Keeping the Spirit of C:WED Alive: A Special Invitation from Eleanor and Anne
Orbis Press, Maryknoll, NY, 1994
A Note to Our C:WED Community: We are launching a special, limited fundraising drive to help cover our upcoming website hosting and technology fees. To say thank you, Eleanor is opening up her personal collection to gift original, signed copies of her out-of-print book to our supporters. Read below for the full story, the book's core pillars, and how to claim your copy before our small supply runs out!
The other morning Eleanor and I were sitting together trying to figure out how to frame this post. As we brainstormed, Eleanor laughed facetiously and said:
"Patriarchy is alive and doing very well, thank you very much!"
While these exact words are not written in the text of her book, Women, the Earth, the Divine, pictured above, that realization represents the exact spirit that led Eleanor to found, in August 1991, the nonprofit organization the Center for Women, the Earth, the Divine (C:WED).
Eleanor founded C:WED along with four other women. I was one of those founding members.
After co-authoring her first book, Created In Her Image, and founding C:WED, Eleanor wrote Women, the Earth, the Divine in 1994.
Rights to the image on the cover, which we have since made our official logo, were graciously given to C:WED by the Carmelite nun, Sr. Catherine Martin, O.Carm.
A note on the logo
In the logo design, the obvious connections to C:WED are the images of the woman and the Earth’s mountain ranges.
Less obvious is a connection to the Divine. Eleanor finds the connection in the flowing water, intuiting the water as a symbol of the Holy Spirit—the Feminine Divine.
Eleanor wrote her doctoral dissertation at Fordham University on the Holy Spirit, specifically, “The Holy Spirit in Whitehedian Process Theologians.”
She explains in Chapter 5 of her book how she came to the realization of the Holy Spirit as the Feminine Divine:
“…Her presence became more and more real to me as I wrote the dissertation. I first articulated this to myself when I had to make the choice of a pronoun to describe the Holy Spirit. Was the Spirit He, She, or It?
A deep looking within of my experience of the Holy Spirit revealed that, for me, the Spirit is a feminine presence. Ultimately, mainly for political reasons and because I knew of nowhere in the Christian scriptures and tradition where the Holy Spirit was addressed as She, I chose to call Her “It.”
However, I did so with the promise that, after graduation I would go back and investigate the scripture and tradition to see if anything recorded there resonated with my own religious experience of the Holy Spirit as feminine.
I found enough to form the basis for the book, Created in Her Image: Models of the Feminine Divine,”which I co-authored with Bernice Marie-Daly in 1990.
I have since argued for the parallels that exist between the imaging and treatment of women and the Earth, and how our images of the Divine are related to those experiences of women and the Earth.
Eleanor states, however, that “…changing the Divine language and symbol system [will not] necessarily lead to positive changes for women and the Earth.”
In Chapter 6, under the heading “The Feminine and the Major World Religions,” she discusses the effects on women of the Feminine Divine in Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam.
She writes in notes on page 145:
“I agree with Rosemary Reuther [in her book Gaia and God, 4] ‘that merely replacing a male transcendent deity with an immanent female one is an insufficient answer to the ‘god-problem.’”
“Rather,” states Eleanor, “what I see as needed is a model of the Divinity which adequately addresses both the femaile and the male aspects of the Divine.”
The Early Insight
Decades ago, Eleanor realized a harsh truth, one that is even more accurate today:
The patriarchal forces diminishing the voices, bodies, and spiritualities of women are the exact same forces exploiting our natural resources.
In Women, the Earth, the Divine, Eleanor illuminates and targets those systemic patriarchal forces, reminding readers of the harsh truth, which really does underpin our modern world: Patriarchy is alive and doing very well.
The Three Pillars i Women, the Earth, the Divine
To challenge this system, Eleanor’s book breaks down our shared crisis into three crucial, interconnected areas:
Women: Analyzing how patriarchal structures have historically dominated, suppressed, and marginalized women’s wisdom and leadership.
The Earth: Exposing how the same mentality of domination views the natural world as a passive resource to be conquered and stripped, leading to our escalating climate crisis.
The Divine: Dismantling exclusively male-centric worldviews to recover a more inclusive spirituality—one that honors the feminine principle and recognizes the sacredness of Creation.
A Prophetic Blessing
When Women, the Earth, the Divine was published, the well-respected cultural historian and American Catholic priest, Thomas Berry, CP., added this acknowledgement to its back cover:
“…Rae establishes herself once again among the most competent feminist writers of the present….”
—Thomas Berry, Author, The Dream of the Earth
Berry blessed Eleanor’s work, recognizing that her words did not just point out a problem, but offered a roadmap for cosmic healing.
He saw Women, the Earth, the Divineas a vital, prophetic voice necessary for guiding humanity into an era of mutually enhancing relationships between humans and the rest of the planet.
Going Digital
When Eleanor and I decided to move C:WED into digital format in March 2024, we were, at that time, quite sure that all, on which we had been working for the past almost 33 years regarding the connection of patriarchy to the treatment of women and the Earth, was still very relevant.
In the last few years, we have seen how correct we were!
Patriarchy operates covertly, often subtly hidden, although lately it has become shamelessly more visible. Being specifically named only occasionally, patriarchy has become front and center again.
So, what is it—Patriarchy?
Briefly, patriarchy is a deliberate societal system.
Gerda Lerner points out in her book, The Creation of Patriarchy, that this hierarchical system is at least 5,000 years old.
It is a system that sets one group of men who are considered to be superior, above everyone else, that is, above some other men and above all women. And, as Eleanor has posited in her book, also above the Earth.
What patriarchy does to both women and the Earth is to view them as commodities to be used for production, rather than as subjects in their own right. Women and the Earth are seen as products to be owned and manipulated, and then often discarded after their use has ended.
Might you be noticing echoes of this use, abuse, and discard in the saga of the adult women who are survivors of abuse as teens by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell?
Eleanor writes of patriarchy on page 46 under “An Ethic of Care “in Chapter 3 of her book:
The predominant ethic of our eroding patriachal structure may be characterized as an ethic of domination: whether it is the domination of the male over the female and/or the domination of the human over nature.
While the domination is sometimes presented in paternalistic terms, this does not negate the fact that, at its base, there lies an ethic of domination.
I (Anne) covered the patriarchal system in three previous posts:
— “PATRIARCHY: An Ethics of Domination vs. An Ethics of Care,” June 8, 2025
— “FEMICIDE and PATRIARCHY,” September 26, 2025
— ”Ecocide & Patriarchy,” October 5, 2025
Keeping Our Digital Doors Open
In our early years, C:WED was bustling with in-person retreats, lectures, and community outreach. Today, we have scaled down to focus entirely on this digital space, retaining the basic format of the original C:WED newsletter: Weaving Our Connections, which I edited for many years.
While our footprint has shifted, the digital world comes with its own realities. As we have often mentioned, keeping this website online safely requires technology management and hosting fees.
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, we rely entirely on your generosity to cover these monthly costs.
We are committed to maintaining our blog in order that what we believe is a vital ecofeminist missive will be accessible to the world.
To continue enlightening, as one way to stand up against patriarchal forces, we are seeking your help.
A Heartfelt Thank You & A Special Gift
We want to pause and extend our deepest gratitude to ourC:WED community.
Our community has always amazed us. In the past, we have been blessed by incredibly generous reader donations ranging from $10, $25, and $50, up to sizable gifts of $100 and $250.
In fact, just in the past few weeks, we received two unexpected donations that reminded us how much our shared work still matters.
Every donation goes toward supporting the technology that keeps C:WED alive.
An Invitation
To help us cover our upcoming tech fees, Eleanor has generously opened up her personal collection.
Women, the Earth, the Divineis currently out of print and difficult to find.
However, Eleanor has a limited supply of fewer than 15 brand-new, original physical copies from her personal collection.
To show our deep gratitude, we will personally mail a signed copy of this foundational ecofeminist text to anyone who supports us now with a suggested donation of $50 or more.
Eleanor will be very happy to personalize your signed copy as you please. Just let us know to whom and what you would like her to write.
Because Eleanor’s supply of gift books is so limited, we will send them on a first-come-first-serve basis as they last. We will keep you apprised of their availability.
Your financial support keeps our vital work alive. Please join us in dismantling these interconnected systems of oppression by investing in a future where both women and the Earth can heal and thrive.
How to Claim Your Book:
Please follow this easy step:
Tap or click the DONATE box below to make your tax-deductible donation of $50 or more.
Whether you can give $10, $50, or $250, your tax-deductible gift keeps our digital doors open and our shared history alive.
We so gratefully appreciate all your help.
Click Here to Support C:WED with a Tax-Deductible Donation:
IN YOUR OWN WORDS
Previous Post: "More of the Greats—Unsung Americans” Written by Anne Andersson July 24, 2026
—Another wonderful account of some great people. Well written as usual Anne. —MH
—Dear Anne, This tribute to Carolynn is so beautifully done. I have no words but ‘thank you’. As is your MO, you did your usual extra research with the inclusion of pictures of these referred unsung Americans. Bless you for your thoughtfulness and caring. 💕 —Maryanne Tuite
—Great post! 😊 It reminds me of when [our friend] pointed out to me that there were so many other important people involved in the civil rights movement besides Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. —MA
—Thank you for all your work. Throughout history there have always been so many good, smart, generous individuals who in their own unique way have helped all of us humans and all of creation in big and small ways!!! Thanks for your share. 😍😘 —EA
Click Here to Support C:WED with a Tax-Deductible Donation:
Thank you for standing with C:WED, with women, with the Earth, and with the Divine.
