it is handing over the power to another to dictate who you are – instead of being who you want to be, who you are shaping yourself into, honouring the magickal spark within you that cannot be silenced.

I will not be the same again.

I will be more. I will stand, time and time again, between those who seek to abuse others, and rouse the war cry of the unprotected. I will remind them they do not need to apologize for how they survived, nor be taunted by a system which shuns them or encourages their silence.

I will not be the same again.

I will embody the witch. I will reclaim my wild heritage on this earth, connected to the rolling thunderstorm and the lightning that crashes, bathe myself in the vast unconquered depths of the ocean and speak to the trees to hear their voices. I will remember the forgotten dead and the disregarded spirits to harness a live wire of power and magick.

And in the face of all who mock me, I will grin with fox fangs and raven eyes in the knowing that they cannot shame me.

I will not be the same again.

I know emptiness, and so I value connection. I know lies, and so I honour truth. I know bleakness and so I liberate my senses into a system of spiritual seeking. I know hatred and so I will pour out love from my heart. I know shame, and so I reclaim my sexuality.

I stand for the broken. I stand for the lost. I stand for the hurting.

You will not have us. We will be here.

An excerpt from In Defiance of Oppression -The Legacy of Boudicca.

Joey Morris is a Celtic Creatrix and UK-based daughter of The Morrigan. She is an author, creatrix CEO of Starry Eyed Supplies, and co-owner of the What the Flux podcast.

“To become a tempered blade of The Morrigan, one must be baptized in blood and fire. These struggles within my lifetime have led me to become a voice for the voiceless, to reach out to the broken, and to poke the shadows in others so that they might begin to heal.

.Such a path is dangerous. But so are we. This is the birth of a wild witch who sees with their 'other eyes' and treads the path of edges, sharp and unusual, but filled with adventure, magick of the liminal and the in-between spaces.”  – Joey Morris

Within the spiritual landscape, her soul mission is to deepen the understanding of our interconnectedness by honouring the sacred and exploring the masks of the self through channelling relationships to the Divine through written work, poetry, videos, products, and services.