Marie Cartier

Creating Families and Traditions of Choice—and Saving Your Life by Marie Cartier

thanksgiving 3 Last week I went out to eat with a group of insightful scholars at the American Academy Religion 2015 Conference held in Atlanta, Georgia. We had just participated on a remarkable panel which was an “Author Meets Critic” session with Bernadette Barton, author of the book Pray the Gay Away: The Extraordinary Lives of Bible Belt Gays. One of our panelists was in Georgia after years of estrangement, not only from his biological family, but also from the geography of his birth because of the biological familial estrangement. He was experiencing the geography of his hometown for the first time in many years. He spoke eloquently in the panel about how much being in the geography itself again was triggering, but also how somatically it was necessary for his own healing. He needed to revisit and be embodied on the actual land—which was very different than re-remembering the hurt from a geographical distance. Also, in order to fully participate in the life of a scholar, which he was now choosing, he had to reconcile being able to revisit this geography in order to attend this particular conference. And frankly, to be able to participate on the panel which was so close to his heart—being a person who was from the Bible Belt and had literally been “prayed” over so that his “gay would go away.”

I have moderated many panels, but this is the first one where I wrote “Congratulations!” on a piece of paper to one of the panelists and passed it to him after his reading. Overall it was a great session of papers and as mentioned we all adjourned for drinks and conviviality. And to celebrate that our gay had not been prayed away.

We began to discuss holiday plans. I said to the young man who had presented his paper so courageously that I was very proud of him not only for his work, but for his ability to return to the geography in which he had experienced so much harm. I said that I was from a very abusive biological home in New England and I had not been north of New York since leaving at age 30 (I am now 59); that for me, putting my embodied self into the actual geography where I had experienced so much harm had not been possible, except for attending my mother’s funeral- its own extreme event.

Some folks at the table expressed surprise and much sadness—how could those of us without biological ties to family handle the holidays? I realized that for me it has been almost thirty years since I began creating “alternatives” to the family I was born in—my biological family- and that I have successfully created chosen family and chosen traditions instead. One of the ways I first learned to deal with holidays which had expected traditions and attendance at biological family functions was to create alternate plans well before the expected day (Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.) and stick to that plan. I learned that once that day was “here,” I would be triggered and would not be able to create spur of the moment alternatives in the midst of those feelings.

thanksgiving 2 One tradition I created 20 years ago was the tradition of “Pie Day” with a good friend of mine. We realized this year that we have been doing that for 20 years! Now that is my “tradition” and that is my “family.” We bake an inordinate amount of pies on Pie Day—a very specific recipe—green apple with golden raisin reduction— and people and friends come over. We celebrate. We eat pie with cheese (a New England tradition) and salad- I call it “a French meal” after my Canadian heritage. Whoever bakes or drops by, eats. Some folks walk away with a pie. We freeze a bunch and have “pie nights” throughout the year. Various girlfriends, friends and friends of friends have helped throughout the year make our estimated 15-20 pies per year, complete with hand rolled, all butter crusts every year.

Continue reading “Creating Families and Traditions of Choice—and Saving Your Life by Marie Cartier”

Another Excerpt from That Christmas Morning Feeling by Marie Cartier

Author’s Note: This post continues to serialize excerpts from my novel, That Christmas Morning Feeling. Please see last month’s post for the initial entry.

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Book Number Seventeen

Look, I’m not the one. I don’t have an investment here. This is not about me. But, I think that when you think you can actually do some good in the world you should do it. I mean what if you have this whole body of knowledge. And you say nothing. Is that morally acceptable? I think not. I’m sure everyone has thought it. You are going along in your life, and you stop suddenly. The color of the trees, sparkle on the water, but maybe not so wow world, you are cool stuff. Maybe just the mundane world, maybe even the curve of the paint on the wall, even paint drying as the saying goes, could be enough to catch you up and you realize – life. Life’s here. Right now. And it needs me. Do I love it, or do I not? And if you do, if you love, love it – just life. Then you have to do something about it, to make it better. Like if it was your kid, you couldn’t just sit by – right? Well, you could. People do, God knows.

Or he doesn’t. You’d think he would do something, or she. Guess it doesn’t work that way. Maybe it’s true what they said in the church last Sunday. I’ve been thinking about it… even though I was only half listening. Personally I usually hate being there, big waste of time. But it is a waste of time, and in some ways that’s a good thing…just a predictable waste of time, nothing dramatic happening –that’s a new way to look at Church. I guess. Have to remember that.

Maybe God is in “the least of us.” That would be me. And it is up to us to decide what God does, how God acts, or rather to act like God. Then we can get God to change things. Otherwise God is just an idea…without a body. Not much you can do on planet Earth in that state. We have to figure out we are not really in Oz, like Dorothy, no mystical wizard to help us…just some fabulous dream shoes and a great idea about home, and no place like it, whatever she’s rattling at the end… and then going there to do something about it. She can’t do it from Oz. Too bad, but true. She has to wake up there in the middle of the black and white world and get out of bed, presumably without the fabulous shoes. So she just has to get out of bed and get on with it. At least I hope she gets out of bed; we never really saw that part.

We are really here, so we can do something about the here and now.

So no one is talking Incest. No one I personally know of course, since I talk it. That is not because Incest is not happening as an event. It’s just not a newsworthy concept, really. Because it isn’t a concept is it…? It’s an event, as in, “This happened to me.” But it is not a language that is spoken on planet Earth. No language here, except Incest, could transform that event that happens into a concept that’s newsworthy… not that I know of. And no one is taking language labs in Incest. So no one can write about it in the newspapers, etc., etc. It’s obviously a vicious cycle.

Continue reading “Another Excerpt from That Christmas Morning Feeling by Marie Cartier”

That Christmas Morning Feeling by Marie Cartier

What follows is an excerpt from my current project—a novel I have been working on for over ten years. It is finished—sort of— in various journals and I am currently trying to pull them all together. These are the opening pages. Thank you so much for your support of my work. The novel is called- That Christmas Morning Feeling.

Book Number Sixteen

This is how I feel about incest, I mean learning to talk about it…speak Incest, as in capital “I” – Incest, like French, German, – Incest…right? Because you don’t talk about it, you talk it…you, as in you alone, you talk it; you use it in a sentence. “This is what happened to me…” And no one talks back.

And, why compare it to French or German? There are whole countries who will talk back to you if you speak French or German. Learning Incest is like learning Martian – you think to yourself, maybe there’s a planet somewhere where learning Martian would be useful…but it is certainly not here… no one can speak Martian here, correct your grammar, help you write a poem, check your iambic pentameter…whatever. My point is, learning Martian, well, if you learned it…how would you ever know if you were speaking it right? If someone on Mars could actually understand you? Of course, you wouldn’t know. You would just have to really love Martian enough to learn to speak it – even though…And then, of course, assume that you might meet and if you ever did meet a Martian and you had invested all this time in learning Martian just in case you would ever run into a Martian, you’d hope that he would understand you. Or she. Whatever. Continue reading “That Christmas Morning Feeling by Marie Cartier”

I Am A Woman’s Poet by Marie Cartier

This is the first poem I ever wrote and had published.

I wrote it in the early 80s at the height of the second wave of Women’s Liberation.

Having just returned from the final Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, I publish it here with FAR today as an homage to that time period, to those women (myself among them), to many “womyn with a ‘y,’” and what we accomplished—battered women’s shelters, rape crisis centers, health clinics, women’s studies programs, bookstores, festivals, music and culture etc. etc.

Much of what we accomplished is because we learned to listen to each other’s repetition until, as Nelle Morton said, we “heard each other into speech.” Continue reading “I Am A Woman’s Poet by Marie Cartier”

Spouses for Life by Marie Cartier

Marie & friends at Long Beach, CA celebrations of the Obergefell decision

This essay is perhaps the last in an occasional series I have written since the New Year, which can be read here and here. Gay marriage as of June 26^th is now legal in the United States. What has changed—and what has not?

If public opinion drives public policy, then the motivation for banning same-sex marriage was moral disapproval, religious disapproval—and the belief that God was not “on the side” of the homosexuals and had cast homosexuals as sinners in the faith choice of the person formulating the public policy critique. Public discourse —based on religious formulations such as “sinner” and what “God intended” had been the primary agents erected into state law to ban the LGBTIQ population from civil rights—such as marriage.

Religious sentiment, such as “you are a sinner” should not make the case for legal judgment. In fact, it was unconstitutional.

Love the Sinner. Hate the Sin. Continue reading “Spouses for Life by Marie Cartier”

All Hail a New Priestess! by Marie Cartier

ordination photo
“All hail- the new priestess!” they all shouted at the end. I was recently ordained near Midsummer Eve (June 20, 2015) as a priestess with the Temple of Isis, Los Angeles and Fellowship of Isis. As befits feminism and religion — I felt it important to share the document read by my scribe – the person who did a lengthy interview and wrote up a summary of why I should be accepted into ordination. I am sharing this with her permission with the Feminism and Religion community. Why do we choose the paths we choose? Why did I choose this Goddess path? The document that explores those reasons follows:

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June 20^th 2015 – 4:00 p.m.
Ordination of Dr. Marie Cartier into the Fellowship of Isis,
Temple of Isis Los Angeles and the Temple of Isis Long Beach.

Our dear sister has reached a point in her life that our ancient mothers of old have been preparing for her and she is ready to be dedicated to and be an emissary of the Goddesses. She is ready to take on the responsibilities of Priestess and is very honored and proud to be accepted by her Priestess Sisters who she dearly loves and admires.

Dr. Marie Cartier is a scholar, visual/performance artist, queer activist, writer and theologian. She has been active in many movements for social change. Marie teaches at UC Irvine in the Film & Media Studies Department and CSU Northridge in Gender and Women’s Studies and Queer Studies. She received her Ph.D. in Religion from Claremont Graduate University, 2010, in Women Studies in Religion, with an emphasis on theology, ethics, and culture. She published in 2013 through Routledge the book Baby, You Are My Religion: Women, Gay Bars and Theology Before Stonewall and created the concept of “theelogy” a religion of friendship for people in exile, particularly lesbians prior to 1975. Continue reading “All Hail a New Priestess! by Marie Cartier”

Thoughts on Nuns and Sisters and Perpetual Indulgence by Marie Cartier

helen prejean — Marie and Sister Helen Prejean

The word “nun” can conjure images from traditional to irreverent in terms of gender. The gender of those who call themselves nuns can range from feminine to masculine, from a woman who looks like a woman dressed as a woman, a contemporary sister or “nun,” who does not wear the traditional black habit, but contemporary female clothing and perhaps a short veil or “wimple” and a cross around her neck; to a man dressed as nun in extremely sexual female garb, a “drag queen” nun; to the traditionally dressed nun, whose habit is a full-length black gown, and full veil covering everything but her face and hands, who means to conceal gender and become something else – a “nun.”

The physical space of “nun” then has opened the realm of gender for women, and recently men, since the creation of the category “nun” was established with the first order of female religious. Cloistered orders of women began in the fifth century, with the more liberated orders of “sisters” forming in the sixteenth century. The Encyclopedia of Catholicism lists approximately twelve Roman Catholic religious orders of sisters, or as they are commonly called, “nuns.” However, this terminology should be amended to allow for the difference between “sisters”- non-cloistered orders, and “nuns”- cloistered orders. Most traditionally the word nun officially refers to Roman Catholic nuns – those who take solemn vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, and live cloistered lives of silence, and prayerful meditation. Choir nuns, such as that of the famous convent headed by Hildegard de Bingen, (1098-1179), German nun, mystic and composer, chant the Liturgy of the Hours daily – consisting of a set order of readings and prayers, including Morning, Evening, Daytime and Night Prayers. Continue reading “Thoughts on Nuns and Sisters and Perpetual Indulgence by Marie Cartier”

Gay Marriage: “Tell me why I shouldn’t hate you…?” asks the straight Christian to the lesbian by Marie Cartier

This is the third of a series exploring gay marriage as a game changer within religion and politics. I have explored the topic as political animus and earlier as almost fairy tale come to life. Today I am examining it from a very person view.

Consider a gay woman (myself) being asked by a straight attempting to understand the “right” for gay marriage, “What does it matter if I know you’re ‘gay’ if I’m not attracted to you?”[1]

Then consider that another right of “marriage” –or being known as “gay”—is the right to be admitted into the hospital room of a loved one, who is considered one’s primary partner, or “spouse.” Yes, one wants to say to the questioning woman in the above scenario, the rights for marriage include the crucial family relationships which allow one person to be able to take sick leave to care for a partner, or a partner’s child; being able to make critical medical decisions, and the right to be together in crisis situations (such as a hospital emergency room).[2]

Imagine the gay woman speaking to the straight woman and saying, “Because I am more than someone you might or might not be attracted to. I am my own person with my own life. I want to among other things, get into the hospital room of my partner, my loved one, the one I am actually attracted to.” Continue reading “Gay Marriage: “Tell me why I shouldn’t hate you…?” asks the straight Christian to the lesbian by Marie Cartier”

Spouse for Life & the Fight for Gay Marriage by Marie Cartier

Today, I am exploring the following question set:

What is the shifting conception of religious liberty as religious groups carve out exemptions in complying with laws on LGBTQI rights, particularly as they relate to marriage? As gay marriage becomes “normative” how does it change the structure and study of religion? How did the anti-gay rights movement in California, regarding Proposition 8, funded largely through religious organizations such as the Church of Latter Day Saints and the Catholic Knights of Columbus, have a direct impact on state decisions, and animate new conversations about the juncture of religion and politics?

Let’s start with this information:

Sociologist Brian Powell posed the question of why people were opposed to gay marriage. Do what people say match the legal arguments that justify the opposition to gay marriage? Since legal arguments are based on public policy, what public policy was shaping the legal arguments? The findings, published recently in Social Currents, show that the most common reason for gay marriage opposition was given as: “Because I don’t believe God intended them to be that way.” Running a close second was: “Well, they’re sinners.”

If public opinion drives public policy, then the motivation for banning same-sex marriage is moral disapproval. Or as stated in Powell’s findings—religious disapproval—and the belief that God is not “on the side” of the homosexuals; casting homosexuals as sinners in the faith choice of the person formulating the public policy critique. With these formulations, Powell suggested that public discourse —based on religious formulations such as “sinner” and what “God intended” are the primary agents erecting state laws that ban access to civil rights- such as marriage- for the LGBTQI population. Continue reading “Spouse for Life & the Fight for Gay Marriage by Marie Cartier”

On Not Being A Big Hollywood Film Director, and Other Life Choices by Marie Cartier

MARIE CARTIER- YOUNG As you read this, dear FAR community, it will be my 59^th birthday. I was born February 27, 1956. I have one year to go before I turn 60. For this last year I desperately wanted to dye my hair blue, purple and green and let the roots go gray.

However in a long conversation with my hair stylist she helped me realize that I have spent so many years dying my hair various shades of brown, dark brown and burgundy that if I bleach the hair out to white (so that I can then go blue, purple and green) the hair will fry and fall out—ah, Ok. I will live with my brown, black and burgundy hair until I am ready to go completely gray and watch it grow out (my hairdresser tells me it will take three years). Or I will decide to live with the choice I made to dye my hair since I was 35 or so and let it be and keep dying it – and have that be the choice I made. Continue reading “On Not Being A Big Hollywood Film Director, and Other Life Choices by Marie Cartier”