4 Muluc
Red Self-Existing Moon
Feathered Wings
Upon the Red Moon grow
Intuition rises within
Universal Waters pure
Forming a Portal
In a great Galactic Storm
Planetary Harmonics
Flow through a beating Heart
By Life Force formed
By Light informed.
©Kleomichele Leeds
Delores S. Williams
Delores S. Williams is a theologian notable for her formative role in the development of womanist theology and best known for her book, Sisters in the Wilderness. Her writings over the years have discussed the role intersecting oppressions of race, gender, and class for black women. Williams argues that black women's oppression deepens the analysis of oppression in theology. In Sisters in the Wilderness, Williams' primarily develops a rereading of the biblical figure, Hagar, to illuminate the importance of issues of reproduction and surrogacy in black women's oppression. According to Aaron McEmrys, "Williams offers a theological response to the defilement of black women. Womanism is an approach to ethics, theology, and life rooted in the experiences of African-American women". The term "Womanism" was coined by a contemporary of Williams, Alice Walker, used in her 1979 short story, "Coming Apart" and again in her 1983 essay collection, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens. Williams wrote the eighth chapter of Transforming the Faiths of our Fathers: Women Who Changed American Religion (2004), edited by Ann Braude.
Theory of womanism vs feminism
Womanism is a byproduct of Black feminism, both of which are derivatives of feminism. The emergence of both Black feminism and later Womanism is due to black women not being able to identify with the issues presented by the Feminist Movement. For the African–American woman equality would include the elimination of racism and classism, something that feminism did not directly address. Feminists' main focus was on the disparity between white men and women and did not consider the plight of black women.
The theory of womanism is intended to provide black women with a platform where they can freely relate their stories of oppression, which are inherently different from the feminist groups led by mostly middle-class white women. The goal of the womanist movement was not only to eliminate inequalities but to assist black women in reconnecting with their roots in religion and culture and to reflect and improve on "self, community, and society".
Biblical comparison
Williams eloquently articulates the plight of black women by comparing the plight of the biblical character Hagar, a concubine of Abraham. Hagar was a servant to both Abraham and his wife, Sarah. In her role as a handmaiden, Hagar gave birth to Ishmael when Sarah and Abraham were unable to conceive. Hagar's surrogacy illustrates the parallels between black women who were forced into sexual relations during slavery (reproducing enslaved children or taking care of their master's children), and after slavery as laborers in the homes of white people. Williams' work shows the different positions black women held in relation to white women and the overlooked oppression of black women in white women's theology and theory.
Feminist–womanist dialogue
Williams opened a dialogue between the two groups – feminists and womanists – to achieve a greater good. While not naïvely believing that this would eradicate racism among the two groups, Williams is assured that "all women regardless of race or class, have developed survival strategies that have helped [them to] arrive sane at [their] present social and cultural locations". She recognizes that "there has been little to no conversations among women for the purpose of swapping stories about the nature of these survival strategies". She states in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion: "We feminist-womanist women need to remember, commemorate, and lift up for ourselves and subsequent generations of women the resistance, events, and ideas that have birthed and kept alive women’s rights struggle...create resistant rituals that can be enacted wherever feminist and womanist meet to share survival strategies and plan attacks upon patriarchal and white supremacist mindsets and practices in American institutional life."*
MULUC
Kin 69: Red Self-Existing Moon
I define in order to purify
Measuring flow
I seal the process of universal water
With the self-existing tone of form
I am guided by the power of life force
I am a galactic activation portal
Enter me.
Hunab K'u is the soul of galactic culture. Hunab K'u, One Giver of Movement and measure, is the reality of unification, the cosmic unity of all spiritual life everywhere.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity,. Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2018-2019.
The Sacred Tzolk'in
Anahata Chakra (Silio Plasma)
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