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Te whakatakoto o ōna kupu

AN INVITATION

We are now inviting submissions for the Jul 2025 issue of Refresh on the theme of ‘Sacred Feminine’. Essays, poetry, imagery, articles, prayer practices, reflections and prayers on this theme will all be considered. Please read the theme exploration below and email your submission to Kathryn Overall-Cass by March 14, 2025.

Refresh, July 2025

Sacred Feminine

Hildegaard von Binger | Humanity and Life

Hildegaard von Bingen | Humanity and Life

For our winter issue, we invite you to contemplate feminine dimensions of Sacred Being.

The Hebrew Scriptures reveal God as a breast-feeding mother, a fierce mother bear, an eagle hovering over her young. In the Gospels, Jesus longs to gather people like a hen gathering her chicks under her wings. Preparing to enter into his Passion, he even likens his reality to a woman going into labour, one whose ‘time has come’.

How have you encountered the Sacred Feminine in your own spiritual journey? What metaphors or experiences have revealed the feminine face of God to you? What has been the fruit of this?

How does Divine Being (which includes and transcends gender expression) shine through feminine symbols, energies and experiences?

What do our spiritual tūpuna, the Christian saints and mystics have to offer here?

In Scripture, Wisdom – Chochma (Heb) or Sophia (Grk) – is portrayed as a woman. What does this open up for you?

How might our spirituality be impoverished, or even wounded, when the Sacred Feminine is overlooked or silenced in our faith communities?

Many indigenous cultures have a deep connection to ‘Mother Earth’. How do we perceive the Sacred Feminine in our relationship with nature in Aotearoa, New Zealand? How might a Te Ao Māori perspective enrich our understanding?

Deadline for Submissions

Please send submissions by 14th March 2025 to Kathryn Overall-Cass at kathryn@sgm.org.nz.

 

Kathryn Overall-Cass, SGM Kaitiaki of Communications

Guidelines for Contributors

Note: The Refresh editor will edit contributions in accordance with Refresh’s contemplative kaupapa, our house style and to work within space restraints. A selection of articles featured in the print journal will be digitally replicated on the SGM blog.

  • Keep submissions to fewer than 1500 words

  • Send as a Word document

  • Leave one space between sentences

  • Use single quotation marks

  • Be conversational in style

  • Use conjunctions where possible

  • Use endnotes instead of footnotes

  • Use inclusive language wherever possible

  • Send images as attachments - at least 2MB

  • Send a brief bio (40 words) in a separate Word document to your submission

  • Send a head and shoulders photo (2MB) as a separate email attachment
    (not embedded in a Word document).    

 

Insights from Refresh Reader Survey

The seven most popular regular content features people voted to see in Refresh are:

  1. A contemplative prayer practice to explore.

  2. Essay: a contemplative perspective on a contemporary issue

  3. Contemplative Book Corner: highlighting noteworthy books on spiritual direction and contemplative spirituality.

  4. Contemplative poetry

  5. Kete of Knowledge: weaving voices and perspectives from Aotearoa’s multi-cultural threads.

  6. An emerging voice or trend within spiritual direction

  7. Theological reflection on contemplative spirituality.

While Refresh remains primarily a journal of contemplative spirituality, given that over 50% of our readers are spiritual directors (or in formation) we do intend to make space for content related to spiritual direction.