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Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox 

12/12/2024

As the results of the election ripple out, learn the deeper stakes involved. Get your copy of Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election today! Choose your format in the book block below. 

They tore into his and other indigenous tribes in the Americas with a passion and vengeance and violence fired by imperial ambitions, racism, greed and power-over, reptilian brain energy, unrivaled but familiar when one meditates on history and how empires so often are formed.

In her powerful book—so needed at this time of patriarchal excess—Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD, author of Women who Run With the Wolves, gave us another gift called Untie the Strong Woman: Blessed Mother’s Immaculate Love for the Wild Soul. In it 

Detail of a mural of Our Lady Of Guadalupe by L.A. muralist MUCKTOCK in the Wilmington section of Los Angeles. Photo by Joey Zanotti on Flickr.

she offers an abundance of gifts around the Lady of Guadalupe and other archetypes of the Divine Feminine.

One such gift is a poem titled “Guadalupe Is a Girl Gang Leader in Heaven.” She describes it as “a resistance prayer-poem at heart” and invites “each soul to be washed in her ferocious and tender compassion.” This clearly echoes the language used of the Divine Feminine in the Middle Ages and invoked in our recent meditations on the return of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris HERE and HERE.

Three sentences from the poem captures its mood early on:

The Virgin Mary is a girl gang leader in Heaven.
          She is a Hell’s Angel and she rides a Harley.
                   This I know for I come from people
                   Who think axle grease is holy water….
I come from people who think Confession
a necessity only the moment before a head-on collision.

Detail of “Virgin Seamstress: with the Virgen de Guadalupe being so ubiquitous, there is no real imagery of Latinas at the work that we do.” Image by Gozamos on Flickr.

The poem ends with Clarissa telling us why she prays to this Lady:

               And I pray to her.
                  I pray to her.
    I pray to her.  Mio Dio, Dio Mio,
Because she is the strongest woman I know. 

Who can deny that we need the strong feminine in our perilous 

world today with democracies stumbling and fumbling and Mother Earth being raped and neglected and her pain being ignored by far too many decision-makers?

Clarissa started up a society named after this Lady, La Sociedad de Guadalupe, a non-profit committed to La Señora’s works in the world—to broadcast strengthening stories through many means, and to promote the importance of adult literacy amongst impoverished people in our world (including literacy for  mothers especially).

Clarissa spells out for us the deeper meanings of the familiar painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The dark green mantle signifies the "earth in perpetual springtime, the time of new life arriving.” Her mantle speaks of the “golden stars of the cosmos.” Lady Wisdom is always cosmically-oriented. As 

“The Guadalupe message cannot be used for ideologies or for profit.” (2023) Pope Francis presides over the annual Guadalupe Mass at the Vatican this year on December 12.

Clarissa tells us, she is not just here or there, but everywhere.  One can never live outside her domicile.*  

To be continued

*Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD, Untie the Strong Women, pp. 40, 44, 297.

See Matthew Fox, “The Feminine Face of Divinity” and “Wisdom: Another Feminine Face of the Divine,” in Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths, pp. 117-156.

And Fox, “Sacred Marriages of Masculine and Feminine,” in Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 221-248.

And Fox, Christian Mystics: 365 Readings and Meditations.

And Fox, Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God…Including the Unnameable God, pp. 59-70.

Banner Image: “Guadalupe On Myrtle Avenue.” Photo by B.C. Lorio on Flickr.

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Queries for Contemplation

Who is the strongest woman you know?  And how do you celebrate your relationship with her?  What does she teach you in times of grief and challenge like ours?

Recommended Reading

One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths

Matthew Fox calls on all the world traditions for their wisdom and their inspiration in a work that is far more than a list of theological position papers but a new way to pray—to meditate in a global spiritual context on the wisdom all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes that are foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all the world spiritual traditions offer wisdom about each.“Reading One River, Many Wells is like entering the rich silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you read this text, you reflect, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Truly no words can fully express my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to contemporary spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit

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

Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations

As Matthew Fox notes, when an aging Albert Einstein was asked if he had any regrets, he replied, “I wish I had read more of the mystics earlier in my life.” The 365 writings in Christian Mystics represent a wide-ranging sampling of these readings for modern-day seekers of all faiths — or no faith. The visionaries quoted range from Julian of Norwich to Martin Luther King, Jr., from Thomas Merton to Dorothee Soelle and Thomas Berry.
“Our world is in crisis, and we need road maps that can ground us in wisdom, inspire us to action, and help us gather our talents in service of compassion and justice. This revolutionary book does just that. Matthew Fox takes some of the most profound spiritual teachings of the West and translates them into practical daily mediations. Study and practice these teachings. Take what’s in this book and teach it to the youth because the new generation cannot afford to suffer the spirit and ethical illiteracy of the past.” — Adam Bucko, spiritual activist and co-founder of the Reciprocity Foundation for Homeless Youth.

Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God …Including the Unnameable God

Too often, notions of God have been used as a means to control and to promote a narrow worldview. In Naming the Unnameable, renowned theologian and author Matthew Fox ignites our imaginations by offering a colorful range of Divine Names gathered from scientists and poets and mystics past and present, inviting us to always begin where true spirituality begins: from experience.
“This book is timely, important and admirably brief; it is also open ended—there are always more names to come, and none can exhaust God’s nature.” -Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, author of Science Set Free and The Presence of the Past

Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election

Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.

For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement 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 images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE. 

To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.

Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.

The Return of Father Sky: A Cosmic Mystery for Kids of All Ages

The second book in the Father Fox’s Fantastical Fables series, The Return of Father Sky helps boys and girls to celebrate a new relationship with the masculine by way of Father Sky, whose return excites joy and wonder and possibility that enlarge the soul to welcome others and all creation. Written in a rhyming Dr. Seuss-like style, this full-color, beautifully illustrated book, written by world- renowned theologian Matthew Fox weaves together modern science and classic spirituality in a whimsical, entertaining format to illustrate important truths to readers aged 4 and up. With artwork curated from illustrators around the world, this book expresses the joy and wonder of all peoples and cultures, planting seeds of respect, cooperation and hope to work together for the healing of our planet.

UPCOMING EVENTS

See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE

MONTHLY: Join Matthew Fox, Mariko Middleton, and Skylar Wilson of the Order of the Sacred Earth in a free virtual meeting for connection and networking with other mystic warriors. Last Tuesday of every month, 4:00-5:00pm PT. 
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88665302478  
Meeting ID: 886 6530 2478

Learn more at www.orderofthesacredearth.org

Join Matthew Fox for an on-site and online Advent Retreat titled “A Great Coming: Creation Spirituality and the Renewal of Religion, Humanity and Holy Mother Earth,” hosted by Immaculate Heart Community, Los Angeles. Saturday, 12/14, 9 AM -5 PM; Sunday, 12/15, 9-11 AM. 
Register HERE.

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