In this episode of In Her Image, we continue our inspiring conversation with historian and theologian Maxine Hanks.

She shares her research on the influence of women on Joseph Smith's early spiritual journey and Heavenly Mother's role in the First Vision and in the early church.

Together, we explore themes of self-discovery, personal revelation, and how women can find strength in their spiritual paths. Maxine discusses the interplay between LDS feminism, gender and sexuality, and how/who should define the Divine Feminine in the restored church. She opens up about pivotal moments in her life that drove her work and shaped her perspective, and how she has learned to trust in the Divine.

In this episode of In Her Image, we are honored to host Maxine Hanks, a renowned historian and theologian whose work focuses on women, gender, and the sacred feminine in Mormon and Christian traditions. Maxine shares her fascinating journey, including her excommunication as one of the September Six in 1993, her 15 years of ministry and interfaith chaplaincy, and her return to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2012.

We discuss the impact of her groundbreaking book, Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism, first published in 1992. Maxine reflects on her mission to recover the feminist history and theology of the Latter-day Saint tradition, creating a vital resource for those seeking to explore women’s roles in the Restoration. She also announces the upcoming reprint of the book in 2025, providing greater access to this transformative work.

Maxine’s insight into the importance of formal, informal, and personal authority offers a roadmap for integrating women’s history and theology more fully into the church today.

Maxine shares her perspective on collective vs. personal revelation, and what to do when personal revelation differs from general revelation. She emphasizes maintaining personal convictions while building bridges in love and compassion.

In this episode, Jess reads "Nephi and His Asherah" by Daniel C. Peterson.

Abstract

Asherah was the chief goddess of the Canaanites. She was El’s wife and the mother and wet nurse of the other gods. At least some Israelites worshipped her over a period from the conquest of Canaan in the second millennium before Christ to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC (the time of Lehi’s departure with his family). Asherah was associated with trees—sacred trees. The rabbinic authors of the Jewish Mishna (second–third century ad) explain the asherah as a tree that was worshipped. In 1 Nephi 11, Nephi considers the meaning of the tree of life as he sees it in vision. In answer, he receives a vision of “a virgin, . . . the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.” The answer to his question about the meaning of the tree lies in the virgin mother with her child. The virgin is the tree in some sense and Nephi accepted this as an answer to his question. As an Israelite living at the end of the seventh century and during the early sixth century before Christ, he recognized an answer to his question about a marvelous tree in the otherwise unexplained image of a virginal mother and her divine child—not that what he saw and how he interpreted those things were perfectly obvious. What he “read” from the symbolic vision was culturally colored. Nephi’s vision reflects a meaning of the “sacred tree” that is unique to the ancient Near East. Asherah is also associated with biblical wisdom literature. Wisdom, a female, appears as the wife of God and represents life.

Peterson, Daniel C. (2000) "Nephi and His Asherah," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies: Vol. 9: No. 2, Article 4.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol9/iss2/4

Emily Carolynn Baker rejoins us on the podcast to share about an upcoming social media "flash mob" and exciting Divine Feminine Summit! To participate in the social media sharing, called a "thunderclap", post a photo of your hand with the words "Divine Feminine Matters" written on it at 11:11 MST on your social media platform of choice. Caption the post, "The Divine Feminine Matters because ______" and fill in the blank!

So many have been on a journey seeking Heavenly Mother/the Feminine Divine for months or years, and this is an opportunity to share why that matters to you. We matter, She matters, and it's time to be brave and share why!

Emily also announces a Divine Feminine Summit happening Jan 31 and Feb 1, 2025 with presenters such as Dr. Julie Hanks and Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife. You won't want to miss it!

We hope you enjoy this episode and watching the flood of social media posts on Friday. You are not alone!

Links:

THUNDERCLAP INFORMATION:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DEyucGwOrZ7/?igsh=Zm9pMndsaW9nMzBh

Anonymous post form submission: https://forms.gle/KSNqywAV168hTCeh7

Thunder clap reminders via text and email: https://calendly.com/thespiritualcollab/divine-feminine-thunderclap-reminders

Tickets for online summit: https://divinefeminine.live/

Instagram account: @thespiritualcollab

Co-Organizers of Event: @that.lds.energy.gal @latterdayawakening and @enochsears

Send requests to collaborate to [email protected] or [email protected]

Julie Dean Richards is a Wife, Mother-of-three, doula, herbalist, astrologer, numerologist, attorney, and the Co-Founder of Feminine Alychemst: School of the Deep Feminine. She is also the co-host of the podcast "Feminine Alchemy". Before completing her doctorate degree in law,  Julie worked in research for 7 years.  She consulted high-touch clients such as Harvard, Yale, Standford, and Google on creating and completing peer reviewed and other research projects. She has lived in 3 countries and speaks 5 languages. Julie has always been deeply spiritual; a follower of Christ and interested in the divine feminine, the quantum field, spirituality, and esoteric topics. She is an advocate for bodily autonomy including home and free birth. Julie balances logic and wisdom by combining nature's rhythms, modern astrology, science, and law to help her clients realize their greatest potential. 

Links:
Connecting to the Divine Feminine Guide:

https://www.femininealchemyst.com/divine-feminine-guide

School: https://www.femininealchemyst.com/

Podcast: https://femininealchemy.buzzsprout.com/1835081

Website: https://astrologicalattorney.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/astrologicalattorney?igsh=MTJ4dTZrYmhrN2d5bw==

Meg Rittmanic shares her plans for her contribution to the podcast for this season. At minute 13 Meg shares a talk she gave in her ward about Heavenly Mother on Mother's Day. This talk is a great place to start to connect the dots around Heavenly Mother's story in scripture. Join Meg in a journey to come to understand Her attributes, Her healing love, Her mission, and how exciting it is to help in restoring truths about Her!

Join us.

In this special pre-Christmas episode, host Jessica Woodbury welcomes artist Brittany Nguyen to discuss her spiritual journey and artistic exploration of Heavenly Mother. Brittany shares the inspiration behind her breathtaking painting Entrusted, which depicts Mary, Baby Jesus, and a divine, loving Heavenly Mother blessing them. The conversation delves into Brittany's personal experiences as a mother, her awakening to Heavenly Mother, and how she channels her faith and creativity into her art. Brittany also introduces her children’s coloring book about Heavenly Parents and reflects on how her relationship with Heavenly Mother has influenced her as a woman, mother, and artist. This heartfelt discussion invites listeners to celebrate the season with a renewed perspective on divine love and family.

Connect with Brittany Nguyen:

Follow In Her Image:

In today’s episode we will be addressing feminism, violence against women and embracing our unique gifts as women with the ability to understand our power as a priestess, officiating as apprentices to our heavenly mother. It may seem random, but we’re going to tie together as we talk about what it takes to become a Zion type community.

Today I’m interviewing Dr. Valerie Hudson a major thought leader when it comes to priestisthood and embracing the theology of heavenly mother, dr. Hudson has published several articles under the pen name of VH Kessler in regards to these ideas on square 2. In our next episode will be doing a reading of some of these articles.

Her spiritual work is a passion project that runs alongside her academic work where Dr. Valerie Hudson is a Distinguished scholar and expert on international security and foreign policy, she specializes in analysis of the relationship between gender and security, Dr. Hudson has developed a nation-by-nation database, called the WomanStats Database, containing empirical work linking the security of women to the security of states that is used by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the United Nations, and International Security. she has been named the top 100 most Influential Global Thinkers by foreign policy. Her findings have been widely published. She has also authored several books on the Security Implications of how Sex Shapes Governance and National Security world wide. Dr. Hudson sees her esteemed academic work and her spiritual journey playing hand and hand as she understands intimately violence against women and what she calls the curse of nations and how and what we must do to overcome the historical predicament of violence against women and the potential consequences if we do not overcome this horrific situation.

In this podcast, we cover some amazing ground, there are definitely adult themes that are difficult to grapple with and may be inappropriate for little ears. We cover violence against women that could potentially be triggering if you have been exposed to these horrors. We encourage you to honor wherever you’re at on these issues. If you feel like you need to skip our discussion about violence against women, you could skip to minute 45 where we will be focused on the helpful tools for embracing our full potential as women. With that said let’s go ahead and jump right into my interview with Dr. Valerie Hudson.

In this short episode, Jessica Woodbury records a few additional thoughts about the topic of Joseph Smith and his possible involvement in the practice of polygamy referred to in episode 145. She emphasizes taking the time to listen to women's stories and becoming thoughtful consumers of our sources of historical information. She also shares how this discussion around Joseph's polygamy can often be triggering for women when it feels like individuals may be following societal patterns of undermining the belief in women's stories for the sake of the protection of an influential man. She shares a few resources that can help individuals seek out the stories and words of women involved, including the books In Sacred Loneliness, by Todd Compton (https://a.co/d/1hln4BX) and In Sacred Loneliness: The Documents (https://a.co/d/5ItoGZa), also by Todd Compton. 

Have you ever asked yourself, 'is there more than one Heavenly Mother? Will we practice eternal polygamy?' The scriptures actually directly answer these questions. Join Meg Rittmanic in a conversation with Jocelyn Pedersen as they address this topic and how this corruption is hurting us and Heavenly Mother. 

Jocelyn Pedersen  is a mother and grandmother currently residing in Utah with her husband and two of her children.  She uses social media and the non profits she has helped to establish in the US to educate patients, the public, and medical providers about the risks of psychiatric drugs and how to safely taper off of them. 

Along with this, Jocelyn followed the call in 2020 to begin a second platform, The Teachings of Jesus Christ blog and channel, where she has evolved from sharing brief non denominational messages on healing and coming unto Christ, to more deep doctrinal dives covering a range of topics from Isaiah, to the Divine Feminine, and The Second Coming of Jesus Christ. 

When Jocelyn isn't busy homeschooling her son, writing her new book,  All things In One: Courageously Claiming Our Divine Destiny In Zion, or feeding the chickens,  you can usually find her forcing her family to watch old black-and-white movies with her, or rocking out to big band music.