Carol P. Christ – Page 25 – Feminism and Religion

Memories of Greek Easters Past by Carol P. Christ

Yesterday was Greek Easter and as Greece was still on lockdown, friends brought a lovely meal of roast chicken and vegetables, scalloped potatoes, green salad, and pineapple upside down cake, which we ate together on my balcony. Still I could not help remembering Easters past. This blog was originally published in 2013.

Though I am not a Christian any more, I don’t want to sit home alone on Easter Day. Besides being a Christian ritual, Greek Easter is a time to eat lamb with family and friends, and to celebrate the coming of spring by feasting out-of-doors in flowering fields or in a garden filled with flowers, bees, butterflies, and birds. Such rituals have been celebrated from time immemorial.

Greek Easter came late this year, only yesterday, May 5. I prepared for an Easter party in my garden for weeks. My garden is planted with herbs and aromatics—lavender, thyme, oregano, rosemary, curry plant, rue, sage, cistus, rose-scented geranium, sweet william, cat mint and several other kinds of mint, bee balm, and roses and fruit trees, including lemon, bitter orange, pomegranate, olive, quince, and cherry. Everything blossoms in spring, attracting bees and butterflies.

I began weeding and pruning about 6 weeks ago. This year I had to remove many overgrown lavender plants. For the last 3 weeks in addition to ongoing weeding and pruning, I have been replanting lavender which I have promised myself to prune “way back” in the fall, along with purple sage, blue daisies, and thyme. Though there is bare ground in some parts of the garden, in other parts mature plants and trees are in full flower.

I have my breakfast in the early morning on a terrace from which I can see the garden and the sea. I love to” just sit” in the garden at this time of year. My thoughts cease as I enjoy the flowers, new ones every few days, and watch birds, butterflies, bees, and my two tortoises. Then my eyes come to rest on a task that needs doing, and I work for an hour or more as the sun comes into the garden.

There is a flowing fountain in the center of my garden that attracts birds. This year as in other years, there is a nest of great tits in a hole in an old locust tree. This tree is an import from America favored by the Ottomans, planted decades ago by someone whose name I do not know. One morning in early spring a migrating hoopoe landed above my head in the other locust tree. A hoopoe is a magnificent rust-colored bird with a black and white wings, a crown that can be opened or closed like a fan, and a long down-curved bill. Its arrival–a garden first– felt like a blessing. This spring I have seen blue tits, sparrows, collared doves, chaffinches, goldfinches, and for the first time a pair of black-eared wheatears drinking and cavorting in the fountain.

With the old lavender bushes gone, I have been able to see the tortoises with whom I share the garden more clearly. They wake up about ten as the sun begins to shine on the stone paths in the garden. They warm themselves for a while, and then start searching for food. Last year they “weeded” the garden for me—though they didn’t care for the bermuda and other invasive grasses. This year I feed them greens and vegetables. When the first rose petals fell to the ground, I remembered that, like us, they have a “sweet tooth”—besides flower petals, they like tomatoes and other fruit. They don’t actually have teeth, but rather hard gums, which are quite effective for munching and sometimes gobbling down food. After eating, they wander around the garden and usually have sex at least once (they are both boys), before they crawl under the bushes to wait out the hottest part of the day. They wake up again in the late afternoon.

I find it amazing to be sharing my garden with two reptiles whose ancestors perfected their evolution 200 million years ago when Pangaea was a single continent. I marvel at the agility they have despite their heavy shells. They push themselves up low steps and slide back down. They can get from one side of the garden to the other quite quickly when they want to.

All of my garden preparation culminates at Easter when I make a party for my friends. I order the lamb early in the week and make a pilgrimage with one or two others to a mountain village to pick it up. Along the way we stop to admire migrating birds in the wetlands of Kalloni and the wildflowers in the fields and on the hillsides. In the village we also buy braided sweet Easter bread called tsoureki, cooked with a red Easter egg in its center, and tiny Greek sweets called baklava and kataiifi, made of thin pastry, nuts, and honey. We lunch at a favorite taverna in the village, before returning home.

My house, which is over a hundred years old, originally had its kitchen in the garden: the old brick oven and an open fireplace remain. I use the oven only on Easter to roast a lamb that cooks all night long and into the morning. I save tree prunings, rosemary and lavender clippings, and collect driftwood for the fire. It must burn fast and hot. I wait until midnight to light it.

In the evening, I prepare the rice as the Greeks once did in Smyrna with orange and lemon juice, black currants, golden raisins, pine nuts, mint, parsley, and onions. I use it to stuff the lamb. I make tzatziki with yogurt, cucumber, and garlic, garnishing it with mint from the garden. The next day friends will bring potato salad (as my Grandma made it) and a green salad to which I will add mint, dill, and bee balm from the garden.

At midnight the church bells peal announcing “Christos anesti,” “Christ is risen.” The village rings with the sounds of firecrackers and the sky is lit by fireworks. This is the moment I choose to light my fire. I revel in the feeling of danger within and without. The fire burns wildly for at least an hour “until the bricks turn white.” Then I push the flaming wood to the sides of the oven, watch the embers burn down until they are small glowing coals, insert the lamb, shut the oven door, and go inside. I am always too excited to fall asleep immediately.

When I wake, I check to be sure the lamb is cooked, but don’t open the oven door again until my guests arrive. I take my time setting up folding tables next to the marble table with stone seats in the secluded area that used to be a kitchen. I think of the generations of women and girls who used the oven where the lamb awaits, as I bring the taverna chairs and cushions out storage. I spread out tablecloths from Crete and set out ceramic dishes from Skyros–painted with birds, flowers, mermaids, sailing ships, and people in traditional dress–pink wine glasses, pink and blue cloth napkins. Like the garden, my table is a feast of color.

Before the guests arrive, I sit in the garden and wait. A song of thanksgiving reverberates in my mind:

This is my Mother’s world,

And to my listening ears,

All Nature sings,

And ‘round me rings,

The m-u-s-i-c of the spheres.

Easter lamb stuffing Smyrna style

2 cups white long grain rice

2 T black currants

2 T golden raisins

2 T pine nuts

2 T olive oil

1/4 cup chopped fresh mint

1/2 cup chopped parsley

2 onions chopped

juice of one orange (and/or lemon)

salt and pepper to taste

(you can also add the liver, cooked and chopped)

Cook the onions in the olive oil, add the rice and orange juice, cook lightly, add the other ingredients stir.

Spoon into the cavity of a cleaned lamb carcass with the legs but without the head.

Can also be used for chicken. If not used as stuffing, add enough water to cook rice. Amounts of ingredients can be varied.

*Smyrna is the Greek name for Izmir, a city where Greeks lived for many centuries, until 1922, the year of the “great catastrophe” when many of them fled to Lesbos, Chios, and Samos, while others ended up in Athens.

Bio

Carol P. Christ is an internationally known feminist and ecofeminist writer, activist, and educator who lives in Heraklion, Crete. Carol’s recent book is Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology. Carol has been leading Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete for over twenty years: join her in Crete. Carol’s photo by Michael Honneger.

Listen to Carol’s a-mazing interview with Mary Hynes on CBC’s Tapestry recorded in conjunction with her keynote address to the Parliament of World’s Religions

Feeling Weary about US Politics by Carol P. Christ

Carol by Honegger cropped

Like many of you, I was anxious and angry during most of the Trump administration years. I watched MSNBC avidly, hoping against hope that a) he could be stopped or b) he would be impeached. Now that he is gone, it would be nice to be able to take a “breather” (I wasn’t breathing regularly during the Trump years), a break from thinking about US politics all the time, but sadly, the political situation in the United States continues to require attention.

President Biden has pleasantly surprised me with his progressive domestic agenda and his decision to remove troops from the heretofore endless war in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, he has proposed an increase in the military budget. Dwight David Eisenhower, who warned of the increasing power of “the military-industrial complex” as he left office, must be turning over in his grave.

Most worrying of all is the fact that so many Americans voted for Donald Trump, believe that the election was stolen from him, and support white supremacy, while the Republican party refuses to deviate from the Trumpian worldview.

As if it could not be any worse, police killings of innocent black men by white officers and mass killings by young white men with easy access to automatic weapons are proliferating. Moreover, Republican-inspired voting restriction legislation is once again threatening the foundations of our democracy. Continue reading “Feeling Weary about US Politics by Carol P. Christ”

THE DIVINE DRAMA AND THE UNIVERSALITY OF DEATH* by Carol P. Christ

In Greece the liturgies of lent and especially of the week before Easter are known as the “divine drama,” in Greek theodrama. This may refer to the “drama” of the capture, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus and to the suffering of God the Father and Mary.

However, it is important to recall that the drama in ancient Greece referred to both the tragedies and comedies, most specifically, those that were performed in the theater of Dionysios in Athens. While we have been taught that the Greek tragedies celebrated “downfall of the hero” due to his “tragic flaw,” it is important to remember that Dionysios was the original protagonist of the Greek tragedy: it was his death and rebirth that was first celebrated.

Some have argued that the Greek tragedies should never be “read” alone, for they were always “performed” in tandem with the comedies, which were followed by the bawdy phallic humor of the satyr plays. The tragedies end in death and irreparable loss. But if the comedies and satyr plays are considered an integral part of the cycle, death is followed by the resurgence of life.

Out with the Old: In with the New by Carol P. Christ

A few days ago, a Greek friend told me she was going to bring holy water from a church so that we could bless my house. Ever since I moved to my new apartment in Heraklion, I have intended to do a house blessing, following rituals I learned from Z Budapest. But with unpacking and settling in interrupted by illness, I never got around to it. I did burn frankincense early on to clear out vibes left by the previous inhabitants of my space, but nothing more. I have slowly made the house a home, but I have been waiting for the renovations to be finished before doing a final blessing. As I still anticipate remodeling the kitchen island, I did not proceed.

Before my friend arrived, I incensed the house again, musing that now that I have finished my chemotherapy and am on the road to recovery, it is high time to clear out all the lingering feelings and memories of the time I was very ill. When my friend arrived bearing a small plastic bag filled with water from a church spring, she asked if she could water the plants on my balcony. I had watered them the day before, but I didn’t mention that.

Announcing that she loved to play with water, she doused the plants, then hosed the balcony tiles and sprayed the windows which were covered with dust following a recent dirty rain. As there are balconies surrounding all of my rooms, that completed the cleansing. Watering the plants signaled the renewal of life.

Continue reading “Out with the Old: In with the New by Carol P. Christ”

What If We Begin from the Hypothesis that Ancient Crete Was Matriarchal, Matrifocal, and Matrilineal? by Carol P. Christ

If we begin from the hypothesis ancient Crete was matriarchal, matrifocal, and matrilineal, what would we expect to be the central focus of the its religion?* Harriet Boyd Hawes and her colleague Blanche E. Williams presented an incipiently feminist, woman-centered, analysis of the religion of ancient Crete in Gournia, the book describing their excavation of a Minoan village at the beginning of the twentieth century. Boyd Hawes argued that the archaeological evidence showed not only the pre-eminence of the Goddess, a conclusion with which Williams agreed, but also the strength and independence of women in a culture she defined as matriarchal and matrilineal, centered around the Mother family. If ancient Crete was matrilineal, matrifocal, and matriarchal, we should expect to find evidence that women were not only strong and independent, but also that they had leadership roles in religion and culture. Williams noted the presence of priestesses. The miniature frescoes from Knossos show a group of older women sitting in the place of honor and a group of women performing a ritual dance. Where evidence concerning leadership roles is lacking, it should not be assumed that leadership must have been in the hands of men.

We should not be surprised to find the Goddess or mother earth to be at the center of rituals and ceremonies in ancient Crete. However, to say that the Goddess is central begs the question of what we mean when we say Goddess. In the west, deity is understood to be transcendent of the world, imaged as a dominant male other, and as the judge of the living and the dead. Citing the Oxford English Dictionary, archaeologist Colin Renfrew bases his discussion of Minoan religion on the idea of divine transcendence. But if we accept Marija Gimbutas’ insight that the Goddess represents the powers of birth, death, and regeneration in all forms of life, a different picture emerges. The Goddess is immanent in, rather than transcendent of the world. She is the enlivening force in human beings and all of nature. She is not the judge of the living and the dead, for the dead are returned to her body. Unlike later Greek deities, the Goddesses of Old Europe and ancient Crete are not generally portrayed as idealized human beings. Though they often have eyes, breasts, and sacred triangles, they also have beaks and wings, are shaped like mountains, and decorated with flowing lines symbolizing rivers or streams. These hybrid forms suggest that all of life is in the image of divinity and that humans are not higher, better, or separate from other life forms. Hybrid images celebrate the connection of all beings in the web of life and call human beings to participate in and enjoy this world, not to seek to escape or rise above it. A religion centered around gratitude for life in this world is very different from one that centers around fear and judgment and a longing for life after death. Jacquetta Hawkes’ insight that the religion of ancient Crete celebrated “the grace of life” is exactly right.

Is the Old European or Minoan Goddess one or many? Monotheists have insisted that there can be only one God, yet polytheists revere a plurality of images, while animists celebrate the spirits of (perceived) living beings such as rivers and trees, mountains and caves. The terms monotheism and polytheism are not neutral. Both were developed by monotheists: monotheism describes the correct beliefs of the self; polytheism, the false beliefs of the other. I find theologian and liturgist Marcia Falk’s distinction between exclusive and inclusive monotheism helpful in resolving the question of the one and the many. According to Falk, inclusive monotheism is an intuition of the unity of being within the diversity of the world: celebrating the unity of being, it welcomes a plurality of images to represent diversity and difference in the world. From this point of view, the boundaries between monotheism and polytheism are porous. When Gimbutas spoke of the powers of birth, death, and regeneration in all of life, she was referring to the unity of being underlying the diversity of life forms, including plants, animals, and human beings. Similarly, when indigenous peoples speak of mother earth as the giver of all and all beings as relatives, they recognize that all life is sustained by a single source. The fact that ancient Cretans imaged divinity in different ways and with different characteristics does not require the conclusion that they worshipped many discrete deities as some archaeologists argue: I suggest that they intuited a unity of being while celebrating the diversity of life. This appears to have been the conclusion of Williams who wrote of “the prominence of a goddess under various aspects.”

If matrilineal, matrifocal, and matriarchal cultures tend to view the earth as a great and giving mother, we can expect this insight to be expressed in rituals and ceremonies. Gratitude is the appropriate response to gifts freely given. I suggest that gratitude for the gift and gifts of life was not only a focus, but the central focus, of religion in ancient Crete. If this is so, we should expect to find rituals celebrating the gift of life in the birth of babies, the coming-of-age of girls, as well as in as well as in death rituals honoring the ancestors. We can also expect to find rituals honoring the mother line and expressing gratitude for the wisdom of ancestors. Many of these rituals would have taken place in the matrilineal House as archaeologist Jan Driessen suggests. Rituals for the ancestors might also have taken place in cemeteries. We should also expect to find rituals expressing gratitude for the food that sustains life, for example, in offerings of first fruits to mother earth and in the pouring of libations that are absorbed back into her body. If, women invented agriculture, and if as Gimbutas argued, Old European religion celebrated the processes of birth, death, and regeneration in all of life, we should find rituals focused on planting, harvesting, and storing seeds. Some of these rituals might have taken place in the matrilineal Houses, while others surely took place in nature and in the fields. If pottery-making and weaving were understood to be mysteries of transformation involving birth, death, and regeneration, we might find evidence of rituals associated with these activities in the Houses or in workshops. It is known that rites in ancient Crete involved trees, mountains, and caves, as well as water sources. We must ask if and how such ceremonies expressed gratitude to the mother earth, the source of life, and the cycles of birth, death, and regeneration.

*These musings are part of an early draft of the methodological prologue to an essay I have been asked to write on Religion in a Minoan Village to be published in the archaeological report on recent excavations at Gournia. In the preceding part of the prologue, I discuss the theories about matriarchal, matrifocal, and matrilineal cultures of Harriet Boyd Hawes, Blanche E. Williams, Marija Gimbutas, Heide Goettner-Abendroth, and others.

Carol P. Christ is an internationally known feminist and ecofeminist writer, activist, and educator who lives in Heraklion, Crete. Carol’s recent book is Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology. Carol has been leading Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete for over twenty years: join her in Crete. Carol’s photo by Michael Honneger.

Listen to Carol’s a-mazing interview with Mary Hynes on CBC’s Tapestry recorded in conjunction with her keynote address to the Parliament of World’s Religions.

The Last Chemo by Carol P. Christ

When I went to the hospital for chemo on Thursday, the doctor told me it would be my last one. That was a surprise. I thought I would have at least one more. But it was a good surprise, because I had felt more tired than usual after my most recent treatment. Apparently, I had started to feel a bit better when my cancer became inactive, but chemo is cumulative, and it caught up with me.

I slept well on Thursday night. On Friday morning I felt great relief and joy thinking that my chemo was ending. I called a number of friends to tell them the good news. I suspected that I might feel very tired for a few weeks from the last dose of chemo. But after that, all of the symptoms caused by the chemo would begin to lessen—including numbness in my right foot, instability, lack of energy, shortness of breath, anemia, and hair loss.

By the mid-afternoon the tiredness set in again. This time I did not get the few good days that I have attributed to a prescribed dose of cortisone to counter the effects of the chemo. Even though I predicted that the last chemo would make me very tired, there is a part of me that wants this all to be over—and now!

But in truth it will not be. Not for months. Continue reading “The Last Chemo by Carol P. Christ”

Living with Cancer Treatment by Carol P. Christ

At the end of July 2020, I was diagnosed with stage 3 aggressive cancer. As of this week, I will have been receiving a very high dose of chemo (5 hours on the drip every 3 weeks) for 6 months, with 2 treatments to go. When I was diagnosed with cancer, I was in a state of shock. As I was about to leave the oncologist’s office, I said to the doctor, “stage 3 is pretty bad, isn’t it?” He responded, “Well, it could have been stage 4.”

As I understand it, the prognosis for becoming cancer free for stages 1 and 2 is good, for stage 4 it is unlikely, while for stage 3, the chances are something like 50-50. Although my primary oncologist declines to make predictions, I was told by a junior doctor that with the type of cancer I have, my chances were about 40% that the surgery that would follow chemo would remove all of the cancer.

Despite the fact that my chances were less than 50-50, for the most part I remained optimistic that I would be one of the lucky ones. I have not suffered depression, nor have I been overcome with anxiety. Although my primary doctor and the others I have seen are not interested in discussing the effects of prayer, meditation, and visualization, to a one they have said that “attitude” makes a big difference.

I attribute my ability to remain optimistic to several factors. I am not afraid of death. Continue reading “Living with Cancer Treatment by Carol P. Christ”

Waking Up in Shock by Carol P. Christ

I went to sleep in Greece on Wednesday night January 6 feeling elated that Jon Ossoff, following Raphael Warnock whose victory had been declared earlier, was officially named the winner of his runoff election in Georgia, returning the Senate to the Democrats by the slimmest of margins. I expected to wake up to the celebration of Stacey Abrams’ contribution to the victory and to listening to commentators discussing how it came about and what we could expect from the next Congress.

Instead, I learned that a violent insurrection by thousands of people hoping to overturn the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had taken place in the Capitol of the United States. It was clear from the early footage that there had been a massive failure on the part of police and security forces to secure the Capitol building. The President himself, abetted by his son Don Junior, Rudy Guiliani, and other Republicans, urged the mob to march to the Capitol and to fight to overturn the certification of the Electoral College results. This is why Democrats will most likely move to impeach him for a second time.

Just as disturbing is the emerging news that the Capitol Police had been adequately warned that some of the groups urging their members to attend the rally were posting on social media about their intent to storm the Capitol. Apparently there had been discussions about trying and hanging Vice President Pence and also about killing Nany Pelsoi. Questions have been raised about how the mob knew its way about secret rooms within the Capitol building, with the suspicion being that members of Congress, their staff, or security personnel within the building had been in communication with leaders of the mob.

Though the press has been hesitant to fuel the fires by reporting on it, insurrectionist groups are calling for armed rallies at the US Capitol and state capitols on Inauguration Day or in the days leading up to it. In other words, the failed coup of January 6 could be the beginning, not the end of violent insurrection in the United States. Continue reading “Waking Up in Shock by Carol P. Christ”

Another Bow to Hestia by Carol P. Christ

I am not big on New Year’s resolutions, but this year I have vowed to change one of my habits. I have always been house-proud and love using my artistic flair to decorate my home in beauty. I have had a cleaning lady most of the time for many years, so my homes have been relatively clean. The living room and dining room have always been ready to receive guests. But I didn’t always do the dishes or clean the surfaces in the kitchen right away, clothes I had worn often sat on chairs before I hung them up, and I didn’t make the bed every day.

Now that I think about it, this habit goes back to my childhood and teen-age years, when my not picking up things in my bedroom was a bone of contention between me and my mother. Joyce Zonana wrote recently about how she rejected her mother’s role as homemaker and “dutiful” wife when she was young. Only now during the Covid crisis, she writes, is she beginning to enjoy the traditional women’s work of cooking regularly and knitting.

When I was a teen-ager, I sewed all of my clothes (both because we didn’t have a lot of money and because, as I was very tall and very skinny, most ready-made clothes didn’t fit). I was a second mother to my baby brother. For me, those were the fun parts of women’s work. But I hated washing dishes and cleaning the house, and I did not learn how to cook. I suppose I recoiled from the repetitiveness of those tasks. I was also aware that my father ruled the roost, and though I would never have criticized him, I knew that one of my mother’s jobs was to please him. Laura Montoya’s meditation on her grandmother’s life in a recent blog reminds us that the failure of homemakers to meet their husbands needs or wants can lead to violence.

When I went away to college, I learned to disparage all of women’s work, including the parts of it I had loved. I was taught that the “life of the mind” was the highest pursuit and that the “life of the body” was secondary. I now see this aspect of university culture as brainwashing of the highest order. Continue reading “Another Bow to Hestia by Carol P. Christ”

What I Celebrate at Christmas by Carol P. Christ

Though I have not been Christian for many years, I love to decorate my house for the holidays. I have many decorations that I have collected over the years, including a Hummel angel gazing at the Christ child that was my father’s mother’s and a small crocheted Christmas tree given to me by my mother. My Christmas tree is a living one in a pot, and I usually manage to keep it alive on the balcony or outside for several years. One of my hobbies is collecting ornaments for the tree. Among my favorites are glass icicles and snowflakes crocheted by my friend Alexis many decades ago. There are white doves and brown birds that land on the tree branches and glass balls that have come into the stores again in recent years.

During the years I lived in Lesbos I was always invited to my friend Birgitt’s for a German Christmas Eve dinner with many of her friends. The meal began with fresh cured salmon (gravadlax) with dill sauce prepared by Swedish Christina, followed by meat and and all the trimmings—once it was wild boar and another time venison, but more often beef or turkey. I always brought a spinach salad with pomegranate seeds and special dressing from the Silver Palate cookbook. For dessert there was German Christmas cake called stollen made with nuts, spices, and candied fruit, covered with powdered sugar, as well as a variety of German Christmas cookies and chocolates. On Christmas day, I often went out to a restaurant on with other friends and feasted on Symrna style lamb stuffed with rice, raisins, pine nuts, and parsley, sweetened with orange juice.

Among my most treasured childhood memories are holiday meals at mother’s mother’s house. Continue reading “What I Celebrate at Christmas by Carol P. Christ”