The Next Generation of Feminine Spirituality

Photo by Cory Verellen

What Is REVEAL?
By Meggan Watterson

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REVEAL's deepest wish and greatest intention is to help women—young women in particular—to hear and to follow that quiet yet often audacious voice of their soul. It is this voice of wisdom and guidance that will help them to not only lead authentic lives but lives that are filled with meaning and purpose to create change and just flat out JOY.

Women in their 20's and 30's are entrenched in life. They are consumed with a career, a life partnership, pregnancy, motherhood and or finding or fighting for some jaw-dropping cause to help shake and shift the world toward justice.

As a feminist theologian, I was utterly bereft at the lack of female voices in the litany of theological course work my two masters degrees required me to know. Much of the theological discourse I read was fascinating, inspiring even, but it left my experience as a young embodied female absolutely unknown. Where was the spiritual experience of a woman who spoke with and from the wisdom of her body rather than denied it?

My particular generation of women in their 20's and 30's and early 40's (young to me just keeps expanding, smile) have been blessed with three waves of feminism. And we are now living out the emergence of the fourth wave of feminism- where secular feminist and fiery women of faith are coming together and understanding that faith and feminism create a soul-fueled form of activism. Hear William Blake decree, "The Voice Of Honest Indignation Is The Voice Of God."

My involvement in the women's spirituality movement has exposed me to the isolation and estrangement so many women my age have felt from their religious and faith traditions because of their feminist mores. If they stay in their church, synagogue, temple, mosque, or gurdwara, they feel as though they're betraying the feminist in them.

However, if they leave their tradition or place of worship, they have to leave a source of immense strength and support for their self and soul. As a facilitator for the Faith and Feminism Dialogues conducted by The Sister Fund and Ms. Magazine, I had the unique opportunity to meet with so many young women who have their foot caught in the door of their place of worship—undecided if they're staying or going. (Hence, the very apt title of a recently published anthology of young female catholic voices titled "From The Pews In The Back.") The lack of female representation in positions of spiritual authority, the lack of using feminine pronouns during worship services for identifying the divine, and the lack of relevance to their female experience of life had forced these young women to want to leave....and to long for more. But what? And where?

This is the great need from which REVEAL was formed. REVEAL is a spiritual home for women who have had one foot outside her place of worship. REVEAL honors and wants to amplify the spiritual voice of embodied women to begin to fill in the chasm of silence women's spiritual experience of the divine has had to endure. REVEAL is for the spiritually feral woman ready to claim and to know the true power of her own soul.

Meggan Watterson is the founder and executive director of REVEAL, a spiritual mentor, and a transformational speaker for women's spiritual empowerment. She facilitates The REDLADIES- a women's spirituality group in NYC where women come together to encourage each other to find, hear, and to follow the courageous and audacious voice of their soul. Her work has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times, Women’s Radio, Feminist.com, Feministing.com and StyleSubstanceSoul.com. She is currently working on the REVEAL anthology, titled REVEAL Generation: Fierce Feminine & Divine. www.megganwatterson.com

REVEAL is a non-profit that empowers and amplifies the next generation of feminine spirituality. REVEAL ardently believes that when a woman is spiritually empowered she is ready to heal not only herself but also the world around her!

The REVEAL conference is a transformational event that brings together emerging female spiritual leaders from diverse traditions to present their wisdom and fiery new perspectives on religion, spirituality and the body to women of all ages.