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Welcome! The Women and Religion Movement is alive and well in the 21st Century. A grassroots project started by lay leaders in the 1970s as an effort to promote examination of religious roots of sexism and patriarchy within the UUA and beyond, UU Women and Religion officially began as a task force following the unanimously-passed WOMEN AND RELIGION RESOLUTION at the 1977 UUA General Assembly. Although the Task Force was eventually sunsetted, the movement still exists in UU communities that hold Women & Religion programs and gatherings for those who identify as women. It exists at the UU General Assembly, where UUW&R brings our Store to the Exhibit Hall and occasionally hosts a gathering. And it lives in the hearts and lives of people who have been touched by the many changes inspired by this movement.

"We do not want a piece of the pie. It is still a patriarchal pie. We want to change the recipe!" -- Rosemary Matson

Whirling Rainbows

11.00
7 In Stock

By Melinda Morris Perrin.

Where Circles of Friends go to Experience Ancient Teachings

ISBN: 0-9-976108-1-6

There is power in friendship circles and experiential learning.  Whirling Rainbows is a guide to creating the lodge experience and to study the Seneca teachings of the Rainbow Wheel of Peace and the Cycles of Truth.  It is designed to companion Jamie Sams' book, The Thirteen Original Clan Mothers.

Melinda Morris Perrin is a student of Grandmother Twylah Nitsch, a certified teacher of the Seneca Indian Historical Society and the Wolf Clan Clan Teaching lodge as well as a T.E.A.M. (NEIU Teachers of Experiential and Adventure Methodology) teacher and founder of the Whirling Rainbow Lodges.  In Whirling Rainbows she passes along over twenty years of study to help others enjoy the teachings that have shaped her life.  

"I was working with Grandmother Twylah Nitsch to format a model for teaching lodges at the same time Jamie Sams was working with Grandmother and writing The Thirteen Original Clan Mothers.  Once I read what Jamie was writing, it was obvious to use the book as a tool for each Clan Mother in the circle  My goal was to empower women to independently teach and to inculcate the traditional learning embodied in a Moon Lodge.  Unlike contemporary, erroneous perceptions of women being ostracized when they were "on their Moon" , this was a gift given them, allowing them a time to come together, rest, and acquire knowledge.  When we started, I gathered a group of women from 20 to 70 and taught them the Seneca material before we 'became a Clanmother'.  These women stayed together for many years, each going deeper into the teachings each had to share.  It never got old.  The material is rich.  These Clanmothers seeded new lodges as they moved away and taught the model to friends.  There have been couples lodges of all sexual orientations.   As I now am in my 70s, I realize that for the lodges to continue a little more help and guidance is needed, hence I wrote Whirling Rainbows not to do away with the material in Jamie's wonderful book, but to enhance the lodge experience after my lifetime.  Around 2000 there were 24 lodges on-going around the US.  Since then the number has grown exponentially.  This year I returned to the lodge experience myself and am still amazed at the new revelations being brought forward by these young and older women embodying the power of each Clanmother."

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