Kathryn Knight Sonntag is a poet and landscape designer whose deep connection to nature is rooted in the Feminine Divine. She shares her poetry and insights gleaned from her personal journey in this conversation about our search for divine identity as Latter-day Saint women.
Notes:
The Tree at the Center, by Kathryn Knight Sonntag
Hedgehog
Ok ladies, so I’ve been really enjoying your podcast, but I was really apprehensive about listening to this episode given the description. I really hate the assumption that there are gifts natural to women as opposed to men… I wrote about this a good few years ago now, and I really haven’t changed my views in the interim. Anyway to save writing my response again, here’s how I feel:
https://wheatandtares.org/2013/09/12/why-talk-of-the-divine-feminine-isnt-helping-or-i-want-to-scream/
I don’t find the bifurcation to be helpful, and it seems to be assumed that all women will.
Kathryn Sonntag
Hi there, I hope it was clear that my aim was to address the need to balance masculine and feminine aspects inside each of us, and in the power structures of the world at large. Understanding what that looks like for individuals can vary in specificity, as we manifest and act differently as diverse agents in the world. I believe the divine masculine and the divine feminine reside inside each of us, but that doesn’t mean there is a prescribed way to manifest those aspects or that one must relate with certain expressions of either. I hope that makes sense. Bifurcation applies, for me, only in the existence of masculine and feminine spaces conceptually (yin and yang). The balancing and weaving of both creates harmony and unique expressions inside individuals and out in the world. Men and women have gifts natural to them, some generalizable, others not. I think part of coming to know God (and ourselves) is being able to sift out what true masculinity and true femininity are as opposed to traditions or cultural constructs. To me, it takes a balancing of both m & f perspectives and gifts to fully actualize our shared potential. Thanks for your comment.