Art – Page 13 – Feminism and Religion

Lessons from Candide by Barbara Ardinger

Candide, ou l’Optimisme (in English, Candide, or Optimism) is a satirical, picaresque novel published in 1759 by François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, who was possibly the smartest author of the Age of Enlightenment…but he annoyed so many courtiers and public officials that he was forever traveling around Europe to get away from their threats of arrest and bodily harm. A picaresque novel is an adventure novel with a clever, tricky hero who somehow survives and makes us like him. Voltaire wrote his novel primarily to criticize the optimism of the German writer Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who said that because God is always benevolent, everything that happens is always for the best. This presumably includes the bloody Seven Years War (Protestant vs. Catholic, fought mostly in Germany and France) and the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, which occurs both in Lisbon and in the novel. Even though Voltaire was accused of blasphemy and heresy, among his other sins and crimes, Candide was enormously popular throughout Europe, a popularity that continues to this day.

In 1956, playwright and screenwriter Lillian Hellman (who had been persecuted by Sen. Joseph McCarthy and HUAC) proposed to composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein that they turn Voltaire’s novel into a Broadway musical. Bernstein composed some of the most beautiful music ever written for this show, which has been produced as an opera, an operetta, and a musical comedy. Hellman’s libretto turned out to be weak, so Bernstein turned to the poet Richard Wilbur and Stephen Sondheim, among others for new libretto and lyrics. It’s been through numerous revisions, and every time it’s staged, it’s different. I have four or five versions on DVD. My favorite is the New York Philharmonic staged concert written and directed by Lonny Price and broadcast on PBS in 2004. Continue reading “Lessons from Candide by Barbara Ardinger”

Forgotten Female Surrealists by Mary Sharratt

While Frida Kahlo is arguably the world’s most famous woman artist, most women in the surrealist movement have been overlooked. But Frida’s sister surrealists now seem to be experiencing a long overdue resurgence, with recent international exhibitions showcasing Leonora Carrington, Meret Oppenheim, and Dora Maar. The 2017 documentary film, Out of the Shadows, focuses on Penny Slinger. (For more on Slinger and her work, check out her spookily accurate Dakini Oracle.) American art photographer Lee Miller is the subject of The Age of Light, Whitney Scharer’s boldly feminist debut novel which sold to Little Brown and Company for seven figures, following a fierce bidding war.

far never anyone Though I was familiar with these artists, Rupert Thomson’s novel, Never Anyone But You, reveals two extraordinary women I’d never heard of—Lucie Schwob aka Claude Cahun (1894 – 1954) and Suzanne Malherbe aka Marcel Moore (1892 – 1972). They met as teenagers and fell irrevocably in love, beginning a passionate relationship which would endure until Cahun’s death. In a twist of fate no novelist could invent, Moore’s widowed mother married Cahun’s divorced father and the two secret lovers became stepsisters, enabling them to live together without suspicion in an age when lesbian relationships were taboo. Moving to Paris in the 1920s, they adopted androgynous pseudonyms and became involved in the newly fledged surrealist movement. In 1937 they left Paris for Jersey. Later, when the Germans occupied the island, the women created an anti-Nazi propaganda campaign. They were arrested and sentenced to death, but the war ended before their executions could be carried out. Continue reading “Forgotten Female Surrealists by Mary Sharratt”

Knowing my Voice through Writing by Elise M. Edwards

Over the summer, I’ve been writing more than I do during the traditional academic year when other tasks consume the bulk of my workday. I have spent more time experiencing the joy of creative discovery and production, but I’ve also had more time confronting the difficulties of creative work as I’ve wrestled with some of its unique challenges. One of those challenges has been to refine my academic writing voice. I’ve approaches the challenge of developing my voice as both a spiritual and feminist practice and this has helped me find confidence in my work.

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Haiku Getaway by Esther Nelson

One of my undergraduate professors was (and still is) a haiku enthusiast. When I took his Zen Buddhism course, students were required to write haiku throughout the semester. He encouraged us to focus on the natural world as we struggled to come up with three lines of seventeen syllables, arranged in a five-seven-five pattern. I eventually discovered lots of pleasure creating a haiku poem—crisp, even stark—using words with a precision I found beautiful.

I recently spent some time in North Carolina (from the Outer Banks to Asheville), treating myself to a short vacation after finishing up the Spring semester. In spite of good intentions, I have failed over and over again to keep a detailed journal while traveling. On this trip, I made a vow to write at least one haiku a day. I kept that vow.

Writing haiku daily forced me to be mindful of my surroundings, reflect on my experience, and then use carefully-chosen words to capture the moment. That mindfulness created a glue of sorts, anchoring me in time and place. To my delight, have found this trip lingering in my memory in ways that other trips have not. Continue reading “Haiku Getaway by Esther Nelson”

Protecting the Children, Jesus Christ Superstar Style by Marisa Goudy

“Where is my mother? I am thirsty.”

My four year old is crooning quietly to her dolls. She is making sense of the crucifixion through play, asking her Disney princesses to stand in for Jesus, the Marys, and “the bad guys.”

Whatever she’s working through has more to do with the voice of John Legend and the cast of Jesus Christ Superstar In Concert than it does with a reading of the gospels. My children were raised with an eclectic mix of goddess spirituality, “all gods are one god” thinking, and occasionally attending a holiday mass. Thanks to this soundtrack, however, they’re suddenly saying things like, “Mama, I really love Jesus!” and “can I be Mary Magdalene for Halloween?” Continue reading “Protecting the Children, Jesus Christ Superstar Style by Marisa Goudy”

The Blessing of Spiritual Direction by Elise M. Edwards

Five years ago, I moved to Texas from California. In that time, my spiritual practice and my feminist and womanist worldview has grown through contemplative practices. It’s ironic. “Everything’s bigger in Texas!” the saying goes, but in the presence of big, sweeping landscapes and open skies, big storms, and big egos, I’ve found the sacred in the small things. I have deepened my connection to God through a small group of women who practice group spiritual direction.

This past Sunday evening, I gathered with these women at my church for our spiritual direction group. We sat comfortably in a circle, relaxing on a couch and chairs around a coffee table, as the evening sun streamed in from a large picture window and lit the room. As we read a passage from the Bible (Mark 3:34-35) in which Jesus looks at the people sitting around him and says, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother,” I saw my companions more clearly. Although my eyes were closed, I had a vision of these women sitting around me, halos made of sunbeams shimmering over their heads. I thought, “Here are my sisters!”

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Celebrating Pride: Honoring the Spiritualities of Queer Holy Women of Color by Angela Yarber

With rainbow colors erupting from even the big box stores, I find my super queer-feminist-self scratching my head at the way Pride has transformed into a capital enterprise. I mean, I’m pretty stoked that the cultural climate seems to be slightly more affirming of queer people, but as queer culture is commodified, I cannot help but think of what is being lost or forgotten. And I want to shout from the rooftops that the rich spiritual history of Pride rests firmly on the shoulders of queer women of color who have marched and meditated, prayed and protested long before rainbow Pride headbands were available at chain stores across the land. It is for this reason that, in honor of Pride Month, the Holy Women Icons Project (HWIP) has launched a 7-Day Online Queer Spirituality Retreat that celebrates seven different queer holy women of color.

HWIP’s 7-Day Online Queer Spirituality Retreat is an opportunity to subversively queer your spirituality, and for the LGBTQ+ community to celebrate our spirituality without having to translate it through the lens of heteronormativity. Open to everyone, the Queer Spirituality Retreat features seven different queer women of color: Pauli Murray, Frida Kahlo, Perpetua and Felicity, the Shulamite, Marsha P Johnson, Guanyin, and Gloria Anzaldúa. Each retreat day takes about 20 minutes and includes an inspirational quote, an icon image, a reflective essay, a guided writing exercise, a ritual exercise, and a closing blessing. The most important part of the retreat is, of course, the revolutionary queer women who make it possible. So, allow me to briefly introduce you to seven queer women of color who should make us all proud…

Continue reading “Celebrating Pride: Honoring the Spiritualities of Queer Holy Women of Color by Angela Yarber”

Toil and Trouble (Part 4) by Barbara Ardinger

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

When the Amazons land in the capital city, they find themselves standing on the wide lawn in front of the Golden Tower in which El Presidente lives and rules. And look—El Presidente is still talking. Not having noticed the disappearance of twenty-seven princess, he’s still strutting, still emphatically gesturing, still addressing the fifty-four handsome, charming princes, who make up what he considers to be his people. (His fan club?)

Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons, adjusts her armor and walks across the sidewalk into the empty street. Her warriors follow her. “Now what?” she asks the air around her.

They hear a voice. “Greetings, Sisters! And be welcome! We haven’t met in many years. I’m glad to see you again.” Hippolyta looks a bit confused. “Don’t you remember Brunhilda?” the voice asks. Continue reading “Toil and Trouble (Part 4) by Barbara Ardinger”

My Heroine’s Journey: Writing Women Back in History by Mary Sharratt

We have been lost to each other for so long. My name means nothing to you. My memory is dust.

This is not your fault or mine. The chain connecting mother to daughter was broken and the word passed into the keeping of men, who had no way of knowing. That is why I became a footnote, my story a brief detour between the well-known history of my father and the celebrated chronicle of my brother.

Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

I am an expat author. My home is everywhere and nowhere. A wanderer, I have lived in many different places, from Minnesota, my birthplace, with its rustling marshes haunted by the cries of redwing blackbirds, to Bavaria with its dark forests and dazzling meadows and pure streams where otter still live, to my present home in the haunted moorlands of Pendle Witch country in Lancashire, England. My entire adult life has been a literal journey of finding myself in the great world.

For as long as I remember, I longed to be a writer. As a novelist I am on a mission to write women back into history. To tell the neglected, unwritten stories of women like my pioneering foremothers who emigrated from Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) in the 1860s to break the prairie soil of southern Minnesota.

To a large extent, women have been written out of history. Their lives and deeds have become lost to us. To uncover their buried truths, we must act as detectives, studying the sparse clues that have been handed down to us. We must learn to read between the lines and fill in the blanks. My heroine’s journey, in other words, is about reclaiming the lost heroines of history. My quest is to give voice to ancestral memory of that lost motherline.

Continue reading “My Heroine’s Journey: Writing Women Back in History by Mary Sharratt”

Toil and Trouble (Part 3) by Barbara Ardinger

Continued from Part 2

The magical school bus, carrying twenty-seven young women, drives across two or three states almost as quickly as the magic carpet flew a few days ago. The bus seems to fly, guided by Bunbury and Icarus as GPS and guards and Kahlil riding on the bus driver’s shoulder (well, not always; the driver keeps shrugging the heavy raven off, so Kahlil finally perches on the back of the first seat) and giving directions. (How the GPS ravens communicate with him is not to be disclosed.)

“So whaddaya think the magic’s for?” Kahlil asks the driver. “We’re guardin’ these here girls. Takin’ ’em somewheres safe.”

All the driver can do is keep driving. When the bus and its precious passengers arrive at the witch’s farm and the girls descend, everyone can see that the finery they’d been wearing to sit in El Presidente’s audience is no longer fine. Their silks and satins have turned into ragged T-shirts and crepe paper. Their priceless jewelry is now colored plastic straws strung together with string. Their exquisite hairdos are now lank and limp. And soon there are loud cries from the witch and her friends—these girls have black eyes and bruises all over their bodies. Some of them are missing chunks of hair or their front teeth. They are all barefoot, and their feet are filthy. And these twenty-seven former princesses—were they ever genuine princesses?—are scared. Continue reading “Toil and Trouble (Part 3) by Barbara Ardinger”