"We can do hard things" - take a bow

Glennon Doyle's interview with Meggan Watterson just blew my mind

I was in the middle of dreaming up a new project when I listened to Meggan Watterson’s interview on the podcast, “We Can Do Hard Things” co-hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle.

I want to share a portion of her interview here:

Divine Feminine refers to the images, stories, and voices reflecting the embodiment of the divine in the female form. It’s the female mystics, theologians and saints throughout world religion. It is also the spiritual practice of going inward in contemplative prayer or meditation and connecting to the divine from within.

This interview gives me hope that a wider audience will find its way to our corner of Substack — a small but mighty movement of people creating communities shaped by this understanding of spirituality.

Anni Ponder and I host monthly Finding Mama God gatherings, Shelly Shepherd hosts a weekly Table gathering, Heidi Mills hosts Soul Care 75. Kathleen Joan hosts a monthly gathering called Wild Wisdom Goddess Temple, Erin Duffy-Burke hosts a monthly circle called Siblings in Sophia (SiS), Ella Rozette hosts weekly Interfaith Mary Meditation Classes.

Beyond those hosting regular gatherings, our movement includes those who draw people into spiritual community through their writing— Bekah Stewart, Liz Cooledge Jenkins, Elizabeth Berget, Colette Eaton, Catherine Cowell, Dawn Klinge.

These are just a few of the resources available for people who are curious about a spirituality that incorporates the divine feminine in everyday life. One friend incorporated it into her spirituality by observing Marian feast days. As I looked for a beautiful planner including these days as a Christmas gift, I had an idea.

“What if I designed a planner that I could give to all my friends who are “divine-feminine curious?” I began imagining a sort of guidebook for this journey—beautiful images, daily practices, and a monthly set of dates tied to biographies of female saints, buried history, mythology, poetry, and stories of real people living this spirituality in our modern world.

After I listened to the podcast, I was struck by another thought: “What if everyone who was inspired by this podcast had a guide to help them take practical steps to live this spirituality? What if their curiosity about the history of the divine feminine in Christianity and other traditions transformed their lives as it has mine?”

So now I am crafting this gift to deliver to your inbox on Christmas morning. Perhaps a resolution for some of you this new year will be:

I commit to enjoying my full capacity for love and creativity,¹ through exploring spirituality with the divine feminine.

In the spirit of a “planner,” it will follow calendar months. Each month will include a new set of ideas for daily practices and activities you can add to your calendar. It will include days to recognize female saints, a few Marian feast days, reminders about the full moons and seasonal phenomenon to keep us in touch with the cycles of Mother Nature. Like a menu, choose what appeals to you.

You may notice that many of the ideas aren’t “feminine” per se. As Meggan noted, underneath the gendered language, this form of spirituality is really about contemplative prayer. For many of us, embracing divinity in female form facilitates this journey, but the path to contemplation takes many forms. If you are resistant to feminine expressions of divinity, you may want to pause and explore why, but don’t force it. This may not be your path and that’s totally okay. But, if your curiosity is leading you down this path, welcome and enjoy the ride!

The guide will include both layers of Meggan’s description of the divine feminine: activating our collective imagination around divinity in the female form and cultivating our soul to become more receptive to contemplative prayer. In our culture, we tend to live from our ego and rational mind. Our soul is neglected and becomes less acute in its ability to perceive. We must learn to strengthen our soul in comparison to these other faculties if we want to encounter Love. Each guide will be designed to enliven your soul through beauty, poetry, creativity and rest. Spending time in nature, in silence, in reading and writing nourishes our soul.

I am so excited to get started! “See you” in a few weeks!

1. Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks, Conscious Loving Ever After: How to create thriving relationships at midlife and beyond.