Portraits In Faith: Mirabai Starr
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ม.ค. 2020
- portraitsinfaith.org/mirabai-...
The Wild Mercy of Mirabai Starr
“All my teachers were men. And most of them were white men. Meaning, they were the pinnacle of privilege in America and they were the carriers of these lineages that were distinctly boy-shaped. Their spiritual traditions organized established dominant patriarchal religious traditions that emphasized transcendence. This kind of vertical spirituality that is all about transcending the body and the Earth about blasting up and out of our relative experience of embodiment and seeing the Earth as an allusion to be awakened from. And I bought into it because life in the body was hard. I had had all these losses. The two significant losses were my brother and my boyfriend. I was being abused. I was being sexually abused. I hated sex, I hated my body, I hated him but I couldn’t admit it because he was my spiritual teacher. And so this transcendent spirituality was right up my alley. Also not only did this masculine patriarchal sensibility emphasize transcending the body and the Earth, but it was also about perfection and purification. And so that of course increased my self-hatred exponentially because this body of mine was not right. And so if I just could beat the shit out of it and beat it into submission then maybe I could get to God. And all of these practices of purification and perfection - this whole self improvement project is designed for failure. It’s designed to disparage who we are and what we have. And so it’s taken me decades to recover from that kind of conditioning. That somehow I was impure and imperfect and if I just worked hard enough I could get right with God. And to actually reclaim and embrace my body as holy ground and this Earth as sacred. And to see that it’s not only about me. It’s about all of us and it’s about the Earth herself. And this predicament of the climate catastrophe. And the way that women and girls have been disparaged and buried and women’s wisdom has been basically erased from the religious canon across the landscape of the spiritual traditions, is intimately entwined with this disparagement of the body in this emphasis on transcendence and purification of perfection. And that the Earth herself, our beloved mother, our lover, the Earth herself has been the most tragic victim of that way of seeing and being.
[The feminine] is about recognizing our interdependence rather than our individual heroic personality traits or sets of of skills. So the feminine is about recognizing the way in which everything is interconnected. And we are all interconnected and that we all have something to bring to the table and that nobody is more special than anybody else. And so emphasizing those qualities of interconnectedness and relationship and mutual affirmation is a task that we all have and that we’re all called in some prophetic, powerful way to embody right now. That there is wisdom in feelings and emotions, in relationships, in the body itself. That the masculine paradigm has denied for millennia. And that embodied relational feeling-centered wisdom is what’s needed to save us from the brink of extinction. And therefore yes men women people of all genders can emphasize and center those values in everything that we do. And I’m really moved by the ways in which many men, privileged white men are voluntarily abdicating their own power in order to emphasize these feminine realities and hold them up and lift them up and support them. And are stepping back and allowing these feminine voices to be centered and to be prominent. And that takes a lot of courage and a lot of humility. It’s interesting, I’ve been interviewed a lot about this and many podcasts - I’ve done a lot of podcasts and I would say 90% of them are white men’s podcasts. And they are all hungry for this feminine wisdom. And so willing to step back and allow that to emerge. And every once in a while I actually have been interviewed by women who are just recapitulating the patriarchy and are being just as as bossy and controlling and ego-centered as the men that they purport to be replacing. So it’s not just about women doing what the dudes have done. It’s about all of us reclaiming our interconnectedness and the power of loving kindness. And not just those soft kind of traditionally feminine qualities of compassion and loving-kindness and mercy and unconditional forgiveness and all of those things that definitely belong to the feminine. But also the ferocity, the wildness, the overflowing creativity that can look like chaos. And the rule-breaking, the subversive elements of the feminine that disrupt those structures that are so entrenched and so rule-bound and legislative. The feminine turns it all upside down. Breaks it all open. It’s messy. It’s not pretty always. That aspect of the feminine also is is what is needed right now.”
I was born in to my dark night of the soul....46y still going. After listening to this human...I don't want my suffering to end anymore. I get it...I got it long ago....yet Mirabai...you assured me that I can go on....a bit longer.... 🙏🙏🙏❤️🙏🙏🙏.
Thank you ever so much for your presence. Very grateful for this raw wisdom 💐💐💐
St. Teresa of Avila saved my life too. Many of the words in this interview echo my own experiences. The words of Mirabi found me today. Even though I couldn’t have expressed clearly the restless searching my heart was feeling, her words opened up my mind towards a greater purpose.
I hadn't really planned on watching this. It popped up from another TH-cam. and I couldn't stop listening. Thank you Mirabai for your honesty & vulnerability
Thank you so much for this 🙏🏼🌹❤️
Mirabai is speaking the language i know ~ what my soul has known ever since time. THIS is what makes sense to me....tears and smiles
Thank you for sharing your life so authentically . God bless you.
Your bare honesty as you share your journey through your personal voice… through the “I” ( for Life does not exclude “I” ) heals my heart that lives in the heart of all Life…Thank you for your openness that that is the embodiment of of Real Life.
I love Mirabai , she is such a lovely being! A very authentic soul. Peace to you☮️🕉💜
Listening to Mirabai makes my heart sing with joy!
Thank you so much for sharing your story and your heart.This was the answer to my prayers to understand what's going on with me....yet once again a Dark Night. You are an inspiration to embrace it.🙏❣️😢😘
Love her...a beautiful soul who expresses herself in a way that makes me calm and invigorated at the same time.
Fabulous interview. Any spiritual seeker would benefit from listening to this wonderful spiritual storyteller
Two awful bourgeois American stereotypes for the price of one.
Beautiful person, enthralling speaker
I like most of the stuff she says. There were a couple red flags like: the masculine has run its course and has become rather dangerous and the grandmother being distraught that she fell in love with Christ. Goes to show, nobody's perfect. I respect and salute her dedication to her own truth. If any progress is to be made, probably this empowering of people to become masters of their own lives (i.e. follow your own truth despite the consequences) would be one of the great engines to improving the life on this planet. Gurus are fine for a while but they need to be left behind at some point too.
So touched by your heartfelt sharing- you are a free and fresh voice that speaks to my soul ( and many others too).
Love her, she is beautiful 💎
“Let us make man in our own image.... “ therefore, we are a manifestation of God.
Male and female
So maybe gods non-binary
And was put in a man’s body because back then a woman wouldn’t have been able to do that work without being killed asap