Spring 2022
The Spring 2022 issue is a special one. “Heavenly Mother in Critical Context” begins with Art Editor Margaret Olsen Hemming on "The Divine Feminine in Mormon Art" and continues with Margaret Toscano's "In Defense of Heavenly Mother: Her Critical Importance for Mormon Culture and Theology." Other highlights include, “Guides to Heavenly Mother: An Interview with McArthur Krishna and Bethany Brady Spalding. And love the cover? It was carefully curated by Andi Pitcher Davis. You can read more about Sara Lynne Lindsay's cover art here. The issue is full of other fascinating scholarship, as well as personal essays and poetry all in honor of Heavenly Mother.
For the first century of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, members generally did not condone artistic renderings of deity, including those of Christ.[1] It was not until the mid-twentieth century that Mormon…
Introduction Does the existence of the Heavenly Mother in Mormon theology promote heteronormativity that marginalizes gender nonconforming individuals? If so, why does the divine female, but not the divine male, bear the bulk of the…
Although the concept of Heavenly Mother is empowering for many women, the focus on God as a cisgender, heterosexual couple also limits who can see their own divinity reflected in the stories told about God.…
“Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then…
The doctrine of Heavenly Mother has long been invoked by Mormon women and Mormon feminists to posit an expanded view of gender in Mormon cosmology and offer women a tangible representation of their eternal future.…
When Dialogue asked us to write a personal article about our process of writing A Girl’s Guide to Heavenly Mother (D Street Press, 2020), we were delighted. The work Dialogue does is so important that…
Podcast version of this piece. [one] My belly is expanding. It is not as much as I had expected—nothing like the maternity models (who I suspect might not even be pregnant) who now populate my…
Podcast version of this piece. It was not in a grove of trees, and I did not see a pillar of light when I first communed with Heavenly Mother. Instead, I was lying crumpled on…
Podcast version of this piece. I try to strengthen my relationship with my Heavenly Mother, but I’m not always sure how. Some days I sing, “Heavenly Mother, are you really there? And do you hear…
Podcast version of this piece. Dear Heavenly Mother, You have been lost to me, hidden from my view behind a veil of professed sacred protection, but I am searching for you—pulling you into the light.…
If power is the ability to act, then creation is the ultimate manifestation of power. A creator is an engineer of something new, an artist of something never before seen, a musician of what has…
Embrace the first and forever night,Heartening as this Moon journeys from crestingTo full-figured, and in this ecstasy begins to fallEarthward, pulling me down to orchards heavyAnd underground, into mysteries of regeneration—soft-Bellied seeds nursing. Death-life-death, Her…
Podcast version of this piece. i. In the beginning, Mother worked yleminto a loose sphere. A swirl of stray particles, stirred by the breeze blown through herstudio window, circled her workbench, tickled her nose. She…
He makes the light and the primeval oceans and the rapturous Word, but I have the dirt the ground the chthonic underbelly and sustenance of all. I have the jewel-toned beetles and cavern cathedrals and…
Podcast version of this piece. Let us amass our wandering kicks, wondering in awe at thesecostumes her womb hath made. O Motherof the sacred hearts, sing your peasant lullabies before our every sleep. Ring like…
won’t you agree with me the heart’s a glorious organ moon jelly a ghost heart throbbing in oceanlily bulb an earth heart humming undergroundbear a furred heart curled up in cave’s dark I’m fond of hearts the way…
If there is a literal bookon a plinth of filigreed gold, and an angelstanding as sentinel at heaven’s needle-eye entrance, who’s not to sayour names appear etchedon its pages, un-erasable. Maybe no church on earthholds…
Here’s the truth: My faith remainstepid. Lukewarm as summer rain. Spew-worthy. A compass in fragments, I saved pieces: base plate, arrow, needle.Reassembly is beyond me. Millennia ago, I stood on a street corner & thumped…
I AM the children sleeping under mylar in a Texas warehouse.I AM the fathers lifting toddlers to their shoulders on our journeyto safety and rest. I’m safety and rest. But I’m mostly the motherswho’d rather…
I baptized you before you were born. After, rubbed you clean.I’ll cleanse all your wounds in season. You’ve forgottenhow to savor my holy. If you seek,you’ll find these veins run deep. See my face in…
Podcast version of this piece. They had agreedthat if she were seenthe boy wouldn’t be believedin seeing them.Nevertheless, she was there,her iridescent spherea coronaover their column of sun,reflecting,refractingthe morning.The flowers turned to her,the green of…
