Books – Page 3 – Feminism and Religion

From the Archives: Are These Three Novels Prophetic? Part 3: The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk by Barbara Ardinger

Moderator’s note: This marvelous FAR site has been running for 10 years and has had more than 3,600 posts in that time. There are so many treasures that have been posted in this decade. They tend to get lost in the archives. We are beginning this column so that we can all revisit some of these gems. Today’s blogpost was originally posted October 1, 2017. You can visit it here to see the original comments. This post is the 3rd and final of a series which has been posted for the past 2 days. They were curated by Barbara Ardinger to stand together for their relevancy, now, 5 years later.

Members of this community (and others) have been feeling that the world is out of balance since the 2016 election. There’s a feeling that people are becoming less kind and that some men (following the model that lives and tweets in the White House when he’s not at one of his golf resorts) are more misogynistic. I’ve heard that Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eight-Four is more popular than ever before. We seem to be living in a new dystopia. It’s very sad and very scary.

I’ve recently reread three novels written by women that I think may be both prophetic and inspiring. I’m hoping that if you read them, too, you’ll inspired by their brave heras to keep on resisting. The novels are Gibbon’s Decline and Fall (1996) by Sheri S. Tepper, Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) by Marge Piercy, and The Fifth Sacred Thing (1993) by Starhawk.

Starhawk (Miriam Simos) was probably the most famous “out” witch in the last quarter of the 20^th century. Her book The Spiral Dance (1979) introduced uncountable numbers of people to the Goddess, Paganism, and Witchcraft. Nowadays, she’s teaching “Regenerative Culture, Earth-based spirituality, and Permaculture.” She is no doubt working up to the Uprising described in The Fifth Sacred Thing that separated northern and southern California—a generally bucolic San Francisco filled with Pagans and an eclectic mix of every other religion with free healthcare for all and a City of Angels (Los Angeles) filled with Stewards, ruins, and sex slaves.

The Fifth Sacred Thing opens in 2048 with Maya, a 98-year-old Orthodox (sic.!) Pagan climbing a mountain. At the Lammas (August 1) ritual, she tells how the Uprising began. Global warming has happened, and during the drought of 2028, four old women (remember Tepper’s bag ladies?) went with pickaxes to a major thoroughfare in San Francisco, dug up the pavement, and planted seeds in the earth. The Uprising was led by people who had participated in the Summer of Love (1967) and demonstrated against the Vietnam War.

In the next chapter we begin to meet the Stewards, who in 2028 canceled the elections and took control. Now “the Corporation,” which banished women from every profession but the oldest one, owns the Southlands and apparently most of the U.S. Although Starhawk wrote this novel in 1993, the Stewards look like Trump’s cabinet and true believers exponentially multiplied. The Steward are allied with the Millennialists, who have suppressed every religion but their own and whose Creed reads in part, “…we abhor the earth, the Devil’s playground, and the flesh, Satan’s instrument. We abhor the false…gods…who tempt us to wallow in the worship of demons, whether they be called Goddesses, Saints, Lucifer, or the so-called Virgin Mary. For we know that Our Lord never lowered Himself to take on loathly flesh….” Maya’s grandson, Bird, has been their prisoner for ten years. He’s been drugged (like Connie), but now he’s beginning to feel his magical powers returning.

Another protagonist is Madrone, a healer and midwife. As we read through a long Council meeting (they’ve got Councils for everything), we see the similarities between San Francisco is 2048 and Piercy’s free future of 2137. The values are much the same, although Starhawk’s future is determinedly Pagan and Witchy (and very PC). Madrone has lost a patient to a mysterious fever that morning. In the council meeting, one character says they’re still living in the “toxic stew” of pollution in the Bay. Is this fever becoming an epidemic? Is it biological warfare?

Bird summons the best magic he can and escapes with two other prisoners. As he travels up the California coast, sometimes along what was once the Pacific Coast Highway, sometimes along what was Interstate 5, he learns what happened to him ten years ago. When he and some other Witches destroyed an atomic reactor (probably in Santa Barbara County), his friends were killed by the Stewards and he was captured. Now he’s regaining his memory and his powers as he’s meeting other outlaws.

When Bird arrives in San Francisco, not much has changed: there’s still a lot of free love and arguing and they all still work collectively. Madrone recently went into “the ch’i worlds” to search for the virus, caught it, and almost died, but now she’s mostly recovered. They hold a meeting in which they discuss nonviolent resistance. After much argument about how best to resist, Madrone finally decides to travel south to find out if the Stewards are really planning an invasion. As she retraces Bird’s trail and meets the people who helped him, she gives them free healings and teaches them Witchy powers. The book thus turns into what is essentially a handbook of resistance and Witchy powers. When Madrone goes to Hollywood to take part in raid on a drug warehouse, we learn that in the Southlands only the rich have water, medicine, fresh vegetables, cars, access to education, healthcare, and any kind of technology (which is mostly built by prisoners).

Yes, there is a war in this novel. Just think of any superhero-action-adventure movie and add Nazis, and you’re seeing it. The Stewards’ army invades San Francisco, and nonviolent resistance seems to wither under bullets. Although she finds pockets of rebellion and resistance, Madrone nearly dies in Los Angeles. She finally gets home and learns that Bird has been captured again. But the Witches are also learning how to get soldiers to desert.

The novel has a sort of happy ending. Is it prophetic? I hope not! I live in the Southlands. But anyone who is paying attention to the daily news sees that we’re already on the path to a world run by the Stewards and the Millennialists. Starhawk has written a sequel, City of Refuge (2015), around the three major characters to tell what happens next in the North and the Southlands. I have not read the new novel.

But I know that Witches can prophesy. And so can writers, and so we have in these three novels four protagonists—Carolyn Crespin, Consuelo Ramos, and Maya and Madrona—who can teach us a great deal about resistance. The four sacred things are earth, air, fire, and water. The fifth is spirit. Blessed be.

BIO: Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. (barbaraardinger.com), is the author of Secret Lives, a novel about crones and other magical folks, Pagan Every Day, a unique daybook of daily meditations, and other books. She really enjoys writing her monthly blogs for FAR. Her work has also been published in devotionals to Isis, Athena, and Brigid. Barbara’s day job is freelance editing for people who have good ideas but don’t want to embarrass themselves in print. To date, she has edited more than 400 books, both fiction and nonfiction, on a wide range of topics. She lives in Long Beach, California, with her rescued calico cat, Schroedinger.

From the Archives: Are These Three Novels Prophetic? Part 1: Gibbon’s Decline and Fall by Sheri S. Tepper by Barbara Ardinger

Moderator’s note: This marvelous FAR site has been running for 10 years and has had more than 3,600 posts in that time. There are so many treasures that have been posted in this decade. They tend to get lost in the archives. We are beginning this column so that we can all revisit some of these gems. Today’s blogpost was originally posted August 6, 2017. You can visit it here to see the original comments. This post along with those which will be posted in next two days were curated by Barbara Ardinger to stand together for their relevancy now, 5 years later.

Leonora Carrington’s THE HEARING TRUMPET – Book Review by Sally Abbott

Long a fan of Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington, I was initially hesitant when the New York Review of Books reissued her 1974 novel, The Hearing Trumpet. I didn’t know what to expect when this extraordinary painter picked up a pen.

To my delight and surprise, Carrington shows the same artistry and whimsy in her writing that she does in her painting. She also reveals herself to be an astute feminist and aficionado of the Goddess, well-versed in arcane lore, with which she accents her fantastical world. The Hearing Trumpet is full of British humor and eccentricity, set in a finely spun, other-worldly landscape.

Her heroine Marian Leatherby is a 92-year-old, who lacks teeth, is hard of hearing, and sports a beard–a whimsical, endearing character who loves cats. She has been given a hearing trumpet by her great friend Carmella, and thereby learns that her son and his wife plan to send her away to an old folks’ home run by a Dr. Gambit and the Well of Light Brotherhood.

Mother-Love: A Review of Rosemary Daniell’s THE MURDEROUS SKY: POEMS OF MADNESS AND MERCY by Joyce Zonana

She’s been called a “national treasure” by Bruce Feiler and lauded by Erica Jong as “one of the women by whom our age will be known in times to come” … And yet Rosemary Daniell is not as well-known as she deserves to be–perhaps because she is a fiercely feminist Southern woman.

joyce-zonana

She’s been called a “national treasure” by Bruce Feiler and lauded by Erica Jong as “one of the women by whom our age will be known in times to come.” The author of three books of poetry, a novel, several memoirs, and several books of nonfiction, she is the founder of the revolutionary “Zona Rosa” writing workshops and retreats that have helped hundreds of participants—mostly women—become published authors. For many years she led writing workshops in women’s prisons in Georgia and Wyoming, and served as program director for Georgia’s Poetry in the Schools. Her work has been featured in numerous magazines and newspapers. And yet Rosemary Daniell is not as well-known as she deserves to be—perhaps because she is a fiercely feminist Southern woman who unabashedly celebrates her own sexuality while also bringing her formidable intellect, wit, charm, and compassion to bear on her approach to writing.

Continue reading “Mother-Love: A Review of Rosemary Daniell’s THE MURDEROUS SKY: POEMS OF MADNESS AND MERCY by Joyce Zonana”

All We Have is Our Heart by Esther Nelson

One of my former students recommended UNFOLLOW to me, a memoir written by Megan Phelps-Roper, granddaughter of Fred Phelps (1929 – 2014), the (in)famous pastor of Westboro Baptist Church, Topeka, Kansas.

Some people may not be aware that Fred Phelps began his career as a civil rights attorney—someone who, in the 1960s, took on racial discrimination cases no other lawyer would touch. Today, he is best remembered as a preacher who vociferously opposed homosexuality, spreading his message “God Hates Fags” both in the pulpit and while picketing in public spaces. He and his followers also picketed the funerals of fallen soldiers with signs that read “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.” Phelps believed soldiers’ deaths (as well as natural disasters) to be God’s punishment for the country’s “bankrupt values,” especially the “sin” of homosexuality. Hence, God unleashes calamity and catastrophe on the United States, a nation in dire need of repentance.

What Does a Woman Want? by Esther Nelson

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), well-known Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis, “…said once to Marie Bonaparte: ‘The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul is, ‘What does a woman want?’” (“Was will das Weib?”) ― Sigmund Freud: Life and Work (Hogarth Press, 1953) by Ernest Jones.

I don’t believe Freud ever answered the question posed here satisfactorily. Women’s desire—even today—hovers in the taboo category. After all, in our hierarchal, patriarchal society women’s wants/desires are mediated through social structures and institutions that favor men. It’s easy to overlook since we all are spawned and then swim in those patriarchal waters.

The Gathering: A Womanist Church BOOK REVIEW by Mary Ann Beavis

Book title: The Gathering: A Womanist Church—Origins, Stories, Sermons, and Litanies

Authors: Irie Lynne Session, Kamilah Hall Sharp and Jann Aldredge-Clanton

Publisher: Wipf & Stock, 2020

Womanist theology is a form of theological reflection that centers on Black women’s experience, sensitive to issues of race, class and gender. It originated in the United States in the mid-1980s and has grown in scope, sophistication and influence, but until recently there has been no expressly womanist church. This book charts the founding and development of a womanist church from the perspectives not only of its pastors (Irie Lynne Session and Kamilah Hall Sharp) but also of its ministry partners (Jann Aldredge-Clanton and others). Continue reading “The Gathering: A Womanist Church BOOK REVIEW by Mary Ann Beavis”

About Bridgerton: A Different Feminist Perspective by Christine Irving

First of all, I’m grateful to Bridgerton for providing several spirited conversations between my friends and me, not to mention the POVs penned recently in these pages. It was fun to take part in exchanges that did not highlight or veer off into either politics or the COVID-19 epidemic.

What first drew me to Bridgerton was the fun of it – the blatant over the top spoofery and satire so like the Commedia dell’arte it so brilliantly imitates. The Commedia got away with its mockery of society because it disguised it beneath a froth of opulent, frippery, and coarse buffoonery that distracted the rich (but not the poor) from its real message about the foolishness and vanity of the ruling class. So does Bridgerton, but in this case, the culture being satirized and unveiled is ours. Unlike those earlier dramatists, in our age we fortunately and so far, at least in this country, still enjoy much greater leeway in making mockery. “Huzzah!” I say. Continue reading “About Bridgerton: A Different Feminist Perspective by Christine Irving”

Good(?) Grief by Esther Nelson

The current pandemic has kicked our collective butt by putting a huge dent in our ability to maintain relationships so necessary for keeping our social gears greased and running smoothly. Grabbing coffee with a friend or meeting up for lunch in order to “catch up” with one another are activities that in times past we took for granted. Meetings nowadays (both work related and social) are done primarily via Zoom. Even a doctor’s visit can be accomplished electronically—a mode that, in my opinion, leaves much to be desired.

Besides feeing socially deprived over the past year, I’ve experienced a number of other losses. I’ll mention a few of them, but am not prepared to write about the ones that sting the most. I gave up my house in Richmond, Virginia, and moved to a high-rise condominium just down the road. I’ve yet to make it “home.” Halfway through the Spring semester, all classes at the university where I taught went online. The Fall semester followed suit, delivering classes (mainly) online. I didn’t want to box myself in on a screen. I find classroom interaction meaningful in a way that I cannot replicate on Zoom. I gave up teaching. In August, I drove to Las Cruces, New Mexico, and have been here ever since except for a brief visit in September to New Jersey for my brother’s funeral—another loss. Continue reading “Good(?) Grief by Esther Nelson”

Glimpsing La Vièio ié Danso – “The Untouchable Wild Goddess” – in Jóusè d’Arbaud’s Beast of Vacarés by Joyce Zonana

Nearly a century later, d’Arbaud’s words still have the power to startle and delight, vividly evoking Earth’s sacredness.

Early in Jóusè d’Arbaud’s 1926 Provençal novella, The Beast of Vacarés, the narrator, a 15^th century gardian or bull herder, describes how in summer la Vièio ié danso—the Old Dancer— “can be glimpsed on the dazzling salt flats” that surround the Vacarés lagoon in the Camargue region of Southern France.

In a note, d’Arbaud explains that la Vièio is how locals refer to mirages in this liminal landscape where earth, sea, and sky merge. “Mirages are common in the Camargue,” he tells us:

They begin with a vibration in the air, a trembling that runs along the ground and seems to make the images dance; it spreads into the distance in great waves that reflect the dark thickets. How not to see in this mysterious Vièio, dancing in the desert sun, a folk memory of the untouchable wild goddess, ancient power, spirit of solitude, once considered divine, that remains the soul of this great wild land?

“The untouchable wild goddess . . . once considered divine . . .”

Nearly a century later, d’Arbaud’s words still have the power to startle and move us, vividly evoking Earth’s sacredness. Here is a man, himself a bull herder in the region he so lovingly describes, who seems to have been a devotee of the Goddess, the “ancient power” he venerates and bring to life for his readers. Indeed, in an early poem, “Esperit de la Terro” — “Spirit of the Earth”— d’Arbaud explicitly dedicates himself to the old gods sleeping below the earth, vowing to “defend” and “aid” them. How extraordinary to discover this writer making such a commitment, well before the rise of our recent feminist spirituality and ecofeminist movements. D’Arbaud speaks directly to our current environmental, theological, social, and political concerns.