Elizabeth Cunningham

Resurrections by Elizabeth Cunningham

As a minister’s daughter, I grew up almost literally in the church, its red door and ivied walls across the driveway from the rectory. On Easter the church was packed; every family received a pink or red geranium. There were Easter egg hunts, baskets stocked with chocolate rabbits and the jelly beans these magical creatures laid. The church rang with triumphant hymns: Jesus Christ is risen today. Although like all children I reveled in holidays involving excessive sweets, it was not the candy or the or the requisite rejoicing that moved me most.

It was the women, or in the Gospel according to John, the woman, bereft and brave, who went to the tomb to tend Jesus’s body. The male disciples had scattered and gone into hiding. In the Protestant Episcopal Church, Christmas Eve and Easter were the only times women played a prominent role in the story. Those were not the loud, triumphant moments. They lived in my child’s imagination as the quiet, mysterious times, Mary giving birth in the night attended by cows, donkeys, and stars. Dawn in a garden, wet with dew, the only sound birds waking and singing, the only people, the women, or the one woman who captured my imagination and, in my story, has her own apotheosis on that morning.

I did not question the miracle of resurrection. Miracles and magic made sense to me as a child. Theology didn’t. My father liked to expound on Jesus’s utterance from the cross “My God, my God why hast though forsaken me.” He insisted that Jesus was not crying out in despair but quoting Psalm 22, which ends in triumph. The Gospel narratives emphasize Jesus’s rising again “in accordance with the scriptures,” implying that he knew he would come back to life on the third day.

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Ancient Dreamer by Elizabeth Cunningham

Raised view fallen autumn leaves deciduous trees

The poems below are excerpted from my new (I hope forthcoming) collection, Tell Me the Story Again. Ancient dreamer’s voice is one among many voices including sorrow singer, temple sweeper, sword woman, morose fool, merry drunk, grey cat and mouse, stone mountain, skeleton woman, mother rain and many more. The voices speak from a time perhaps just after (or long before) our time, in a real and magical world.

I chose to excerpt ancient dreamer’s poems because winter is the time, in Celtic lore, of the Cailleach, the old one, the divine hag. When I began writing the poems in 2014, my mother-in-law, then age 101, was in the last stages of her life. She slept and dreamed most of the time, and I would sit and daydream with her. She died two months before her 102^nd birthday. When I took up the collection again in 2018 to complete it, ancient dreamer remained a strong presence and has the last word.

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Fierce Heart: The Power of Women’s Voices by Elizabeth Cunningham

“Women, when you begin to make fierce sounds on your own, don’t be surprised if it’s difficult at first. Start gently. Get close to the earth. These sounds may bring up memories, emotions. Have a way to work with them. When you get together to make fierce sounds with other women, experiment. Try a growl, a howl. You are sounding for all the beings that have no voice. It’s bigger than your personal story. The sounds of outraged women have not been heard collectively on this planet for a long time. Let them out. We are a force of nature. It’s time to quit being afraid of our power. Many women are terrified of their outrage. They confuse it with anger. Anger is a small, though intense, emotion. Outrage is rooted in love. It’s ok. Understand it’s time. Time for these sounds to come out.” –Rebecca Singer, founder of the Fierce Heart movement

One hot summer day my friend Rebecca and I both participated in local marches in different towns in support of immigrants’ rights. A lively band called Tinhorn Uprising led our march in song. At Rebecca’s march there were choruses of an oft heard call and response: “Tell me what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!” Nothing wrong with the sentiment, but Rebecca suddenly knew she was done with the old chestnuts, chants and songs. A powerful vision came to her:

Thousands of women in the streets, roaring, howling, banging pots and pans, beating drums, sounding their outrage on behalf of the planet. Women in an ancient lineage of women, raising their voices together, making fierce sounds beyond words. Continue reading “Fierce Heart: The Power of Women’s Voices by Elizabeth Cunningham”

Did You Have to Make Her a Prostitute? by Elizabeth Cunningham

When I toured with The Passion of Mary Magdalen, opening by belting out the first paragraphs of the novel’s prologue in song, (ending with the line “when only a whore is awake!”) that question almost always came up. In celebration of Mary Magdalen’s feast day, I’d like to offer answers that continue to evolve.

There is no scriptural evidence that Mary Magdalen was a prostitute. In a sermon, 6^th century Pope Gregory I gave as his opinion: “This woman, whom Luke calls a sinner and John calls Mary, I think is the Mary from whom Mark reports that seven demons were cast out.” (This confusion and proliferation of Marys inspired me to make a joke. Q: How many holy Marys does it take to change a lightbulb? A: I don’t know. I keep losing count.)

In fact, very little is known about Mary Magdalen. There are fourteen references to her in the Gospels, then she disappears from the New Testament. The possibly Gnostic gospel of Mary dates to the 2^nd century CE, and there is no scholarly consensus as to which Mary is the source of the tradition. Early on Mary Magdalen gave history the slip and took on an extended life in legends, which take her to Ephesus as well as to France where her alleged fingernails, bones, and skull reside and continue to be venerated.

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Glimpses of Women in India by Elizabeth Cunningham

Recently I traveled in India with my husband who did doctoral research there 48 years ago. I had no goals of my own other than to be open. Back only a short while, I am still pondering the journey. Here are glimpses of the women I saw, often only from a distance, with gratitude for so much kindness.

“Welcome to the City of Joy,” says our guide when we step out of the airport into the warm Calcutta night. “You have arrived on Maha Shivaratri, the Great night of Shiva. This is especially a holiday for women. Every woman wants a husband like Shiva.”

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Happy Anniversary, Women’s March, with love from Madge by Elizabeth Cunningham

Like many in the FAR community, I participated in the world-wide 2017 Women’s March. So did Madge, the bodacious cartoon character who took me by surprise in 1990 and went on to become the narrative character of The Maeve Chronicles. Her life in print, as the first century Celtic Magdalen, satisfied her until….November 8^th, 2016 when Madge returned, mouthy as ever, to rejoin us in our own times.

On the first anniversary of the historic march, I’d like to share a little of Madge’s millennia-spanning story and a few images from her two books of cartoons, now published in one volume.

Madge first appeared to me in 1990 as a line drawing of an ample woman sitting naked at a kitchen table drinking coffee. I had recently finished writing a novel, The Return of the Goddess, A Divine Comedy, and felt I had nothing more to say. I decided to play with magic markers for a while. Madge, as the naked woman introduced herself, was far from done with words. Fleshed out with peach magic marker, Madge told me she wanted “fiery neon orange” for her hair color. She also required speech balloons for her theological queries. (For example: If we are all members of the body of Christ, who is the twelve-year molar, the kneecap, the colon?) Enchanted with her sass, I invited her to be in my next novel. I pitched ideas to her. She rejected them all as too dull and said, “I want my own book of cartoons first.” Continue reading “Happy Anniversary, Women’s March, with love from Madge by Elizabeth Cunningham”

Sisterhood, Service, Sovereignty: The Living Spirit of Avalon by Elizabeth Cunningham

Like so many women, I read Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon and got caught up in her vision of the Holy Isle and the priestesses who knew how to navigate those mists and travel between the worlds. Like so many women, I wished Avalon existed still.

In fact, Avalon does exist, because Jhenah Telyndru did more than wish. In 1995 she founded The Sisterhood of Avalon. Twenty-two years later, the Sisterhood is going strong and growing, attracting members from all over the world. I urge you to explore their website where the Sisters speak eloquently about their vision, structure, and purpose.

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Who is She? an excerpt (edited for brevity) from the 25th anniversary edition of The Return of the Goddess, A Divine Comedy by Elizabeth Cunningham

Introduction by Maeve: Elizabeth’s July post usually features an excerpt from my Chronicles in honor of my feast day, July 22. This year the excerpt comes from the novel that opened the way for my story. Ever since a playdough figure took shape spontaneously in her hands, Esther, a minister’s wife, has been on a quest to find out Who She Is! Here she encounters the Lady as the Virgin Mary. (For my take on the BVM, aka Ma, the scene stealer, see The Passion of Mary Magdalen and Bright Dark Madonna.)

A kitchen, yes. That’s what a sacristy was: a sacred kitchen, Esther mused as she stood in St. Paul’s sacristy, the light strong but thickened by the plain, stained-glass, lead-fitted windows over the sink—the piscina, if you were high church. The walls, an ancient, graying yellow, did what they could to reflect the filtered light in a gallant effort to create an atmosphere intended to be cheery. Continue reading “Who is She? an excerpt (edited for brevity) from the 25th anniversary edition of The Return of the Goddess, A Divine Comedy by Elizabeth Cunningham”

Standing Rock: What Does Easter Look Like? by Elizabeth Cunningham

As I write, Bakken crude oil is moving through the Dakota Access Pipeline under the Missouri River at Lake Oahe Reservoir, crossing treaty lands and waters that the Sioux Nation never ceded to the United States Government.

This, after the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has opposed the Dakota Access Pipeline since it was proposed in 2014, with hundreds of other tribes making formal declarations in support of the tribe’s opposition. This, despite ongoing lawsuits. This, after a prayer camp begun by a small group of indigenous youth in April, 2016 grew to several camps with a total population at one point of close to 20,000. This, after 4,000 United States military veterans came to stand with the water protectors in December, 2016. This, after the United States Army Corps of Engineers under the Obama administration denied the easement to cross the river and legally bound themselves to conducting an environmental impact study that the Trump administration aborted. This, after countless unarmed water protectors faced attack dogs, mace, rubber bullets, water hoses turned on them in sub-freezing weather, and noise cannons. This, after the arrest of over seven hundred people (some charged with felonies and still awaiting trial) many of whom were strip-searched and held in kennels in an unheated parking garage. This, after hundreds of people camped all winter, surviving blizzards and bitter cold. This, after people remained standing in prayer until they were forcibly removed from the prayer camps on February 22nd, 2017. Continue reading “Standing Rock: What Does Easter Look Like? by Elizabeth Cunningham”

The Book of Earth & Other Mysteries: a book review by Elizabeth Cunningham

book-of-earth-photojpg When a poem shows me something in a strange and wonderful light and at the same time awakens some bone-deep knowing of my own, I feel more alive, I feel less alone. My soul is stirred and satisfied. The Book of Earth & Other Mysteries by Rabbi Jill Hammer, author, teacher, midrashist, mystic, poet, essayist, and priestess, is a whole collection of such poems.

Collection is not a vivid enough word. The structure of this book is more like a fairy palace, a sandcastle blazoned with shells, a dragon’s lair, a bold work of art in itself. The book begins with a five part prose piece called “Intentions,” the first four invoking an element and the last one holding open the door for us to enter the world of the poems. Here are a couple of sentences excerpted from each. Continue reading “The Book of Earth & Other Mysteries: a book review by Elizabeth Cunningham”