As a woman with Passamaquoddy roots when I first came to Abiquiu I was invited to participate in the six pueblo celebrations along the Rio Grande which made me feel blessed, grateful, included, and at “home.”
My own people’s lives and traditions were destroyed by colonial peoples centuries ago.
Yesterday I was invited to attend a river blessing on what I call Red Willow River a tributary of the Rio Grande by folks of Spanish and Indigenous descent who live here in Abiquiu on the mesa. These people, although local, are of mixed descent and do not follow the seasons and cycles of the year as the surrounding pueblos do. There is a heavy overlay of Spanish colonialism along with a restrictive (to me) Catholicism that sets this village apart from the pueblos.
Still, I was looking forward to this celebration
That was supposed to be led by Tewa Women United from the neighboring pueblos. It was a beautiful day, and of course we were all on “Indian Time” which means practically that ceremonies start when the time was right.
However, this blessing of the river didn’t come together at all. People milled around aimlessly. Some left. The children some of whom were dressed in regalia played for a while and eventually got hungry. Some complained they had to get back to school for a game.
Have you felt the satisfaction of putting someone in their place? Have you ever felt the rush of power that comes with delivering a cutting set-down? Have you ever felt a glow of pride after making fun of a horrible person or group, and having the people around you laugh appreciatively?
I sure have. In high school, the bully-types in my classes learned not to pick on me to my face, and not to pick on my sister when I was in the room. I got damned good at snide, witty comebacks, and so people stopped messing with me. That kind of success was incredibly rewarding. It was a useful skill I honed over the years, so I could trot it out whenever needed. Rare these days, but my sister still occasionally says, “I’m just glad Trelawney’s in my corner.”
Oh, it feels good to WIN, to experience verbal conquest, and to know I’m justified in using my tongue as a sword, because that person SO deserved it! Ah, the adrenaline, the afterglow, the notch in my belt!
At the end of Anita Diamant’s novel, THE RED TENT, Dinah—the same young woman who is only briefly mentioned in the biblical account (Genesis 34)—dies after a long and full life. The biblical text tells us that Dinah “went out to visit the women of the region” and that “Schechem son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the region, saw her…seized her and lay with her by force” (vss. 1-2). The passage is often titled “The Rape of Dinah.”
In Diamant’s version of the story, Dinah and King Hamor’s son engage in consensual sex. In keeping with the biblical account, the king then attempts to negotiate a bride price with Jacob (Dinah’s father), but Jacob and his sons are reluctant to agree to the marriage. They demand soon thereafter that all the men in Hamor’s kingdom undergo circumcision as a bride price. On the third day after surgery, the sons steal into the city and kill the men.
After just a mere mention of Dinah’s “rape” in Genesis 34, she disappears from the story. In THE RED TENT, Diamant not only gives Dinah a powerful voice, she also weaves a wonderful tale of mothers, daughters, heartache, betrayal, loss, love, and joy. Dinah gives birth to her lover’s son in Egypt, develops a strong bond and working relationship with the midwife, Meryt, and eventually falls in love with Benia, a master carpenter.
I am grateful for dreams. I don’t know what they are, of course, in any absolute sort of way. Defining dreaming is as elusive as dreams themselves. Moreover, I find that understanding dreaming is complicated by the vastly variegated quality one finds in hearing people speak of their experiences of dreaming. Some say things such as “I can never remember a dream,” while others say they only remember bad dreams. Some place no stock in dreams at all, while for others they are the numinous truth realms beneath all waking phenomena. I have spoken with hard-science minded colleagues as well as artists about dreams, who regardless of professional vocation can be utterly untouched by their nighttime journeying. On just a few occasions have I ever heard people speak of their dreams as definitively shaping their lives in the way that my dreams, or more precisely, in the way that the faculty of dreaming, has impacted my life.
As I hang the laundry back home, I remember how just 24 hours earlier I arrived back on the beach after an incredible time at the ancestral burial mound where I spend the night in ceremony at the Autumn Equinox.
Ile Carn is a neolithic passage grave on a small tidal island in Finisterre, Brittany. I had visited there the summer before, and found that the other world was strongly accessible. When places become very touristy, like Stonehenge or Mont St. Michel, it sometimes appears as if the spirits retreat and the potency of the place thins. I asked them then if I could come back for ceremony, and when the answer was yes, I promised to return.
So here I was, on the Autumn Equinox, or Mabon. This is a time of balance, when the days and nights are equally long. A time in which the harvest has been gathered and we can start to prepare for a time of gestation and growing in the dark womb of winter, before the light is reborn again next year. My personal aim was three fold: I wanted to celebrate this year, especially to give thanks for my life, which had been on a precarious knife-edge earlier in May. I also wanted to ask for guidance for both my budding business and for my academic work in terms of re-discovering our own indigeneity in the west.
As I reflect on my experience at the climate strike on September 20, 2019, I see a connection between climate change and the bad rap that religion has today. When asked what they think about religion, many are quick to point out how history has shown that it has been at the center of numerous wars. Even today we find conflicts between groups grounded in religious difference. There are other differences in these conflicts, such as ethnic differences, differences of social organization, and disagreements over territory, but religion is a clear element. Colonialism, misogyny, and priest sexual abuse are some other ways that religions have earned reputations for being too strict, too old fashioned, and too corrupt, among other things.
The climate strike was called Youth Climate Strike and had as one of its leaders a very special young woman, Greta Thunberg. It isn’t often that the youth are given a platform for their complaints and even rarer that a teenaged person – and a female at that – is seen as a world leader on one of the most important issues facing civilization. Not only does this young woman have the wisdom to see the problem from a global, even a cosmic, perspective, but she also stands before us as the face of the only group on the planet that is more impacted by climate change than any other – the youth.
I binge-read White Monkey Chronicles The Complete Trilogy. The first time. It’s like Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, J.K. Rowling and Gloria Steinem got drunk one night and decided to write a book.A second, slower read was even sweeter.
The first paragraph of the Prologue tipped me headfirst and wide-eyed into this mind-bending, myth-busting, topsy-turvy tale. Its innocuous, traditional “Once Upon” opening was immediately blown up by the explosive words “infant deity abandoned,”, “famous bachelor Jew,”, and “A-list Hindu”. Wait. Whaaat? The stage was set for a rebellious, revolutionary saga destined to be voted “Most Popular” at a fundamentalist book burning!
A white monkey (part-time Plush toy, full-time guardian of an off-the-record baby boy deity) sets the book’s roller coaster ride in motion on a snowy night in Humbolt County, USA. There, at the withered and weathered Sisters of Immaculate Conceptions convent, we meet the three remaining Sister-resisters of The Great Church’s preening patriarchy. (Lets just say the clergy is strictly for the birds — in dress and demeanor.) Getting a whiff of the unauthorized deity’s arrival, a conclave of Cardinals swoop in to confirm (and possibly kidnap) the threatening newborn from the kind, caring, and radical hands of the rogue nuns. Not so fast. Continue reading “White Monkey Chronicles: Myth-busting in Eden BOOK REVIEW by BJ Austin”
*with thanks to Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
In The Handmaid’s Tale women don’t have their own names anymore. They whisper them to each other in order to re-member who they are: June, Moira… maybe even Lydia Their bodies aren’t their own. If you are fertile, you are used to breed. If you are infertile, but clever, you can be a Martha and cook or clean for men, and their families. Women don’t have families; they are part of a man’s family. Or they could be an Aunt, someone who trains the other women to be docile. To be afraid. To give in. To give up. Not everyone will get the message, or be able to follow it: Don’t let the bastards get you down.
Cranes, seen gliding over the water, searching for food in muddy wetlands and flying overhead in beautiful formations, are graceful, elegant birds – masters of three worlds – air, land and water.
I’ve written some very personal things in my most recent posts sharing that I am working towards a rebirth. The terrain has been rough and I keep waiting for a smooth path to appear on the horizon; but it isn’t quite visible yet. There are many factors: single parenting, career, the mid-life crisis, menopause…NOT the musical (peri-menopause really, but you know what I mean). It’s like going through puberty all over again with bad skin, mood swings, insecurities abound; but a thousand times worse and with hot flashes, rage, and memory loss. I imagine some of you nodding your heads and laughing as you read this…or maybe crying depending on which way your mood is swinging. I’m learning to embrace Evelyn’s alter ego “Towanda” in Fried Green Tomatoes.
When we are struggling, it is easy to sink into despair and disconnect from the love that surrounds us. I often find myself overwhelmed with day to day life: prepping for classes, grading, packing lunches, helping with homework, getting dinner on the table, laundry, dishes, paying bills, etc. As women, we are supposed to be nurturers balancing it all while taking care of everyone around us. We are told this is our “god-given” role and that pressure can be crushing. I often wonder, who is going to take care of me?
Sometimes making a simple phone call or sending a text message feels like more than I can bear. I can’t make myself do it. I get stuck in the never ending cycle of the daily grind and I think I’ll get to the phone call, text message, or email tomorrow. And then, I blink and a month has passed.
As I write this, I am grieving a great loss for our family. My dear Uncle Ralph, who I wrote about in a previous post, has made his journey to the spiritual realm. I last saw him a little over a month ago when my daughter Sarah and I baked him a cheesecake – a favorite family recipe that invoked the presence of the some of the women we’ve lost – my mother, grandmother, our Great Aunt Dee Dee (who the recipe originated with). When we left I promised to send a link with some articles, a recipe, and Sarah and I had planned to head back for another visit with a batch of cupcakes. I thought about it every day. And I put it off in favor of the daily grind, the aggravation, the despair, the hot flash, or “adulting.”
Sarah talked about Uncle Ralph often asking when we would go back and expressed her fear of not seeing him again. And then this morning, I heard the news. It sunk in my gut like a brick. And I thought about this song, “Some Lessons We Learn the Hard Way” where Melody Gardot laments:
Life goes away in a flash
Right before your eyes
If I think real hard well I reckon I’ve had some real good times
Well why do the hands of time
So easily unwind
Some lessons we learn the hard way
Some lessons don’t come easy
That’s the price we have to pay
During my last conversation with my uncle, he said he was so grateful for a second chance; entering hospice gave him the opportunity to recognize what is really important in life and all that he often lost sight of because of the daily grind — love. He knew that God was with him and he recognized the beauty of life as a divine gift.
Uncle Ralph said it was as if he was having a living wake. Everyday people came to visit him; they shared stories and laughs, and he was reminded of how many people loved him. Now, he focused on spending every last moment deeply engaged in relationship. Uncle Ralph, Aunt Mary, their children Colleen and Tim, and grandson Jacoby spent their days sitting together appreciating the family they had grown into. Some might say they were wasting time; but really they came to understand the greatest lesson of our lives. It is those precious moments that we share with one another that matter. God is present in those moments. We experience the divine in relationship. My dear uncle has given me such a gift in this lesson.
Tonight, as I am writing, strangely a notification from Uber Eats popped up on my phone. It said I had a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts in my cart ready to be delivered. I opened the app and was going to delete it. But I accidentally placed the order. (Really it was an accident!) In pursuit of a healthier lifestyle, I haven’t had a Krispy Kreme donut in ages. I’ve convinced myself that the donuts were Uncle Ralph granting me grace from the other side…or maybe playing a practical joke; he was always the prankster. A reminder of the sweetness that life can bring if we embrace what we are supposed to.
Rest in peace, my dear Uncle Ralph.
Gina Messina, Ph.D. is an American feminist scholar, Catholic theologian, activist, and mom. She serves as Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Ursuline College and is co-founder of FeminismAndReligion.com. She has written for the Huffington Post and is author or editor of five books including Jesus in the White House: Make Humanity Great Again and Women Religion Revolution. Messina is a widely sought after speaker and has presented across the US at universities, organizations, conferences and on national platforms including appearances on MSNBC, Tavis Smiley, NPR and the TEDx stage. She has also spoken at the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations to discuss matters impacting the lives of women around the globe. Messina is active in movements to end violence against women and explores opportunities for spiritual healing. Connect with her on Twitter @GMessinaPhD, Instagram: @GinaMessinaPhD, Facebook, and her website ginamessina.com.
I binge-read 
I’ve written some very personal things in my most 
Sarah talked about Uncle Ralph often asking when we would go back and expressed her fear of not seeing him again. And then this morning, I heard the news. It sunk in my gut like a brick. And I thought about this song, “Some Lessons We Learn the Hard Way” where Melody Gardot laments:
Uncle Ralph said it was as if he was having a living wake. Everyday people came to visit him; they shared stories and laughs, and he was reminded of how many people loved him. Now, he focused on spending every last moment deeply engaged in relationship. Uncle Ralph, Aunt Mary, their children Colleen and Tim, and grandson Jacoby spent their days sitting together appreciating the family they had grown into. Some might say they were wasting time; but really they came to understand the greatest lesson of our lives. It is those precious moments that we share with one another that matter. God is present in those moments. We experience the divine in relationship. My dear uncle has given me such a gift in this lesson.
Feminism and Religion 