This someone you should know: Lorraine Margeson, Tampa Bay's best known environment activist; a woman working on the forefront of the gulf oil spill. Her story is compelling because she is not wailing or wringing her hands, she is not standing around feeling depressed or helpless about all this nor is she ranting on net about how bad it all is without doing a thing herself. Instead, she does what I think any one of us can do; she does the good that's in front of her:
She and her husband built a three-story house with a bird-watching deck on the roof. They replaced plants from foreign lands with native vegetation. They joined Audubon, they joined Sierra, they became friends of whatever park needed them. On her block, she persuaded neighbors to stop killing rattlesnakes.
She and her husband have a computer hardware business. They would rather watch birds. They count robins. They see hummingbirds and cedar waxwings and the occasional rose-breasted grosbeak. They drive over to Fort De Soto to look at the warblers in the mulberry tree. Then they head for the beach, where Lorraine picks up trash and snarls at "idiots" who get too close to the endangered least terns that nest on the sand. She watches black skimmers. She never tires of watching the pelicans.
And now there's oil in her gulf. And it may end up here, on Lorraine's beach, where it might hurt Lorraine's birds.
So that's why she's on the phone today. That's why she is on the computer. She is networking with other people, leading their next move.
I love this story: Two best friends, separated by the Holocaust, met again last week in San Francisco:
When Holocaust survivor RenéeDuering told her life story to an oral historian in 2008, she made sure to include a message to her long-lost childhood friend:
“I have not seen or heard from Margot since 1934,” Renée said. “If you are alive, Margot, and somehow you read this, I would like to find you.”
The plea was tantamount to a message in a bottle. After 75 years, what were the odds that Margot would still be alive even if she had survived the Holocaust? That she would actually see Renée’s 23-page online history? That the two women would be healthy enough to reunite?
Yet last week, in an emotion-packed moment at San Francisco International Airport, the long-lost childhood friends reunited — after an odds-defying Internet hookup, after 7½ decades apart and after 88-year-old Margot traveled all the way from South America.
The March of the Living Honors Poland's President & First Lady
The 10,000 or so people from around the world attending the annual March of the Living walked the stretch of about 3 kilometers (2 miles) between the red-brick Auschwitz compound and the death camp’s wooden barracks section of Birkenau.
At least 1.1 million people - mostly Jews - died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz or from starvation, disease and forced labor at the camp that German Nazis built in occupied Poland during World War II, which was only liberated at the end of the war in 1945.
Many in Monday’s annual march also wore black arm bands or carried black ribbons in memory of Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, who were killed in a plane crash Saturday along with 94 others en route to WWII-era observances in western Russia.
Israeli Ambassador ZviRav-Ner read out a message in Hebrew, English and Polish saying this year’s marchers were also paying homage to Kaczynski and the other plane crash victims.
Lech Kaczynski and his wife were friends of the state of Israel and of the Jewish nation. Today we will march in solidarity with the entire Polish nation, Rav-Ner said while standing by the infamous gate with a sign reading ArbeitMachtFrei, or Work Makes You Free.
Speaking as a German-American, a Feminist and as a Pagan Woman:
My thoughts today are with those who remember that Jews, gays, gypsies, the disabled, feminists, African-Germans, rebels, thinkers and artists were destroyed by the Nazis and those who supported them.
I am German-American on my mother's side, and I grew up with relatives who had been forced into the Hitler Youth as early as 10 years old. My great-grandfather was a member of the German resistance and helped American and other pilots shot down over Germany escape through the underground. When my mother was in college some of these servicemen managed to find my great-grandfather (who was then living in the U.S.) in order to thank him for saving their lives. For this and other reasons, I dislike anyone (right or left) who carelessly calls someone they disagree with a fascist or compares their political opponent to Hitler. Those of us who study and respect our history do not use these terms carelessly for cheap political talking points. Such fools are beneath contempt.
Nor do I have much patience with Pagans and feminists from the far left (1) who like to claim that 9 million women were burned as witches as if we somehow could "win" a pain contest. For once and for all, that number is false:
For many years and in dozens of books and articles on witches and Wicca, the number of innocent people executed for the practice of witchcraft during the four centuries of active persecution has been estimated as high as nine million. In 1999, Jenny Gibbons released the results of her research in the autumn issue of PanGaia in which she verified that overall, approximately 75 percent to 80 percent of those accused of witchcraft were women, but to date (circa 1999) an examination of the official trial records of the witchcraft trials indicate that less than 15,000 definite executions occurred in all of Europe and America combined. The period of the heaviest persecutions of witches occurred during the 100 years between 1550 and 1650, Gibbons reported, and the total number of men and women accused of witchcraft who were actually hanged or burned probably did not exceed 40,000.
Wiccan author and scholar Margot Adler has noted that the source of the oft-quoted nine million witches put to death was first used by a German historian in the late eighteenth century who took the number of people killed in a witch hunt in his own German state and multiplied by the number of years various penal statutes existed, then reconfigured the number to correspond to the population of Europe. "It serves no end to perpetuate the miscalculation," Adler commented. "It's time to put away the exaggerated numbers forever."
The real numbers are bad enough, we don't need to inflate them to make a point.
Let us remember our history, our real history, so that when it comes to events like the Holocaust and The Burning Times we can say this and and support it: "Never Again".
Sia
German Poster, WWII - League of German Maids: found here.
The text reads "Every girl belongs to us" and they meant it.
Despite what appears from a modern perspective to be a misogynistic approach to the "woman's question," the Nazi movement managed to appeal to large numbers of German women by exploiting their antipathetical reaction to the vocal women's rights movement and their negative perceptions of the late Weimar era. The Nazis tapped, among women as well as men, deep sentiments of nationalism, anticommunism, and disdain for democracy. Though the Nazis proscribed women from national politics and made careers in the professions difficult, the movement succeeded by ascribing to women their own sphere of traditional domestic and social service activities. Koonz's impressive research and lively writing provide a fascinating account of the leaders, organizations, and contributions of women in the movement.
Director Stanley Kramer's socially conscious 1961 film tackles the subject of the war crime trials arising out of World War II in an earnest and straightforward fashion, exploring the consciousness of two nations as they struggle to come to terms with the aftermath of the Holocaust. Spencer Tracy plays the American judge selected to head the tribunal that will try the suspected war criminals. As he sets about his task, he must confront the raw emotion felt by the German people, and his own notions of good and evil, right and wrong. Regarded as a classic, this stark rendering of one of the most pivotal events in the 20th century features a stellar cast including Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Marlene Dietrich, a young William Shatner, and MaximillianSchell, who won an Oscar for his role as counsel for the defense for those charged with crimes against humanity. Judgment at Nuremberg is important viewing not only for the history of film, but for the history of modern times. --Robert Lane
In the United States, the nine million figure appeared in the 1978 book "Gyn/Ecology" by the influential feminist theoretician Mary Daly, who picked it up from a 19th-century American feminist, Matilda Gage.
It was also used by a (non-Pagan) 1970's radical feminist guerrilla theater group called W.I.T.C.H. The founders later admitted that they use it because they simply wanted a number that exceeded the Jewish death toll in order to shock people into awareness of "The Women's Holocaust".
The Wild Hunt recently alerted it's readers to an issue in the publishing world that many Pagan feminists had discussed amongst ourselves for some time: books on the women's spirituality movement are now no longer in high (or perhaps any?) demand by publishers. Jason writes:
“…although you may or may not have noticed, major publishers are no longer terribly interested in books on women’s spirituality. Why? Back in the ‘eighties, HarperSanFrancisco published not just me but a whole lot of great books—Carol Christ, MarijaGimbutas, Z. Budapest, LuisahTeish, Vicki Noble if I’m remembering it all right. They were the books we read, discussed, got excited about and inspired by. Then sometime in the nineties they dropped just about everyone except me—not because the books weren’t selling, but because they weren’t selling enough. They lost interest in publishing for a strong, steady niche, and only really wanted to publish blockbusters for the mass market … it had a debilitating effect on the movement. Without the books to inspire women, without new books to continue the discussions and debate, we lost ground, especially with younger women.”
Starhawk also seems to partially blame the Internet and blogging on this shift, though she hasn’t been shy in utilizing the web to fuel her own activist concerns and capitalist endeavours (one wonders how many new readers she gets from her lofty perch at the Newsweek/Washington Post-backed On Faith blog). It is true that book publishers are increasingly focused on “blockbusters”, but it’s also true that there has been a slow shift in the “New Age” book market away from Pagan/occult material and towards the Oprah-style self-empowerment/improvement genre(s). The industry is in flux, and the Pagan and Goddess-focused authors and small publishers will have to think of new ways to reach their audiences (just as the book Starhawk mentions, “Women of Wisdom”, seems to be doing).
Jason makes some interesting points here about the Internet. I have books by all of these authors in what I think of as my Second Wave Pagan library and, to a greater and lesser, extent, they have informed my path, my organizing work and my writing. That's not to say that I necessarily agree with what they wrote. In some cases these authors gave me someone to argue with with in head, enough so that I was moved to read other writers until I came to my own conclusions. I would recommend that anyone learning about Paganism for the first time have a hungry mind, a respect for historical fact over fiction and be willing to compare, contrast and take whatever they read with a healthy grain of salt. That said, I would be sorry to see some of the better ones go out of print. Will digital libraries save us or does the net's effect on books and book sales mean that fewer good books on these issues can or will be published? The issues addressed by this movement are much broader and deeper then mainstream publishers with their sub genre mindsets can comprehend and this may mean that the work moves not so much underground but down a few rows and a little to the left on store shelves. A new title, cover and blurb and some refocus of language and you have much of the same information repackaged for the new era. So stay tuned. In the meantime, this is tough on Pagan authors who thought they'd finally found a home in the publishing world and harder on new authors who had hoped to add their work to the ones already on the shelves. What is means for readers is that less insightful, inspiring work is being published at a time when Paganism and the Women's Spirituality Movement as a whole has reached a new level of maturity and relevance in an age of global intolerance and change. Good writers need to be supported and nurtured by their publishers (and their readers) so that their work can evolve and grow. We've all seen what happens when hacks write books for a hot market. As things currently stand we may well see some of the best "Pagan" information, not to mention eco-feminist and earthwise authors published under other headings. This could be a good thing in some ways. Not all Pagan authors wanted to be listed in the occult section. I would not be happy to see the topic of "Women' Spirituality" disappear from our cultural conversation. Some years ago, I was deeply sorry to see women's studies courses which, when I was at school, were powerful, bubbling cauldrons at U.S.campuses; places where women could gather to learn their history, voice their concerns and learn from one other, devolve into mere "gender studies" just because the guys felt left out (and after dominating history and culture for the last 5,000 years who could blame them?). So it goes. That is often what happens when the ideas that cultural creativesespouse finally enter the zeitgeist; what was one radical becomes more accepted. I would note, though, that this wisdom is accepted mostly by academics, feminists, humanists and the more progressive people of faith and only there in mostly comfortable and upscale areas of the blue states. Somewhere out there are a lot of little girls and teenage women who need this information. How will they get it now? I rather think they'll find it in fiction. Women (and good men) writers of fiction have long since embraced these ideas as their own.
If you have some recently titles you'd like to suggest, fiction or non, will you let me know? I'll pass them on.
Perhaps we should make July our very own book month and talk what we're reading, what we'd recommend and why.
Ellen Swallow Richards is known to have been the first woman in the United States to be accepted at a scientific school. She graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1873 and went on to become a prominent chemist. In 1887, she conducted a survey of water quality in Massachusetts. This study, the first of its kind in America, led to the Nation's first state water-quality standards.
Women have also taken the lead throughout our history in preserving our natural environment. In 1900, Maria Sanford led the Minnesota Federation of Women's Groups in their efforts to protect forestland near the Mississippi River, which eventually became the Chippewa National Forest, the first Congressionally mandated national forest. Marjory Stoneman Douglas dedicated her life to protecting and restoring the Florida Everglades. Her book, The Everglades: Rivers of Grass, published in 1947, led to the preservation of the Everglades as a National Park. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1993.
Rachel Carson brought even greater attention to the environment by exposing the dangers of certain pesticides to the environment and to human health. Her landmark 1962 book, Silent Spring, was fiercely criticized for its unconventional perspective. As early as 1963,however, President Kennedy acknowledged its importance and appointed a panel to investigate the book's findings. SilentSpring has emerged as a seminal work in environmental studies. Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1980.
Grace Thorpe, another leading environmental advocate, also connected environmental protection with human well-being by emphasizing the vulnerability of certain populations to environmental hazards. In 1992, she launched a successful campaign to organize Native Americans to oppose the storage of nuclear waste on their reservations, which she said contradicted Native American principles of stewardship of the earth. She also proposed that America invest in alternative energy sources such as hydroelectricity, solar power, and wind power.
These women helped protect our environment and our people while challenging the status quo and breaking social barriers. Their achievements inspired generations of American women and men not only to save our planet, but also to overcome obstacles and pursue their interests and talents. They join a long and proud history of American women leaders, and this month we honor the contributions of all women to our Nation.
For the Family
The Family Education website offers a timeline, a quiz and a list of activies you can do with your children. Check it out.
Women Know Stuff:
Men explain things to me, and other women, whether or not they know what they're talking about. Some men.
Every woman knows what I'm talking about. It's the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men's unsupported overconfidence.
The battle with Men Who Explain Things has trampled down many women -- of my generation, of the up-and-coming generation we need so badly, here and in Pakistan and Bolivia and Java, not to speak of the countless women who came before me and were not allowed into the laboratory, or the library, or the conversation, or the revolution, or even the category called human.
....Most women fight wars on two fronts, one for whatever the putative topic is and one simply for the right to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged to be in possession of facts and truths, to have value, to be a human being. Things have certainly gotten better, but this war won't end in my lifetime. I'm still fighting it, for myself certainly, but also for all those younger women who have something to say, in the hope that they will get to say it.
Loved it. Love Them. Thank you, ladies, for showing us all what's possible, and a hug to all the men - Yes, Virginia, they do exist, just ask Michelle Obama - who listen, who love us and who treat us like equals.
Hat tip to Echidne of the Snakes for the links to both these articles, and my special thanks for her wonderful story about the rescue of Deacon the dog. E. you made my day.
As we move forward on the wheel of the year, I would like to share this videoabout St. Brigid along with an article I found at Wren's Nest News titled From Goddess to Saint and Back Again. May Brigid's story inspire you to find your own way within the entrenched patriarchy that is still so much a part of our culture(s). Excerpt: (read the whole thing, it's well worth your time)
History and myth are particularly difficult to separate when it comes to figures such as Brigit whose lives straddled the political divide of Celtic and Christian Ireland. According to Mary Condren, director of the Institute for Feminism and Religion at Trinity College Dublin, the cult of Brigit has origins long before the historical figure we associate with the fifth-century saint. “I consider Brigit [the old Irish spelling of Brigid] to be a pre-Celtic goddess as the root of the word Brí is an indigenous European word for female divinity.”
Condren, who is the author of the Serpent and the Goddess: Women, Religion and Power in Celtic Ireland (New Island) is one of a number of academic theologians who have promoted a wider interpretation of Brigit than that which was handed down through Christian churches over the centuries. (1)
“Layers of separate traditions have intersected, making Brigit out to be one of the most contradictory figures in Irish history,”she writes. “But, it could be argued that precisely this complexity has enabled the figure of Brigit to move seemingly so effortlessly through thousands of years.”
...Brigid was already known for her great farming skills and tremendous energy. Coupled with her unwillingness to marry, these talents must have propelled her to seek land to start her monastery in Kildare. The details become a bit sketchy here but myths abound regarding her healing powers, negotiating skills and keen sense of justice.
...there is no doubt that monasteries offered women an alternative to marriage. They also gave these early holy women a place to learn to read and to write. Monasteries were also great centres of craftwork, farming and places of refuge for the poor and the sick,” explains Padraigin Clancy, folklorist and historian.
...in Christian churches in Ireland, there has also been a revival of interest in her as an icon of female spirituality outside of the more institutional (and some would say patriarchal) forms of Christian worship. One such “re-claiming of Brigid” is in SolasBhríde in Kildare where in 1992 a group of Brigidine Sisters founded a small Christian centre for Celtic spirituality and re-lit the sacred fire associated with the monastery Brigid founded in Kildare or Cill Dara, which translates as church of the oak. CáirdeBhríde (Friends of Brigid), an ecumenical community of women and men who promote peace, justice, reconciliation and care of the earth, has developed out of SolasBhríde, and the social justice organisation Action from Ireland (Afri) holds its annual conference in Kildare each year.
Women and the Goddess in Old Ireland:
It is no wonder to me that a talented woman of that time might seek fulfillment in the best way she could. This might lead her to avoid marriage (and the unending childbearing that was a woman's lot in those days) and become a leader within the framework and protection of the church while making her way right under their noses. (It is, after all, what many women still do today in churches, corporations and universities). Nor am I surprised that such a vital, creative and empowered woman might be associated with the stories surrounding the Triple Goddess of the Celts. There is a wealth of inspiration to be found in the Brigit stories and I take what I can from them, whether they come from my own tradition or someone else's. For example, Mary Condron calls Brigid a "soulsmith for the New Millennium". In an article of the same name she writes:
One hundred and thirty women from all traditions and none gathered to explore the spirit of Brigit through music, crafts, poetry,artwork, dance, and reflection: peace workers, community activists, artists, poets, psychotherapists, teachers, full time parents, musicians, and theologians.
Why Brigit? Why does her spirit still inspire today's Irish poets, artists, musicians, and soul seekers? What might the traditions of Brigit have to offer to contemporary women's search?
...Today, we draw on her pre-christian roots, the archaeo-mythology of her sites, her Christian Lives, and the rites to be found even in contemporary folklore, to bring women together in search of new cauldrons to hold, ferment, and nourish our hungry spirits. Against the backdrop of marching bands, violent oppositions, and the patriarchal mythologies...Brigit's spirit is fresh, untainted, and multivalent.
...The old dichotomies collapse under the weight of laughter; the old orthodoxies strain to the sounds of music; the old dogmas sway in the dancing of freed spirits.
The rest of this evocative and (to me) inspiring article can be found at the Institute for Feminism link below, in a PDF file. I would recommend it to anyone who studies Brigit/Brigid and the celts.
Happy Spring,
Sia
This post is for my sister Aeron who loved books, dogs, cats, cars, Brigid, gardening, and wild lands. We lost her eight years ago to breast cancer. She would have been 56 this month. Miss you, girl.
lectured and petitioned the government for the emancipation of slaves with the belief that, once the war was over, women and slaves alike would be granted the same rights as the white men. At the end of the war, however, the government saw the suffrage of women and that of the Negro as two separate issues and it was decided that the Negro vote could produce the immediate political gain, particularly in the South, that the women's vote could not.
Our time is coming...again. Progress, like evolution, often occurs in small ways over time and it can be difficult to observe. In the meantime, President Obama, you have my full support.
"I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.
"Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.
"Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.
"That your sex are naturally tyrannical is a truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute; but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up -- the harsh tide of master for the more tender and endearing one of friend.
"Why, then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity?
"Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the (servants) of your sex; regard us then as being placed by Providence under your protection, and in imitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness."
Australia was the first country in the world to give women both the right to vote in federal elections and also the right to be elected to parliament on a national basis. New Zealand granted women the right to vote in 1893.
Commonwealth women's suffrage reflected the rights of women to seek election in South Australia and to vote in Western Australia, rights granted between 1895 and 1899. However, Indigenous women were not granted suffrage until1962.
Today I would like to share two posts on love and wisdom. The first is called A Beginning Pagan's Book Lust, and you'll find it at a blog called Pagan Dawn. This thoughtful writer is on a road we all know and love, and she writes about her journey with insight and verve. I have made some book suggestions in her Comment List, after the first post on this subject titled Up For Air. If you have Pagan books that you love or favorite authors you wish to share, perhaps you will do the same.
Next is an older post by Hecate on Aphrodite and body awareness which deserves a second look. (1) Like many people, I've spent these last few weeks watching the Olympics. Women's track and field, volleyball, diving, gymnastics and other sports remind us of what a strong woman's body can look like. In my own women's circles, my time at the gym (where all shapes, ages and sizes are welcome) and my travels around the world have taught me to look for beauty in every woman I meet. Diotima is thought to have told this to Socrates:
As we progress in our lives....we grow in our conception of love. First we are stirred by the beauty of the young body. Then we begin to see the beauty in all bodies. At this point we look to the beauty of the soul. As man (sic) is able to identify the beauty in all souls, he soon appreciates the beauty in the laws, and the structure of all things. Lastly we discover the beauty of the forms, the divine ideas. Love is important for it starts and continues us on our path.
Even as our conception of beauty changes, beauty, like a lay of nature stands. The things which are held sway by ideas shift, the law however is unchanging.
Blessings on your journey,
Sia
Endnotes:
(1) Hecates writes:
She was sometimes referred to as Aphrodite, Porne, meaning: Aphrodite, the Temple Prostitute, although, as noted above, temple prostitutes were priestesses who helped worshippers to find communion with Aphrodite, so the expression was one of sacredness.
I have read this interpretation before. To many modern Pagans it sounds like a lovely idea. I have to disagree with the sexual idyll presented in most texts. My cynical side reminds me that the Greeks of this period did not respect women and used them as breeders and sexual tools. With the possible exceptions of Pericles, who loved Aspasia, Socrates, who studied under a woman named Diotima, and Plato who took women into his school of philosophy at a time when only men were educated, the ancient Greeks we study in school did not even allow that women had minds worth admiring, nor did they allow them to be independent property holders or full citizens. The patriarchal classical culture so admired by western writers did not respect women (to say the least), not even the highly educated and politically aware courtesans of the period. I would argue that the Sacred Prostitutes were in the temples, not for joy and worship, but as highly profitable, money makers. Just as the Catholic Church made much of it's money selling redemption from sin based on the fear of hell (as well as sacred relics and "pardons" to get into heaven), the ancient Greek temples made their money traveling on a different road, one that lead to a kind of sexual heaven (at least for the men involved). I question whether the girls involved (and they would have been very young girls) were what we modern Pagans tend to think of as liberated Priestesses.
Hetaeras on the other hand, were different. The EncylopediaBritannica notes that they were:
...one of a class of professional independent courtesans of ancient Greece who, besides developing physical beauty, cultivated their minds and talents to a degree far beyond that allowed to the average Attic woman. Usually living fashionably alone, or sometimes two or three together, the hetaerae enjoyed an enviable and respected position of wealth and were protected and taxed...
But often they, too, had little choice when it came to either partners or profession.
The owl was sacred to Athena, Goddess of Wisdom. Aphrodite, like Morgan le Fe, could take the form of the Owl when it pleased her. The Athenian Owl was the most influential coin of it's day, and it has a wonderful history.
Outcasts and girls with ambition that's what I want to see - Pink
Margaret was a dear friend of my mother's. A master teacher, and two decades older then Mom, she mentored my mother when she began her career as a science teacher in the early 50's. The two remained friends until Margaret died in the late 60's.
Margaret had married a older man, an widowed officer she met in 1917, during her war service. He went on to do very well in business. They loved to travel together and saw much of the world between the wars. Her husband passed on when he was in his 60's and Margaret was in her early 40's. They had not had children so by midlife, Margaret was a woman of independent means living in a time that glorified young women and dependent mothers. Rather then marry again, or party to no particular end, she choose to go back to work and teach on the East Coast. This is how two strong minded women would meet and form their friendship.
My mother loved to tell me stories about her as I was growing up; how she traveled during summer break and brought back handcrafted art from Africa, India, Asia and Europe to show to her students, (1), how she learned to speak Italian, French and Spanish in her 40's, climbed mountains in her 50's, learn to ride a horse for the first time in her 60's, and continued to do and learn and travel well into her 80's. I met her once when I was 8 when she came out to California where we lived. She brought me a present, a sweater she'd made for my favorite doll out of brightly colored, hand-dyed wool she'd bought from women weavers in Guatemala. I kept it for years. It was in my treasure box, long after the doll itself was gone. It was Margaret who bought us kids our subscription to National Geographic. I would look at those photos of other people and places and dream of traveling the world like Margaret. Growing up as a girl in the 1960's, a time when women were told that their place in the world was at best, horizontal, I found Margaret and my mother to be the inspirations I needed to sing my own heart song, rather then echo the perky, simplistic little ditties the culture wanted us to sing. (2)
So, it was with Margaret in mind that I walked into a music shop yesterday and bought my first guitar. I turn 50 this month. My guitar lessons start that same week. This something I've always wanted to do but never found the time for. That's the beautiful thing about getting older, you can pick wonderful, new adventures to have with each succeeding decade. (3)
I talk to my mother on the phone every day. She is 81. This week she began her new training for her volunteer work in a cardiovascular ward. This spring, she and her lovely dog, Sally, started their training together in a Veteran's hospital. Picture a tall, slender gray haired woman in a pink coat walking a sassy Dalmatian in her matching harness. They grace the halls, greeting the men and women there, and giving them something other then pain and boredom and yet more physical therapy to think about. Well done, Mom and Sally.
Margaret, you never had any children of your body, but you do have children of spirit. Today, I would like to honor those who have a kinship of spirit. Here's to those who inspire us to sing our own song at every stage of life.
Sia
Art
This guitar image is by the Mexican artist Hugo Rodriquez. I love the way he paints the same guitar image over and over, but in a different way each time. His work reminds me of the ways in which Monet would revisit the same subject, like haystacks or train stations or ponds, and give us a new vision with each work, each change of light. Such artists remind me to keep looking.
(1) This was long before multiculturalism was fashionable. Some people thought her art collection was primitive or quaint. She saw it as a way to broaden her student's horizons as well as her own.
(2) Years later, when I heard Pink's song, Stupid Girl, I thought, "Margaret would have loved that". When I watch Mona Lisa Smile, it reminds me of what Margaret and Mom were up against.
(3) In my late 30's and throughout my 40's it was all about building a business and working in community and taking care of my family. I still do many of these things but now I can give more time to music and travel and art. Like many women, I've had several careers and I'm looking at retraining for the next one. I like to work and I've always worked hard. I also feel compelled to give back. I know how lucky I am to have choices.
Whenever Friday the 13th comes around we hear a lot of piffle about why the number 13 is thought to be unlucky. Most web sites will pass along the old canard about Judas and the Last Supper. That's not the real story. The real story is much more interesting (and before I tell it, I will ask the indulgence of feminist and other scholars for simplifying a very long tale indeed). Here we go:
The 13 Moon Calendar - AKA the Lunar Calendar - is a 28 day calendar that dates from prehistoric times. It dovetails with a woman's menstrual cycle. The link between women's blood mysteries, and the moon is held in high esteem among many Neopagans. This calendar was used all over the world for many thousands of years, and is still used in some cultures today. For example, the ancient major holidays celebrated by Muslims, Jews, and many people in Asian and India are all based on a lunar calendar. Native Americans also used a lunar calendar, and some still use it.
The so call "Venus Laussel" image (2) dates back 25,000 years. It is one of the earliest known calendars. The Woman/Goddess figure portrayed in this neolithic carving holds a lunar crescent in her right hand. (1) It has 13 notches, one for each of the 13 moons in the lunar calendar. (Here is a note on her position in the cave and how that relates to God/ess worship of that period.)
The number 13 has long been associated with the moon, women's mysteries and the Goddess. When patriarchy (usually run by those warrior guys with the pointy spears and the horses) took hold, women were subjugated, enslaved, dehumanized and turned into chattel. Queens, priestesses, artists, healers and leaders became mere breeders who would produce soldiers for the endless wars required by the God/King of that region. Worship of the Goddess in this period was destroyed as far as was possible. Conquerors would then change the rituals, stories and myths to make Her less powerful and subject to their male, solar God. (There are many books that write about this transition, but you can start with The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler - see book notes at the bottom of this post). Anything that belonged to Woman and the Goddess (including snakes, cats, the moon and the number 13) was held to be suspect and demonized. Stories were later made up to hide the real reasons why these things were so feared.
Ever wondered why there are 13 Witches in a coven? Each witch stands for a different moon in the year.
Thirteen is certainly the most essentially female number — the average number of menstrual cycles in a year. The approximate number, too of annual cycles of the moon. When Chinese women make offerings of moon cakes, there are sure to be 13 on the platter. Thirteen is the number of blood, fertility and lunar potency.
She points out that,
Post-patriarchal mythology is also rich with symbolic references to the mystical power of 13. Besides Christ and his 12 disciples, there are Jacob and his 12 sons, Odysseus and his 12 companions, Medea and her 12 princesses, Romulous and his 12 shepherds, Roland and his 12 peers, Arthur and his 12 knights, and the head of Osiris and his 12 dismembered body parts...The United States has a full complement of significant 13’s, beginning with the original 13 colonies. The Great Seal pictures 13 stars, 13 bars, and a bald eagle sporting 13 tail feathers, holding 13 arrows and 13 olive branches. The official motto, "E PluribusUnum" contains 13 letters.
The lunar calendar is found in many cultures, from the Incan, to theDruidic to the Egyptian, to the Essene, to the Mayan, to the Polynesian and the various Asian cultures, mostly famously the Chinese calendar. The ancient Hebrews also used a lunar calendar, and they, too, worshiped the Goddess. This 13 moon calendar was used throughout neolithic times and in the period we know as "pre-history"; a time when the Goddess and her image could be found around the globe. Not surprisingly, much of the best art from this period comes from Africa, the birthplace of us all. This Christian story about the number 13 and Last Supper was simply their way to justify fear and distrust of what that number represents. The church Fathers knew that many outsiders in the Middle Ages; midwives, herbalists, alchemists, as well as "pagans and heathens" (my Celtic, Viking and German ancestors among them), were drawn to this number because they thought it was lucky, powerful or blessed in some way. The church feared it, just as they feared cats and the sexual/social power of women. This power was something they urgently sought to control.
Many people who dwelt outside of cities in those times (and thus outside much of the church's power) still lived and farmed by the lunar calendar. Among these "simple folk" may well have been those who passed along as much of the old traditions and stories as still survived.
Let me be clear. I am not one of those people who believes that humans once enjoyed a splendid, pacific matriarchy. In other words, I do not believe we ever had a civilization entirely run by women (although I'm perfectly willing to try it, now). Nor do I believe that we have ever had a human civilization of any kind that was totally without violence or conflict, although the archaeological evidence from Thera (which may have been the origin for the myth of Atlantis) and the beautiful Catalhoyuk show that we came very closeto that ideal. Even so, I've seen no scientific evidence to prove the earthwise version of Eden, beloved by so many feminist and Neo-Pagan writers, ever existed. Nor do I think that women are inherently better than men or that we could live and reign in perfect peace. (3) The problem is patriarchal systems; this is not about that nice guy next door or the one in your bed. (Well, for your sake, I hope not). If history doesn't convince you that humans are bloody minded, just look around your family dinner table during the holidays, and then tell me that humans can live closely together without conflict. Learning to handle conflict in healthy, creative and constructive ways is one of the great challenges of being human.
I believe that the sacred feminine was once honored and that in that time women enjoyed respect, power, and freedom. I believe that we, as human beings, and especially our children and elders, were all the better for it. I believe that these cultural memories and strengths, and much of our personal power, was stripped from us long ago, and that we are now taking back Her gifts. Its important for us as individuals, for our spiritual growth as a culture, and quite possibly for our survival as a species, to reclaim the Sacred Feminine. In doing so we can also retrieve a positive, earthwise connection to Mother Earthand her creatures. So, for me, as a Green Witch, a Celt, a feminist and a one who honors women's spirituality, the number 13 is a very lucky number indeed.
(1) Some scholars believe it to be a horn, possibly an early horn of plenty.
(2) The term "Venus figure" is problematic at best. Among other things, it demotes these figures to the level of sexualized icons or fertility totems, and denies them the status of revered Goddess figures.
(3) Again, let's try it for 30 generations or so, and find out.
She and her husband built a three-story house with a bird-watching deck on the roof. They replaced plants from foreign lands with native vegetation. They joined Audubon, they joined Sierra, they became friends of whatever park needed them. On her block, she persuaded neighbors to stop killing rattlesnakes.
