There is a deep connection between woman and Earth. The ability to create and sustain life is as present in the garden as it is in the womb and in the heart. And yet, to recognize the Earth as divine and to acknowledge the feminine divine have historically been deemed heretical.
 

The framing of earth- and female-divinity as heresy has plowed deep grooves into the fabric of our contemporary lives. It is no wonder that we find ourselves at the nexus of two profound crises: the increasing destruction of our environment and the erosion of bodily autonomy, for women and for those wishing to live beyond the gender-binary. Both crises are influenced by systems of power abetted by patriarchal and anthropocentric religious ideologies which have instructed us to turn away from the “earthly”-the natural world and the divinity within our own experience.
 

This artwork, among the most “digital” of my digital collages, also grapples with the evolving role of technology in shaping our connection to the Earth, to ourselves and to one another. Viewed as a large-scale print, its grainy, pixelated texture mirrors the fragmentation of our earthly, lived experience in a world increasingly mediated by screens. An unexamined relationship with technology, much like religious dogma, also offers a certain promise of transcendence—calling our attention to a digital beyond that distances us from the tangible, lived reality of our shared existence on this planet. For those who practice earth-based spirituality, perhaps this represents a kind of “new heresy”.

The images overlaid in this artwork draw from two ritual moments: my yearly “letting go” ceremony in my own garden, and a springtime women's gathering in the labyrinth as we emerged from the isolation of COVID-era lockdowns. Technology had kept us connected when physical gatherings were impossible, but it could not replicate the profound spiritual connection I feel crafting personally meaningful ritual in my garden and in the shared experience of a women’s circle on sacred ground–both of which, historically, may have led a woman to the gallows or pyre as a heretic.

Ultimately, this artwork invites us to consider the impact of “heresy” in our contemporary world. How has the label of heresy paved a pathway to contemporary ecological and social crises? At the same time, what feels “heretical” to our own deeply-held spiritual and social values? How do historic and contemporary, personal and societal definitions of sacred/profane shape our reality?