Sacred Land Sacred Sex

Sacred Land, Sacred Sex

Sacred Land, Sacred View

Dramatic geographical formations tower over the Four Corners country in the southwestern United States. The mountains, cliffs, and sandstone spires, familiar landmarks for anglo travelers, orient Navajos both physically and spiritually. In Sacred Land, Sacred View, Robert McPherson describes the mythological significance of these landmarks. Navajos read their environment as a spiritual text: the gods created the physical world to help, teach, and protect people through an integrated system of beliefs represented in nature. The author observes that the Middle East is of "no greater import to Christians than the Dine's holy land is to Navajos." He continues: "Sacred mountains circumscribe the land, containing the junction of the San Juan River and Mancos Creek, where Born for Water invoked supernatural aid to overcome danger and death and where, at the Bear's Ears formation, good triumphed over evil." The more one learns about the Dine, the more one inevitably admires their way of perceiving and interpreting what lies just beyond the focus of human vision. Their renowned respect for nature and way of living in harmony with the environment derive from their religious traditions.

Sexuality, Religion and the Sacred

Sexuality, Religion and the Sacred is a thoughtful collection of bisexual, polysexual and pansexual scholarship on religion and spirituality. It examines how religious and spiritual traditions address sexuality, whilst also exploring the ways in which bisexually-, polysexually-, and pansexually-active people embrace religious and spiritual practice. The volume offers a comprehensive analysis of these prevalent themes by focusing on five main areas of discussion: Christian and Unitarian Discourses; Indigenous and Decolonizing Spiritual Discourses; Feminist Spiritual Discourses; Buddhist Discourses; and Neo/Pagan Discourses. Sexuality, Religion and the Sacred offers an accessible yet scholarly treatment of these topics through a collection of critical essays by academics of theology, humanities, cultural studies and social sciences, as well as sexology professionals and clergy from various faith and spiritual traditions. It gives readers an insight into the intersection of sexualities and spiritualities, and attempts to disrupt this very dichotomy through its careful consideration of a wide variety of discourses. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Bisexuality.