Ancestors – Page 23 – Feminism and Religion

Lady Death by Jassy Watson

Lady Death is knocking on my dear old Poppy’s door. His health has been getting progressively worse with each day and it is a sad and trying time for all of the family. Naturally, with death, comes reflection, unresolved issues are stirred up and we are inevitably confronted with our own mortality. I have been reflecting and reminiscing about times spent with my Pop as a child. So many wonderful memories are warmly held in my heart.

Visiting Pop and Nanna’s house as a child was always very exciting, namely because of all the lollies Pop had hidden in his cupboards – XXXX mints and licorice all sorts his favourites. I remember him Irish jigging in his blue tartan dressing gown around the campfire, and the times he would stick out his false teeth, roar and scare us silly. Slim Dusty, an Australian country music icon was one of his favourite singers, he would play his records on the old player as loud as can be, I knew the words to “I’d love to have a beer with Duncan” back to front. Every weekend the horse races would blare out of his little radio in the kitchen, I would listen along and try to pick a winner for him.

My sister and I would stay at Nanna and Pops house most school holidays and we would both wait at the front gate for him to come home from work, we were always so happy to see him coming down the path, covered in concrete and dirt, his skin so tanned from being in the sun all day. He always greeted us with a big smile and a pat on the head. We would have dinner early and no matter what was on the menu, much to Nanna’s disappointment, he would cover his food in a river of ‘black horse,’ slang for Worceteshire sauce. We would then watch the goings on in the neighbourhood from the back verandah; Pop could, and still can, tell you what everyone else was up to! He was, and still is a cheeky old thing, as stubborn as an ox, and I love him so very much.

Death of one of my family members is not something I have any experience with. Knowing that the time will soon be nigh however, has me naturally thinking about the cycle of life and death. As an avid gardener I witness this cycle daily. I plant seeds, watch them grow, set seed, decay then watch their progeny pop up all over the place. I find cocoons where caterpillars will eventually emerge as beautiful butterflies, only to flutter for two days and pass on. On my early morning bug hunts I find all sorts of larvae waiting to hatch, the strongest survivors grow; have a grand feast on my veggies, only to become a meal or compost themselves. Leaves and branches fall to the ground, animals perish and decay, feeding the earth and maintaining the fertility of the soil in the process.

This Life/Death/Life cycle is no new concept. Since time beginning human life was directly linked to the cycle of the seasons and the cycle of life and death. Humans were inextricably linked and connected with their natural environments. They imitated animals and worshipped the sun, moon, trees, rivers and mountains, elaborate rituals and ceremonies were created concerning these cycles and transitions. It was understood by careful observation of nature, that death was a natural part of the life cycle.

But why, in much of our Western culture is there so much fear and denial over death when religions and philosophies the world over have endeavoured to offer solace to humans in the face of our mortality by promising eternal life? Dr. Estes says that, “In much of Western culture, the original character of the death nature has been covered over by various dogmas and doctrines until it is split off from its other half, Life”. This is not how it is, for “death is always in the process of incubating new life”. This is life’s greatest paradox; even in our state of living, we are in fact dying and it is this dance between the two and the nature of the Life/Death/Life cycle that has been contaminated by a fear of death. This splitting in two of life and death, I feel, is largely a result of our disconnection from nurture and nature. This disconnection has impacted on every aspect of society, our ability to flow with these cycles is often weak and as a result impacts all kinds of relationships and structures, particularly that of family and community.

I am not sure what my pop believes about the nature of death as he is not religious, nor does he have any faith in an after life. He doesn’t even want a funeral of any kind. I do remember him though, saying to me as a child rather emphatically, “when you’re dead, you’re dead: food for the worms!” This has stayed with me for life and in it’s simplicity shows an understanding of the cycle. He was an avid gardener too, growing plenty of vegies for the household, and if I look deeper into his comment, which he made on more than one occasion, he was really saying that we become compost, teeming with new life, we feed the earth (the worms) and so the cycle continues.

I am certain though, that Pop fears death, and I know that he fears leaving the living, and while we can talk about, have faith in, and come to accept the Life/Death/Life cycle, it doesn’t mean that it is ever going to be easy. Surrendering to death, not just the physical death of our bodies, but any kind of death, I think, is life’s greatest lesson.

Lady Death is waiting for pop to answer the door, she has come to embrace him and comfort him in his pain and ease his transition. He is not quite ready, but the time will come soon and I feel strong in my knowing that despite how much suffering can accompany the dying, this is the way it is meant to be. From his death new life will emerge.

He will forever live in my heart and memories.

Jassy Watson, who lives on the sub-tropical coast of Queensland Australia, is a mother of four, a passionate organic gardener, an artist, teacher of the Colour of Woman Method, and a student of ancient history and religion at Macquarie University, Sydney. She runs a small business Goddesses Garden and Studio to keep women’s sacred circles, art, music and gardening practices alive. Jassy teaches regular painting workshops based around themes exploring the feminine.

Visit http://www.goddessesgardenandstudio.com

Ancestor Connection Revisited: Anna M. Christ of Little Germany, Brooklyn by Carol P. Christ

These days I can’t get my 2x great-grandmother Anna Maria Christ off my mind. She may be the independent female ancestor I have been looking for all these years.

My father’s father was transferred from New York to San Francisco during the depression. When I moved to New York City, I felt powerfully connected to its diverse immigrant culture, but I never thought of trying to figure out where and when my ancestors lived there.

Recently I found my Scottish and Irish 2x great-grandparents, James Inglis, the seaman, and Annie Corliss, mother of 9, living in the tenements on Cherry Street near the port of New York. These were my father’s ancestors on his mother’s side. I felt inspired by a photograph of Annie to take her Irish spirit of triumph over adversity into my soul.

Because it has become fashionable to be interested in things Irish, I began my ancestor research there. In fact, I am more German (3/8) than I am Irish (3/16). As I have delved into my German ancestry, I realized that being German became a cause for shame in both the First and Second World Wars. German language newspapers were banned, Germans were interned, people hated Germans, and many Germans changed their names.

As a child I learned to create mock battles against “krauts,” Continue reading “Ancestor Connection Revisited: Anna M. Christ of Little Germany, Brooklyn by Carol P. Christ”

Seeing Death and Resurrection by Linn Marie Tonstad

Yesterday, I visited the Capuchin catacombs in Palermo, Sicily. In a grotto about a mile or so from the center of the modern city are found the preserved remains of about 2,000 people who paid the monks to preserve their bodies after death, dress them in their finest clothing, and put them on display. Each of them is placed in its own niche along the wall, held up by iron bands, and has a tag around its neck with its name and date of death. The bodies are not displayed in random order: they are sorted (to some extent) by sex, profession, and familial status. In one large recess, a number of children’s skeletons are on display, many of them in heartbreakingly tiny coffins. In another corridor, friar after friar hangs in his robes, some with cords around their necks signifying their adherence to a Franciscan order. Almost indistinguishable from the cords are the braids still hanging from the heads of some of the women’s bodies. Some families are arranged together; in another corridor doctors and lawyers are segregated and in yet another female virgins are gathered together. The oldest body I saw dated from 1599 – high on a wall hangs the body of a monk whose name was almost illegible but who hailed from the Umbrian hill town of Gubbio.

Some of the skeletons presented death’s heads; others had skin dried to a leathery tightness over remaining bony protuberances. Some of their outfits are well preserved; others have disintegrated under the relentless assault of the years. The practice became illegal around 1880, but until then, people chose – or perhaps their relatives chose for them – to be preserved in this seemingly macabre manner. Continue reading “Seeing Death and Resurrection by Linn Marie Tonstad”

An Epic Woman: A Feminist Eulogy by Molly

editMollyNov 083 There were some things about my grandmother that I didn’t find out until after she died. For example, in 1974, she co-organized a “Women’s Exchange” in Fresno, California with the theme: Stop the World…We Want to Get On. How much I would have liked to talk to her about that! While I didn’t know about the fair, I do know that she was successful with her vision of getting on this brightly spinning world. My grandma was a woman who was hiking in the Channel Islands one month before receiving a diagnosis of aggressive pancreatic cancer. She was incredible.

After reading Grace Yia-Hei Kao’s recent post about giving a eulogy at her grandmother’s funeral, my thoughts turned to my grandmother’s memorial services this past spring. What, if any, are the components of a feminist eulogy? Grace wonders. In reading this, I reflected on the components of the services I prepared and participated in for my grandmother and I believe they fit the bill. In a pleasingly feminist move in itself, I was asked by my extended family to serve as the priestess at my grandmother’s “committal” service (in which her ashes were interred in the above-ground burial chamber that received my grandfather’s body in 1989).

It was deeply important to me to have multiple voices represented during the small, family-only, service and I enlisted all the grandchildren present, as well as her step-grandchildren, in an adapted responsive reading based on Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road”. I chose it precisely because it spoke to the irrepressible, adventuresome spirit of my grandmother. It was a lot of pressure to be responsible for the family ceremony for the interment of her ashes. I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted it to be what she deserved. I wanted it to “speak” to every person there. I wanted it to be worthy of her. I hope it was enough. Continue reading “An Epic Woman: A Feminist Eulogy by Molly”

SACRED RHYTHMS OF THE OLIVE HARVEST by Carol P. Christ

Olives are being harvested in the fields outside my town these days. We have been having the first rains of the season. The roads are wet and muddy, and the trees are partially shrouded in mist. The fields are spread with black plastic nets, and people are hard at work, the men hitting the trees to make the olives fall, and the women picking up the olives from the nets. The harvest will continue throughout the winter.

The olive press is busy. Cars and trucks come and go, unloading heavy bags filled with olives. These days the bags are white, made of sturdy woven plastic. In Crete this fall several of us bought canvas olive bags, hand-woven by women. These, along with baskets hand-woven by men, were still in use only a few decades ago.

olive harvest in Lesbos early 20th century by Theofilos Hajimichael

A friend who died a few years ago told me that “in the old days” there were no nets. The women and the children had to pick the olives up from the ground, often cutting their hands on thorns and stones. The nets are a Goddess-send. Between harvests, the nets are simply folded up and placed in the crotch of the tree. Here no one steals them.

In the fields where I walk some of the trees have enormous trunks. Some of them have two trunks, growing like sisters. Many of them are 300, some perhaps 500, years old. A man emerges from a field that has some particularly old trees. I ask him how old they are. “Older than I am,” he replies. “They were here before I was born. They will be here after I die.” Continue reading “SACRED RHYTHMS OF THE OLIVE HARVEST by Carol P. Christ”

Inner and Outer Darkness in the Skoteino Cave by Coleen Clare

Last fall I undertook the Ariadne Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete and saw many wonders. Foremost for me was our descent into the Skoteino Cave, following in the footsteps of ancient Cretans who understood the cave to be the Source of Life, the womb of the Goddess, and a place of transformation. I ventured down tentatively taking very wary steps, protecting my two new hip replacements, determined to join our sacred ritual in the cave with my sisters. My hips called a stop to my descent half-way down. I perched perilously on a small rock ledge and there I confronted inner and outer darkness. It was indeed a profound transformation. Continue reading “Inner and Outer Darkness in the Skoteino Cave by Coleen Clare”

A Feminist Eulogy? By Grace Yia-Hei Kao

My grandmother, my last living grandparent, recently died. She was 84 years old. Because I’ve just come back from Taiwan where I participated in all of her funerary rites and delivered a eulogy therein, I’ve been thinking a lot about memorializing the dead. Is there such a thing as a “feminist” or feminist Christian way to remember the dead? What, if any, are the components of a feminist eulogy?

Continue reading “A Feminist Eulogy? By Grace Yia-Hei Kao”

IS THE SPIRIT OF GREAT GENEROSITY IN CRETE A SURVIVAL OF ANCIENT MATRIARCHAL VALUES? by Carol P. Christ

At a coffee shop in Agios Thomas, Crete last month a perfect stranger offered to pay for the coffees and sodas of the 16 women on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. This spirit of great generosity is rarely experienced in the United States or other parts of Europe, but it is still common in rural Crete and some parts of Greece.

In fact our group was in Agios Thomas because our bus driver Babis, also in a spirit of great generosity, insisted on stopping to show us his village when we were passing nearby. He guided us to see Roman rock cut tombs and arranged for the early Byzantine church to be opened. At the end of the our pilgrimage, Babis stopped the bus at a wooded glen beside a small church where he offered us his own homemake raki, wine, and olives, accompanied by local sheep cheese he had purchased while we were climbing a mountain. After every meal that we ate in local tavernas, we were offered bottles of cold raki, fruit, and sweets.

This spirit of great generosity has long been commented on by travelers in Greece, who often speak of it as unexpected (for them) hospitality to the stranger or traveler. That it is, of course. Through the work of Heidi Goettner-Abendroth, I now understand that the famous Greek hospitality to the stranger has deep roots in matriarchal cultures. According to Goettner-Abendroth, equality of wealth is assured through the widely-practiced custom of gift-giving in matriarchal cultures. Continue reading “IS THE SPIRIT OF GREAT GENEROSITY IN CRETE A SURVIVAL OF ANCIENT MATRIARCHAL VALUES? by Carol P. Christ”

Feeding the Dead by Deanne Quarrie

Most people really love this time of year and I share much of that. Living in South Central Texas we actually only have two seasons, with a perhaps two to three weeks in between what we laughingly call spring and fall. Because the winters are not harsh here, the step into spring feels different from those whose winters are frozen for months on end. We do experience some relief when our temperatures finally drop a bit in October. Even then those drops are only teasers. When we do finally get a briskness in the air in the wee, early morning hours of dawn but when the sun rises overhead, any memory of that coolness is forgotten. This morning at 5:30 am, when I woke, it was 54 degrees. I stepped outside to smell and feel the air, so clean and cool. And yet, now it is 85 degrees and rising, it once more feels like summer. We don’t have the sudden frosts that turn our trees to vibrant reds, yellows and browns. Yes, the leaves eventually turn and fall to the ground, but we have no heavy freeze and so our colors are pale compared to those in the North and colder climates.

Many Texans think the emotional feel for our two seasons is backwards, believing that summer, with its blazing sun, is the time to withdraw. Then in winter, when the weather is mostly mild, that’s the time to come out to play. This is a reversal of pagan thinking about the seasons in North America. Continue reading “Feeding the Dead by Deanne Quarrie”

WOMEN ARTISTS AND RITUALISTS IN THE GREAT CAVES: THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF INDOLENT ASSUMPTIONS by Carol P. Christ

In an earlier blog, I suggested that women might have blown red ocher around their hands to leave their marks in prehistoric caves.

At the time I thought this was a rather bold suggestion.

Had I been asked why I thought the images were made by women, I might have said that people have understood caves to be the womb of the Great Mother, the Source of All Life, from time immemorial. I might have added that those who performed rituals in the caves cannot have been performing simple “hunting magic,” but must also have been thanking the Source of Life for making life possible for them and for the great beasts they hunted. Still I am not certain that I imagined women as the artists in the Paleolithic caves.

In recent days the news wires have been carrying a story titled “First Cave Artists May Have Been Women, New Study Suggests.” According to retired anthropological archaeologist Dean Snow, the handprints made by Paleolithic ancestors 40,000-20,000 years ago may have been made primarily by women. Snow spent a decade gathering and analyzing photographs of the handprints left in caves. The scientific fact that women’s first and ring fingers are generally of the same length, while men’s ring fingers are generally longer their index fingers, led him to the conclusion that ¾ of the handprints in the caves were made by women! If women were painting their hands on the caves in larger numbers than men, then isn’t likely that they were also painting the images of the great beasts on the walls of the caves? Continue reading “WOMEN ARTISTS AND RITUALISTS IN THE GREAT CAVES: THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF INDOLENT ASSUMPTIONS by Carol P. Christ”