Candice Wu 0:00

This episode is with special guest, Angela Yarber, who brings forward the goddess within through stories of women of color, who are often queer, the stories that call up a reflection of our self-worth, of love, resilience, strength, and also bring the intersections of sexuality and sensuality, of gender, religion, and spirituality, where it mixes with the arts and our expression.

Candice Wu 0:29

In this episode, you’ll hear inspiring and life-giving stories of women of color, who are also queer, that have led lives that can bring us so much nourishment right now and leave us feeling supported and not alone, as well as how we can bring forward a subversive sisterhood that breaks down the structures that can confine or drain us in society.

Candice Wu 0:58

Hello, and welcome. You’re listening to the Embody Podcast, a show about remembering and embodying your true nature, inner wisdom, Embodied Healing, and self-love. My name is Candice Wu, and I’m a holistic healing facilitator, intuitive coach, and artist sharing my personal journey of vulnerability, offering meditations and guided healing support, and having co-creative conversations with healers and wellness practitioners from all over the world.

Candice Wu 1:33

Welcome back, everyone to the Embody Podcast. This is such a fun episode with Reverend Dr. Angela Yarber, who is an author, artist, and I would say an advocate for marginalized women and people of color, queer people, and someone who is in her way, an activist. She’s an executive director of The Holy Women Icons Project, which is a non-profit seeking to empower marginalized women by telling the stories of revolutionary holy women through art, writing, and special events.

Candice Wu 2:08

I’m fascinated by the books that she’s authored, that are touching on the intersections of LGBT experience, spirituality, and religion, microaggression. Some of the titles of her books include The Gendered Pulpit, Dance in Scripture, Tearing Open the Heavens, Microaggressions in Ministry, and Embodying the Feminine in the Dances of the World’s Religions. These all just sound like such juicy topics, and she was a finalist for the International Penelope Niven Creative Nonfiction Award.

Candice Wu 2:43

She’s painted over 100 folk feminist icons of revolutionary women, holy women from history and mythology, and she brings those stories forward through her writing. And after 14 years of being a queer clergywoman, her job became so toxic that she left the church and traveled full time with her wife and toddler, and after two years of full-time travel, they made Hawaii their home where they also run a small off-grid Eco Retreat Center.

Candice Wu 3:10

Before we jump into the episode today, I’d like to mention that this episode is sponsored by the Ally With Death experiential and guided visualization. So this has been something that’s been out there as a guided online experience but just recently, I published the experiential which is a guided audio experience to facilitate this experience of your own death. And what this does is simulate the experience of death so that you can get really clear about what needs to die in your life, what’s ready to shut off, and what you need to do in order to feel like you are living and fully in your life force, in your essence, the next step of your journey, so it’s perfect for this conversation today, as Angela discusses, burning down some of the structures that hold us back and sloughing away the things that are not needed anymore as we ventured to the next step of our journey and as she introduces the retreat she has coming up in which you can deepen into that experience of letting go, burning down, releasing and shifting, and stepping into this new year and decade with more nourishment and sustenance spiritually and within your body.

Candice Wu 4:40

So this experience of simulating your death, letting go and rebirth thing, letting the body move through some of that experience, can bring you new life as you head into the winter and into the life that wants to come forward this spring. So as fall deepens, we just had Halloween and Day of the Dead, as we head into the dead of the winter, if you’re interested in seeing what you are ready to let go of as well and come in line with the seasonal changes, check out the experiential which is that guided audio at CandiceWu.com/death.

Candice Wu 5:22

And if you’ve previously bought the Ally With Death experience, the online experience, you should have received in your email inbox the link to the experiential, if you haven’t, feel free to reach out to me at my website Candicewu.com.

Candice Wu 5:36

I could not be more thrilled to introduce our guest today, Angela. Everything that she says just brings myself and bones so much life and fuel, food and I could not be more grateful for her here on the podcast. So without further ado, here is Angela.

Candice Wu 5:57

Okay, hello, Angela.

Angela Yarber 5:59

Hello. It’s great to be here.

Candice Wu 6:01

It’s so fabulous that you’re here. I’m really excited to have this conversation with you. And as we jump in, I just want to introduce you a little bit.

Candice Wu 6:10

You have a Ph.D. in art and religion and you’re a multimedia artist, and the author of seven books that discuss the intersections of gender and sexuality, religion and spirituality and the arts, and you’ve been an ordained queer clergywoman for 14 years.

Angela Yarber 6:29

That’s right.

Candice Wu 6:30

Wow!

Angela Yarber 6:31

That’s right, an odd combination. I’m no longer serving anywhere, but I did indeed for 14 years serve as a queer clergywoman, still queer, but not practicing as a clergywoman.

Candice Wu 6:44

It just sounds incredible your journey and I’d love to hear a bit of that journey and how you got to being a clergywoman, and then to where you are now.

Angela Yarber 6:56

Sure.

Angela Yarber 6:57

Well, I can dive right in there. It’s interesting because as a young person, as an adolescent, my plan was always to go into the performing arts, and had these lofty goals of going to Juilliard and pursuing a life in musical theatre. I did end up being a professional dancer for quite a number of years.

Angela Yarber 7:19

And as a teenager, I experienced this very conservative, religious conversion experience, where I was invited to go to a church, a Christian church, where they had free rock climbing. And so I went specifically for the free rock climbing and in the process, had this very conservative, religious experience. And what was disappointing now looking back on it is that the clergy there told me that all of my life in the performing arts and all of my talents there were things that I needed to set aside and ignore because they didn’t bring glory to God.

Angela Yarber 8:01

And so during a very pivotal time, ages 17 and 18, I kind of changed everything that I wanted to be. I was a bit of an odd, precocious teenager and that my way of rebelling at age 11 was to become a vegetarian and get involved in animals rights, and I was big into women’s rights and none of that, along with my work in the arts coincided with this church, and I felt that I had to become the version of Christianity that they handed to me. So I changed everything and went to a small liberal arts college and majored in religion and very fortunately for me, the professors there were quite progressive, and told me you know, this version of a faith tradition that was handed to you isn’t the only version. There are other versions of this, and your passion and your gifts in the arts can coincide with your faith.

Angela Yarber 8:54

And so, fortunately, there was only one year where I kind of abandoned the essence of who I am and my professors helped me piece that back together. So, at age 18, I became a youth minister, worked with middle school and high school students, and was soon ordained only a few years later when I went to seminary.

Angela Yarber 9:13

And fortunately for me, I left behind kind of that conservative tradition and started moving very rapidly back to the left, where I belonged and brought in my feminist spirituality, queer spirituality, even though I wasn’t out yet and started fusing that with the tradition where I was ordained. And so for 14 years, I serve churches, along the way, I became a pastor where I was preaching every Sunday.

Angela Yarber 9:43

And at my most recent congregation about seven years ago, we were actually the First Baptist Church in the entire world with two open lesbians as head pastors. And — yes, yeah it was a really revolutionary, amazing place to be. I loved the woman that I served with. She was really amazing. She did all of the pastoral care work, I did all the preaching and worship, and then we shared all the other responsibilities. But as you might imagine, that caused a lot of backlash and so my file folder filled with hate mail grew thicker and thicker.

Angela Yarber 10:23

We were protested by Fred Phelps and Westboro Baptist Church and amidst that even though the community was very progressive and really prided themselves on how progressive they were. I think, like many white, predominantly white, upper-middle-class, highly educated, progressive communities, they thought they were so progressive. But then when things started to shift with me being there when they looked into the pulpit each Sunday, and they saw a queer woman, and then they saw two queer women who embodied our sexuality and our gender identity quite differently, and then they saw the communities that we began to attract to the congregation which were predominantly queer, a lot of people of color, many from rural communities that didn’t have access to the education that they had access to, that change to the community was and as much as they wanted to be liberal and progressive.

Angela Yarber 11:23

A lot of people started acting out in really toxic ways with sexist and heterosexist, microaggressions, so those underhanded slights, and that really began to wear on me in ways that impacted me spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, even physically, to where I determined that it was just too toxic for me, and I needed to leave.

Angela Yarber 11:47

And in that discernment process, I went on this little retreat. It was a personal retreat for artists and activists and there I began to heal and in healing, I discerned that, it was time not just for me to leave that church, but perhaps for me to leave the church altogether. And so, I linked this to the story of Lilith, who was in Jewish Midrash or myth, she was the first woman in the Garden of Eden with Adam. And when she learned that she had to be subservient, she essentially climbed the garden’s walls and said, I’m out of here and left to set women free. And so —

Candice Wu 12:26

I love it.

Angela Yarber 12:28

Right, I followed Lilith’s footsteps and I climbed the garden’s walls to find liberation on the other side. And in so doing have created the Holy Women Icons Project where I find my vocation now as an author and an artist to help set women free and particularly marginalized women, and those who have been hurt by spirituality who perhaps have been excluded by spiritual traditions, traditional spiritual traditions or who have felt confined by them, and who looked into those halls of leadership be it pulpits or stained glass, or synagogues or mosques or temples, and they don’t see reflections of themselves.

Angela Yarber 13:06

And so in the work now that I do, I’m trying to paint in folk feminist iconography and write about women from history and mythology and in archetypes to say, there are reflections of ourselves where women, women of color, marginalized women, who can be spiritual leaders, and who can honor our deep sense of self-worth, and holiness and sacredness that resides within. And that was a bit of a long meandering response to a short question, but that’s where I find myself today.

Candice Wu 13:37

It’s amazing. I mean, I just asked you about your whole life journey so concisely.

Angela Yarber 13:44

Well, thank you.

Candice Wu 13:45

You’re welcome. And — it’s your story. I want you to talk more about Holy Women Icons Project and what I know about it is that you are painting these women, literally painting them and then you’re giving them this life, their story out into words or into some description where we can connect with that and you’re literally bringing back to life the treasures that have been hidden in the dark corners, or left behind, or as you said, confined via these spiritual figures to show us this has existed.

Angela Yarber 14:25

Yes. I feel really strongly in the notion if you can’t see it, you can’t be it.

Angela Yarber 14:32

Now, of course, there are many of us who do become what we haven’t seen, but, in part of my calling initially with being a queer clergywoman, there were a lot of times where I felt the call or the beckoning to leave, but I stayed longer than I imagined because there are a lot of queer women that you see in the pulpit. And so I felt that I’m speaking on behalf of communities who have been marginalized and excluded and whose voices have been ignored. I often say that these women, these revolutionary women that I paint and write about, are hidden in the crevices of our cannons at best or strategically erased at worst. And even worse than that, as we see in contemporary culture and throughout history, have been demonized as witches, as we see in the Puritans movement here in the United States, who continue to be violated, as we see with the #meto movement and with sexual assault. And, those women’s stories need to be heard. And they span wisdom traditions, and cultural traditions, and even a lot of women from history and mythology, who might not have had a direct spiritual tradition. Someone like Frida Kahlo or Audrey Lord, for example, but whose life legend and legacy teach us about our own self-worth.

Angela Yarber 15:56

And so in those ways, I do see them as spiritual leaders even if that’s not how they’re traditionally thought of, so kind of to lift up these stories as a way of shattering the stained glass ceiling, the regular glass ceiling and lifting up these revolutionary women upon whose shoulders we rest today, and to say everyone needs to know these stories, and then knowing them, we ourselves can be empowered and we can empower others to be and become all that we are called to be in our world.

Candice Wu 16:29

It’s beautiful, and there’s such a congruence to what you’re bringing forward and wholeness to the fact that what your passions are, the way that you can be an expression of yourself like that is spirituality. And the way that these women as you said, like Frida Kahlo and Audre Lorde, the way they live their life that is a spiritual experience that teaches us something and —

Angela Yarber 16:58

Yeah.

Candice Wu 16:59

-specifically, right? And then it’s — that it is a spiritual lesson for us all that doesn’t have to fit in the confines of a church or some sort of structure that probably created itself from that same other version that we can’t quite fit into itself.

Angela Yarber 17:20

Right. Yes, I call this kind of motley crew. At this point, I’ve painted over 100 of these women from history and mythology. So I refer to them and this community at large, folks like you and me, as the subversive Sisterhood of Saints, that somehow we formed this cloud of witnesses and in those moments for me, when life is really challenging, or I’m feeling alone or isolated, I think of all these women forming this circle around me that upholds me and keeps me stronger still, and I think of the resilience of Pauli Murray or the sister outsider notions of Audre Lorde and you know, so many things that I’ve researched and written about these women and their images that helped me to hold my head high, to stretch my arms wide off the confines of the canvas of my life, and to occupy the space in the world because we need more women in the world who are occupying more space.

Angela Yarber 18:21

We’re so often taught to make ourselves small, even physically to where we sit down, we cross our legs, we slump our shoulders, we cross our arms, and I think that something happens when we physically lift our heads, spread our shoulders wide. I often say make your shoulder blades kiss one another behind you and occupy more space because our bodies are beings, every part of us is worthwhile, and these women remind us of that.

Candice Wu 18:51

There’s such a visceral feeling of allowing and giving permission and embracing, taking up space.

Angela Yarber 18:58

Yes.

Candice Wu 19:00

Like, feeling into our own space and outside of us too, that you’re bringing up and I love this image of the subversive Sisterhood of Saints, all the women that can lift you up that do exist. And I’m curious for you today, which of these saints, which of these women are bringing you a lesson or helping you through something or guiding you right now?

Angela Yarber 19:29

I think that’s a great question, and it’s really hard, you know, out of all of these, the hundred women that I’ve painted, and also the list of hundreds more that I have yet to paint and yet to write about. But I would say the one that stands out to me the very most, who I almost always come back to is Pauli Murray.

Angela Yarber 19:50

Pauli Murray was a black woman who was a civil rights attorney, really active in the civil rights movement, but for me, even though I have degrees in this, I’m, you know, was quite literally a professor of women’s gender and sexuality studies, and was in my early 30s before I ever heard of her.

Angela Yarber 20:08

She was born and raised in North Carolina, which interestingly was where I lived when I found out about her and she went to school and then when it was time to go to law school because she wanted to work on behalf of black women, she was denied entrance into Harvard.

Angela Yarber 20:28

First, she was accepted because they thought the name Pauli was a nickname for Paul. So they thought she was a man and they accepted her and when they found out she was a woman, they took away her scholarship.

Candice Wu 20:38

Wow.

Angela Yarber 20:38

And then she applied — Yes. Then she applied to go to law school in North Carolina, and she was denied because she was black. So finally, she went to UC Berkeley. She wrote a book there that Thurgood Marshall named, many of us know from the civil rights movement, he called this book, the bible of the Civil Rights Movement, and yet I had never heard of her.

Angela Yarber 20:58

And she went on to coin the phrase, Jim Crow, to acknowledge the sexism that accompanies racism and Jim Crow laws in the south. Then, after this amazing career, she started the National Organization for Women. We typically don’t hear of her doing that either. And then in her 60s, she decided that the next phase of her vocation was ministry, and she became the first black woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. And when she presided her first Eucharist or communion, which is the body and blood, according to the tradition, or the bread and the wine of Jesus, she presided at her first Eucharist at the church where her grandmother, who was then a slave, was forcibly baptized.

Angela Yarber 21:46

And throughout it all, she also loved and had intimate relationships with other women. She wrote about how she felt that she was a man born in a woman’s body, and she started taking hormone treatments. And I think, if she had access to the language we now employ, she might have identified as transgender or as genderqueer, or gender non-binary.

Angela Yarber 22:10

And so, I think of this revolutionary woman whose story I had never even heard about, who was discriminated against because of her race, her gender, her sexuality, her gender identity. And yet, she wrote and described her life as hope as a song in a weary throat. And that she wanted to create a world where she could sing her song.

Angela Yarber 22:41

She said that one person plus one typewriter can equal a revolution and I think of the ways that she embodied resilience and whenever I faced hardships, I think of her and how she had the resilience to continue working not only on her own behalf, but on behalf of so many marginalized women and communities, and that she didn’t have access to so many of the things that I have access to today.

Angela Yarber 23:14

And so, I would say throughout it all, even though there are different phases of my life for different historical women and mythological women have offered me support and an empowerment and an inspiration, I almost always come back to Pauli Murray. And I think it’s because, I think, how on earth did I go through all of my schooling, and then, you know, a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in this field and become a professor who does precisely this work, and did not hear her story until I was, I believe, 32 or 33 years old. and so I feel that her story is one that I always want to shout from the rooftops.

Angela Yarber 23:55

And I even remember, if you’ll indulge me for another moment, Candice, I teach a college course about this, it’s called Women history and myth. And I remember the first time I taught this at Wake Forest University, I had a class where it happened to be everyone in this class was a woman. And I had a young African-American woman, she was a senior, and she was on the track team, and everyone in the class read about everyone. But then they became what I called an expert on one woman, which meant that they did a lot of extra reading, and she chose Pauli Murray. And I just remember her talking in class and tearing up and saying, how have I not heard about her story before, she’s only 21 years old.

Angela Yarber 24:35

And she was going into the field of being a teacher, and she talked about how she was going to be teaching Middle School in inner-city Charlotte. And she said, I cannot wait to tell my students about Pauli Murray and to help raise up a generation who isn’t going to have to ask in their adulthood, why haven’t I heard her story? And that’s just one little tiny example of how learning about these women offers a skills transfer, because the things that they did in their lives now we can do in our lives. But it also offers us the empowerment and the inspiration and that’s the work we do at the Holy Women Icons Project. You know, we want to help empower marginalized women by telling the stories of revolutionary holy women through art, writing, and special events.

Angela Yarber 25:23

And so oftentimes, when I’m getting bogged down and doing, you know, the marketing that I don’t know how to do, or the business side of things that I’m still trying to learn, or, you know, logging a lot of social media things for the nonprofit or something like that becomes this arduous work, I try to remember that young woman in my class, and how Pauli Murray, learning about Pauli Murray changed her life. And to try to remember that when doing this little work. Yeah.

Candice Wu 25:50

Yeah. I mean, even hearing this now I feel the same. I’ve never heard of her and her story, all the details that you told of what she endured, and also, still, she kept so much of herself even with all of that against her.

Angela Yarber 26:10

Yes.

Candice Wu 26:12

Yeah.

Angela Yarber 26:13

And just had so much courage and I hope and think over the years, you know, I started doing these paintings and the writing about them a little over a decade ago, and over the years, I’ve become more and more committed to really wanting to paint and tell the stories, particularly of women of color, and of queer women, because as a white woman doing this work, so often we lift up, for me, reflections of ourselves.

Angela Yarber 26:42

So we tell the story of Alice Paul or Jane Addams, or the Grimké sisters, who were all white women who all did revolutionary things, whose stories deserve to be heard. But I think that the stories of these marginalized women who are women of color and are queer women, their stories are even more hidden. And so I think it’s incumbent upon me with the privileges that I have to lift up those stories even higher because we all need to know those stories, everyone needs to hear them.

Candice Wu 27:12

And it’s beautiful what you’re doing too, when you said, white women can typically lift up, or maybe white people can typically lift up the reflections of themselves and yet, here you are telling the stories of queer women of color, or one or the other, or some crossover of that, and yet, you’re finding yourself in it, sounds like you’re bringing that connection to people that they can find themselves in it no matter what color or gender or sexual orientation they have in their lives.

Angela Yarber 27:46

Yes, and I think about that with these historical women and so many of the mythological or kind of Goddess figures that there’s been this history and this present reality of, you know, it’s a #Spiritualwhitewomen who appropriate the stories of others and take them only for their own.

Angela Yarber 28:05

And so I want to be really mindful and critical, and careful in the Holy Women Icons Project when lifting up these stories, especially from mythology and goddesses, not only to lift it up just for ourselves just for me to find reflections of myself, but also to say here are the uniqueness and the differences, and here are the things that we all hold in common to hold those simultaneously.

Angela Yarber 28:30

Because I think, all too often, we only lift up one and say, here all the differences, or we lift up the other and try to say, Kumbaya sisterhood, we’re all the same. Instead of saying no, there are certain uniqueness and particularities that women of color experience that I do not, that queer women experience that straight women do not, as all of those isms go and to lift up the particularities and to stand or abide in solidarity on behalf of the those who are experiencing impressions that I do not experience but to also say in the midst of all of that, we all are trying to be our authentic fullest selves. We all are trying to love and be loved and that’s a commonality that we can find to lift those up together to say, yes, there are unique differences and depressions, and there are these similarities and to and to lift those up together in ways that aren’t appropriating or wrongly taking someone’s story and making it my own.

Candice Wu 29:31

That sounds so important because they think some people are scared to lift those stories up or to bring them forward in the way you’re doing because of that kind of like, maybe the accusation of appropriation or a piece is missing, so then it feels appropriated or taken.

Angela Yarber 29:49

Yes,

Candice Wu 29:50

Right. But you’re bringing that, the sense forward of holding both, the differences and the way we can be in solidarity and commonality.

Angela Yarber 30:01

Yes. I think you just said it all perfectly. All I need to do is just add an Amen.

Candice Wu 30:06

Amen. Yeah.

Candice Wu 30:11

I want to talk more about sexuality and sensuality in the spiritual understanding. And well, really where this is coming from is I clicked on one of your Holy Women’s Icons emails, and this one was Shulamite’s.

Angela Yarber 30:31

Yes.

Candice Wu 30:32

Yes, and I loved that you offered questions for contemplation with each of these stories that were brought forward and the painting, and then the ritual exercise for this one was shimmy like a Shulamite and that every inch of your body is sacred. And you brought this question forward, of how might you understand sexuality and sensuality is spiritual. And I love that question and I wondered what comes to you now as we talk about it?

Angela Yarber 31:05

Yes. So I think, first, if it’s all right, I’ll unpack a little bit of the Shulamite’s story because I think it’s not one that’s very well known.

Angela Yarber 31:14

So it’s interesting when I was working on my comprehensive exams during my Ph.D. program of all things, I was researching the history of belly dance and I came across this reference by the author, Wendy Buenaventura, to the Shulamite in the Hebrew Bible, which is, you know, a text held a sacred for both Jews and Christians. And I thought, well, that’s interesting because that’s the tradition where I was ordained. So I have read and translated a lot of Hebrew in my day. So I wanted to go back and look at this text and its original language, so I translated the Hebrew.

Angela Yarber 31:52

And because I was a dancer and a dance historian, I was reading it all sorts of the lens of a dance historian while also translating it in Hebrews. So that’s kind of a unique thing. There’s not a lot of us who do that.

Angela Yarber 32:05

And it just caused my jaw to drop because… one: the writing, the poetry, it comes from the Song of Songs and that’s typically a story that’s lifted up by both Jews and Christians as a love poem between a man and a woman. But there are several different poems in them in the book and the text, and most of them do have male and female pronouns. But this one didn’t have any male pronouns anywhere in the text. And it keeps doting upon this lover who’s called the Shulamite, and describing her dance and it goes through her whole body, her jiggling thighs, and her shuttering breasts and her belly, which is a mound of wheat, filled with dimples, so it’s very curvy and full, and robust.

Angela Yarber 32:50

And all of the movement vocabulary, that’s the language we would use in dance, all of the movement vocabulary in Hebrew was very clearly describing a belly dance. There was no like, leaping or pirouettes or anything like that. This was shattering and shaking, the very purpose, and it was all describing the core. So kind of from the shoulders, down to the knees, which is certainly belly dance.

Angela Yarber 33:16

And interestingly, with the history of belly dance, historically, especially during this time period when it was written, it was a dance performed by women, for women, where men could not be present. And so —

Candice Wu 33:28

I didn’t know that.

Angela Yarber 33:30

Yes.

Angela Yarber 33:31

So in these confines, it was women dancing for one another often it was heterosexual in the sense that mothers were looking for spouses for their sons, but also, women would explore sexuality with one another in those spaces. And for me, it was very clear and in the reading of this text, there was no male pronoun so to me that says, the lover doting upon the Shulamite, was another woman which for me, in the sacred canon, this text of the Jewish and Christian tradition, which is often used to demoralize and demean queer people.

Angela Yarber 34:11

Here, we have this example of this erotic love poetry between two women, also doting upon a body that is clearly not the stereotypical norm in Western culture of what is lifted up as beautiful, meaning, waist-fish-thin, but is this curvy, robust, dimpled, shuttering, jiggling, that’s literally in the Hebrew text. And it’s so loving your thighs are like jewels crafted by artist’s hands. And so I don’t know about you, but for me as a woman living in Western culture, as much as I try to be body positive and fat positive and feminist and queer about my body, I’m not going to lie. I have a history of eating disorders in my body. I do a lot of body hating. And so there are a lot of times where sometimes I have to physically put my hands on my thighs and say you are like jewels crafted by artists’ hands.

Angela Yarber 35:10

You know, in this text — and think about how so many religious traditions have been used to make women hate their bodies, shame their bodies, and feel that any kind of sensuality or sexuality is something that needs to be overcome or shamed. But instead to lift that up and say, no, that’s a part of who you are, and so that’s holy and sacred, and part of your essence as well and there’s no reason to shame or judge that, but to love it and lift it up as a jewel crafted by artist hands.

Angela Yarber 35:48

And that’s hard, no matter how many times we say it, or at least it’s very hard for me and in my experience, it’s hard for a lot of women and genderqueer folk and men too, to embrace every piece of ourselves, the parts that society has deemed too big or not good enough, or not tight enough and the parts that religion have said are yucky or need to be covered, or shamed or an object of lust. But to say no, my body is a subject, every part of my body is a subject and it is worthwhile, and it is holy no matter what anyone else says about it and deserves to be loved and honored, and pleasured and respected, every inch of it.

Candice Wu 36:32

Every inch of it, and just bringing the expansion into the word holy and sacred.

Angela Yarber 36:38

Yes.

Candice Wu 36:40

You know that it’s not holy and sacred isn’t segmented and confined into those things that you’re mentioning, the things that have cost us shame and the definitions we’ve held, but holy and sacred is everything. It’s everything that we are.

Angela Yarber 36:58

And I think that’s so much of what these women from history and mythology teach us and so much of the work we do at the Holy Women Icons Project with the painting, the writing, and also the retreats and courses we lead, to try to kind of subvert these traditional notions of spirituality and to honor every piece of ourselves and everything that we do because so often the rest of the world doesn’t honor all of that. It segments us and says, you know, in the academy, we honor the brain, in spirituality, we honor the heart, in culture or popular culture, we honor, or not honor, but objectify the body. But instead to bring those three pieces together and say, education without the heart is no education at all, as Aristotle would say that, if you sever your head from your spirit, then you know, where’s the knowledge and the wisdom and if you sever your body for many of that, then you’re missing out on what your body can teach you.

Angela Yarber 37:57

For me, there are so many times with my history as a dancer, and even, you know, with running or with Yoga, or any kind of movement work that I’m doing research in my head, I’m thinking with my mind and with my heart, but then when I really sit into my body with it, that things open up, crack open and we know this with a lot of spiritual visions with their work with chakras and things like that, that sometimes your body open something up in you that, when I’m really thinking about a really tough theoretical concept, and then I decide I need to take a break and go for a run, or do some Yoga, then sometimes my body awakened something for me, it says, Oh, you know, when I was just sitting at my seat typing away on my computer, I couldn’t access that, but now my body’s enlivening it for me. Then, to try to do that work in our retreats to access all parts of ourselves that many of us go days and weeks and years and lifetimes without accessing those parts of ourselves and if we want to honor the fullness of who we are then that means our mind, our heart, and our body altogether.

Candice Wu 39:06

Beautifully said and it’s such a way to honor because in letting our body inlive in something in us, show us something, learn something from it, it’s such a different view from the common experience that I know many people have that their body is against them and then they kind of have to deal with it.

Angela Yarber 39:30

Yes.

Candice Wu 39:30

Right. This is saying, there’s something wise here and let it show you. Let it show you something that maybe your mind can’t quite get yet until it opens up this way or maybe you can’t get all together, but that you’re by holds.

Angela Yarber 39:47

Yes. I think that’s an important part of some of the ritual work I do.

Angela Yarber 39:54

When I was a seminary professor, I’ve taught courses on worship and ritual and different spiritual traditions, and then have used that kind of theoretical, alongside the practical and many of the retreats that I lead where we do some of these ritual exercises that if you just were to describe them, or read about them, they sound, Oh, that sounds effective or meaningful. But then when you do it physically with your body, whether it’s kind of this meditative body scan of checking in with every part of yourself and washing over it with love while also pulling away the judgment and shame that you’ve carried there, that physically doing it, especially in community, in a community of subversive sister saints who are doing alongside you, does something really powerful because your brain and your heart and your body are all working together. And that gives you an opportunity that we often don’t take in our everyday lives, to pause and check-in with every part of us and see what’s kind of lurking there and sometimes it stirs up issues all the way from childhood, issues of shame. And sometimes it also stirs up issues of strength to say, oh, as much of I’ve changed my thighs, you know, for whatever it is not having that perpetual pop culture thigh gap or something that we realized, Oh, you know, these thighs picked up and carried my young child on this hike. And today, instead of shaming them, I’m going to honor their strength and what they’ve carried me through, that just saying and talking about that doesn’t carry the weight and the impact of doing it in ritual and in community.

Candice Wu 41:33

I agree with that 100% and I’ve even, you know, read things and kind of minimize them. Like, oh, yeah, that sounds great, right? And then it’s just totally different when you do even the most simple thing. The thing that sounds simple to the mind, to the logic, it can be incredibly profound and life-changing or powerful. And as you’re saying, especially in the resonance of women or other sisters or people that bring more to you, more resource and support, or who are right in line with that desire and space being held.

Candice Wu 42:14

Incredibly powerful.

Angela Yarber 42:16

Yeah. Thank you. Yes.

Candice Wu 42:19

So while we’re here, you have a retreat coming up that is bringing together women.

Angela Yarber 42:25

I do.

Candice Wu 42:27

Can you tell us about it?

Angela Yarber 42:28

So, yes, I’m so excited about this and it’s actually at a retreat center with Darshan Mendoza. who you had on your podcast before runs, Akuahā Healing Center in Volcano, Hawaii, so I live on the Big Island, the nonprofit Holy Women Icons Project is on the Big Island, and I’ve led a lot of retreats in my day. But I’ve typically been invited to go somewhere to lead those retreats. So this is one where folks, women and genderqueer folks are certainly invited and of course, I believe transwomen are women, so of course, are included and invited to come out and spend New Year’s with us. So it begins December 31st, ends January 4th. And this isn’t just a new year, but this is a whole new decade. And this is the last retreat that Darshan is offering at her retreat center. So it’s this way to close this last year with gratitude, begin the new year and the new decade with intention, and it’s really for, I say, justice-minded spiritual women.

Angela Yarber 42:29

Yes.

Angela Yarber 42:48

And by that, I mean, if you’ve ever felt that spirituality excluded you or was too confining for you, or if you need a creative outlet for your spirits, if you need to see representations of other marginalized women holding creative, powerful spiritual space, if you feel so exhausted and drained from fighting the white-supremacist-sis-hetero-patriarchy.

Candice Wu 44:01

Yeah.

Angela Yarber 44:01

If you feel drained from trying to be a woman in this world, then this is a space specifically for you where we can come together to do three things simultaneously, so indulge me in this kind of analogy that I’ve created, that’s for the Holy Women Icons Project’s empowerment work, but specifically for this retreat.

Angela Yarber 44:23

I say that oftentimes women’s empowerment work is like a power saw. So stick with me on this it will come back to the retreat here. I say that it’s like a power saw because if your power saw is not working, this is a very lesbionic metaphor that I say as a queer woman: if your power saw is not working, there’s typically one of three things wrong with it, either your blade is too dull and it needs sharpening or replacement, the battery that’s charging your saw is drained and you need to recharge it or your power source is faulty so it can’t charge your battery. And I think most women’s empowerment work only focuses on the battery recharge and the blade sharpening. This is what I mean by that.

Angela Yarber 45:07

You can often go on a retreat that’s just about blade sharpening like a meditation retreat, a Yoga retreat, something where, you know, you wake up at five in the morning, you do several hours of Yoga, you eat like three pomegranate seeds for breakfast. You’re doing all of this — I’m exaggerating a bit there, but you’re doing all these —

Candice Wu 45:25

Really? I mean —

Angela Yarber 45:28

Just turning inward to focus on modifying your behaviors and your perspective and those are important things. It’s important to be mindful of your work. It’s important to turn inward and sharpen yourself to modify your behaviors in your perspective. But that isn’t the only work we need to do. So there’s that and then there’s also the self-care retreats and that’s important too, where we recharge this drained battery, right. We talked about that a lot these days of recharging so that you do a bubble bath or you have a glass of wine, or you sleep for eight hours.

Candice Wu 46:02

Right.

Angela Yarber 46:03

Do all of those things that often women don’t get to do on a regular basis because of work, parenting, etc. And so you know, you either have this kind of seemingly self-indulgent self-care, you know, relax by the pool, take a bubble bath, get a massage, or this blade sharpening, but then we forget about the power source and that is, in our society and our culture, I believe the power systems that are in place, are systematically designed to disempower marginalized people. But I think strategically… if we go through every system, whether it’s criminal justice, education, parental leave, the workplace, they’re designed to make marginalized women be exhausted. And so when we go to recharge our battery, we’re plugging it into a faulty system that’s going to make us feel as though we are less than, we are worthless or there’s something wrong with us because we aren’t feeling fully recharged. When it’s not our battery, it’s not our blade, it’s the power system.

Angela Yarber 47:19

And so on this retreat, we’re trying to bring all three of these together. We want the blade sharpened by being mindful, by turning inward, by altering some of our behaviors and our perspectives, so that we can go into this new year, a new decade, as sharp as possible. But we simultaneously want to do self-care for collective liberation. We want to go in the sauna, or sit by the pool or engage in some lavish self-care exercises, while we also examine the structures in our personal lives and in our collective society that are designed to disenfranchise us and to see how we can subvert and dismantle them.

Candice Wu 48:01

Yes.

Angela Yarber 48:03

Yes, and so I think of all of this, I think of the often-quoted piece from Audre Lorde, “caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation. And that is an act of political warfare.” And that she says that from a sister outsider perspective as a black, lesbian poet, warrior, mother.

Angela Yarber 48:27

And that on this retreat, we’re trying to do all of these things. It’s not just a social justice conference. It’s not just a self-care vacation. It’s not just a meditation retreat, for example, it’s a place for blade sharpening, to recharge, and to examine these power structures with other justice-minded spiritual women with this subversive Sisterhood of Saints and that includes our genderqueer kindred, so that in one day, we can — Yes, and one day we can be doing this — I have this intentional creative method for painting an icon so everyone there will paint their own icon of either an icon of themselves, the goddess within, so that they can pick this image and a word that’s written across the heart to be their word for the next year and for the next decade, to remind them to hold their heads hig, to stretch their arms wide, to engage in this process and with each step in the painting process, their rituals and guided writing exercises and journaling, and movement exercises and meditations and these lavish self-care rituals whether it’s you know, the sounds superficial on the surface, but whether it’s making our own body scrub and then sitting down and washing one another’s feet to slough away all the muck from the past year to then shine forth our new feet and our new face for the new decade and year. And that seems silly, but when —

Candice Wu 49:55

No, it’s gorgeous.

Angela Yarber 49:57

All the other work that we’re doing, yes. So, Not only do we get beautifully, exfoliated feet, but our feet can march forward, galvanized and empowered and enlivened into the new year to keep doing this justice work in the world, so that we aren’t completely drained, so that we can leave the retreat also with these tools to enliven us throughout the year, throughout the decade, so that we’re not doing this work alone. So that we’re surrounded by this subversive Sisterhood of Saints who enliven and inspire us still. And in so doing, we realize that we are enlivening and inspiring others, that we’re arm in arm, marching onward.

Candice Wu 50:41

Oh, my goodness!

Angela Yarber 50:42

Enlivening one another. Yes. Now, I want you to come, right?

Candice Wu 50:47

I know, I mean, didn’t you see in my mind, I was like, what am I doing for New Year? And I — Yes, oh my gosh, this gives me chills!

Candice Wu 50:58

This gives me chills and it’s so beautifully designed with this inside-outside experience that is completely whole and oh my gosh, it’s so nourishing.

Angela Yarber 51:13

Oh, thank you and it’s here at this stunning retreat center that Darshan has created, you know literally a couple of miles from Volcano National park so where new land is being formed, the goddess Pele of the volcano of Kilauea where this is a kind of new life and rebirth happening every day. So it’s this beautiful spiritual place. And you know, it’s Hawaii so you don’t get much more beautiful than that. And that we can travel together to some of these breathtaking spaces, journal in hand, and set by the crashing Pacific you know, as we see sea turtles body surfing and the waves I’m not making this up. You know, I literally walked to this yesterday.

Angela Yarber 52:00

And to be renewed and enlivened, because everyone deserves to be surrounded by beauty. And for me, I think that’s so much of the trust of our work that I believe that beauty is the end goal for justice that we’re not just working for the hungry to be given cheap processed food, or those without a home to be given a dank-rickety-shelter, but for all of us to be surrounded by beauty and inspiration, then justice has come.

Angela Yarber 52:27

And that’s part of this work that these, you know, the women and the genderqueer folks who come on these retreats are people who are doing this work in our world. So it’s a way of saying thank you for this work and now let’s nourish you so that your cup is overflowing so that when you return to your work and your world, you have enough to pour into others, that your cup isn’t dry, and that you can have the tools to take home to keep refilling your cup so that you can keep pouring out your goodness and your justice in the world like with the work that you, Candice are doing in the world through your podcasts and everything you do for all of us, for all of these amazing women who just are pouring and pouring, I want to be able to pour this work into them so that they can keep doing their work in the world and in an enlivening, nourished, cared for way.

Candice Wu 53:14

This feels like the essence of you and your work in this beautiful bang. Like, —

Angela Yarber 53:22

Thank you. Yes, I feel like we need to take a big, deep breath.

Candice Wu 53:29

Ah, thank you so much.

Angela Yarber 53:31

I realized I might have just stepped into a pulpit here so —

Candice Wu 53:36

What do you mean?

Angela Yarber 53:38

Right. Well, I think I’m just — this is, I’m so passionate about this that I realized in many ways, my amazing mother said when I left the church, she said, you know, you’re creating other pulpits in the world and the Holy Women Icons Project is now your pulpit in the world. So you know I’m preaching in a different way.

Candice Wu 53:57

Yeah.

Angela Yarber 53:58

And in ways that I hope are more expansive and more embracing and welcoming of others, because for some, when they hear that word, preach or pulpit, they want to go running in the other direction. And believe me, when I say, I get that.

Candice Wu 54:10

Right.

Angela Yarber 54:12

So in painting and writing and this retreat work, and podcasts and the work you’re doing, and I’m doing, I think that we are saying, you know that this world is beautiful and this world is also unjust, and we want to create a bridge in between, and we can imagine a more beautiful world and our work can create that, for us and for others.

Candice Wu 54:36

I feel like I can’t say anything right there, but just acknowledged what you’ve said because it’s beautiful and you are creating a more expansive pulpit. It just breaks the balance of any pulpit but is the world we live in. You’re creating that. Thank you so much.

Candice Wu 54:54

Yes, and you are as well. And I imagine that so many of your listeners are as well that, you know, we just have this amazing, I don’t know, now I might be getting too cheesy, but we just have this amazing opportunity in the world every day to give and do really beautiful things and believe me when I say, I think dismantling the patriarchy and things like that dismantling the system, those are beautiful things that need to be done that, just like Pele, this Goddess of the volcano here, she destroys —

Candice Wu 55:26

Yeah.

Angela Yarber 55:26

– in order to create and sometimes we have got to burn that stuff down in order to create new life.

Candice Wu 55:35

Yes.

Candice Wu 55:36

Well, Angela, this has been wonderful and I’m wondering if — Oh, first before we shift from the retreat, you have a very special offering for listeners.

Angela Yarber 55:48

Yes, so just for your listeners on the Embody Podcast, we’ve done a little discount or I think a big discount to get $50 off the retreat registration. So, if you go to Holywomenicons.com/groupretreats, and you register for the retreat, and you use the promo code: RETREAT2020. So all capitals, RETREAT2020, then you can get $50 off your registration.

Angela Yarber 56:18

And I also always want to say we do this work for marginalized communities, and so there are a lot of us from those communities who have the means to afford a retreat like this, and so I think, if folks do I say, by all means, please pay, but there are a lot of folks who might not have the full means and so if you really feel led and called to go, but you need a little bit more resources, we might be able to find someone who could help out with a scholarship or something.

Candice Wu 56:43

Wonderful.

Angela Yarber 56:43

So I would want if someone needs that, you know, to email me, to just go to Holywomenicons.com and contact me and, you know, I even had a woman who she can’t end up coming on this retreat, but we worked out a great deal that she’s coming here and staying in our little retreat house on my property, and going to one of the free “one day retreats” that I offer to revolutionary women so I want to work with folks and make it possible. But ultimately, I hope I would love to have you know, a dozen or 15 of these amazing subversive sister saints coming on this New Year’s retreat with us in Volcano, Hawaii

Candice Wu 57:19

Calling all subversive sisterhood saints.

Angela Yarber 57:23

Yes.

Candice Wu 57:25

Yes.

Angela Yarber 57:26

Wield your paintbrush and your hammer to smash and to create.

Candice Wu 57:32

And let’s get that fire going to burn it to the ground. And —

Angela Yarber 57:36

Yes.

Candice Wu 57:37

Bring anew.

Candice Wu 57:39

Thank you, Angela. As we close today, I love how you bring a closing blessing to each of your Holy Woman Icons emails. Would you like to bring anything here as we close today?

Angela Yarber 57:53

Yes.

Angela Yarber 57:54

I would say subversive sister saints when the world has got you down and you wonder if you cannot do this anymore, remember that you are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses of women who have gone before you and who surround you still, so hold your head high, spread your arms wide take up space for you are worthy and worthwhile.

Candice Wu 58:22

Thank you. I’m almost in tears feeling that. Thank you.

Angela Yarber 58:28

Thank you. Wonderful Is there anything else you’d like to share, Angela?

Angela Yarber 58:31

I think just the side of me that is attempting to learn business and marketing would say if you’re interested in more please head to www.holywomenicons.com/join and sign up for our weekly revolutionary email list and you can order some of our artwork or paintings, prints, sign up for an online retreat, if you can’t make it to Hawaii, order a book, all of that, anything that you buy goes directly back into the nonprofit to help empower marginalized women, and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And those connections are ones that I see as very real that expands our cloud of subversive sister saints. So I love to engage with folks, both through our email and through social media.

Candice Wu 59:19

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Angela.

Angela Yarber 59:23

Thank you.

Candice Wu 59:25

I’m so grateful Angela that you came onto the show and have shared your story, along with the stories of other women who fuel you and energize your work and your life. Thank you so much.

Candice Wu 59:38

And I can just see this image of future women, future queer, and women of color, looking towards you and what you’ve created, to enliven what they’re doing in their lives and to bring so much more ease that you’re releasing into the world, used to be ourselves.

Candice Wu 1:00:01

Thank you all for joining us and listening. Be sure to check out the Holy Women Icons Project at www.holywomenicons.com and this is where you can find the retreat as well as join Angela’s newsletter that goes out every week to offer stories of women that are similar to the story she told today.

Candice Wu 1:00:23

Thank you so much for being here. I hope you enjoyed the show today, and feel free to connect with me on my newsletter at CandiceWu.com/embody where you’ll get updates of other guests, other retreats that are going on, events and updates about me and that’s CandiceWu.com/embody. Sending you lots of love and the inspiration to come into your own holiness and sacredness in the way that it suits you. Thanks so much for joining us on the Embody Podcast and see you next time.