For Finnish scholar Kaarina Kailo, sauna is the medicine we need in these tormented times. “In the sauna you are brought into direct contact with the holy spirit.  It's the alternative to the patriarchal church. It's the space of peace, of equality, of ritual and the sacredness that we have lost and are craving.  It's a multidimensional healing space for the body, the spirit, and the mind.” A researcher of women’s cultural studies and folklore, Northern women’s culture, goddess mythologies, I...

Every major religion in the world today features a male deity. Or as Miriam Robbins Dexter puts it: “Man was created in God's image and woman wasn't.” How does it affect women of the world - that we have no major religious symbols that reflect the female? That most religions greatly devalue women? That most religions have taboos against the female body and its life cycles? These are questions Miriam has spent her extraordinary career grappling with, and also what drove her to look into prehist...