Ephesus – Feminism and Religion

I’m an avid gardener. I must, need, long to have my hands in the soil. The sweet smell and feel of the earth connects me to something greater, to a sense of ‘other’; a source divine. I am interwoven, connected, at one and in reverence of a greater mystery. When I think about my connection to the earth and its origins, I find it is a connection I have had my entire life. As a young girl I spent many hours, days, in fact years, exploring the Australian bush – it was my backyard. Some of my most prominent memories are the smell of Eucalypt and the crescendo of cicada song that would permeate my entire surroundings throughout summer. As a teen, time and time again, I bushwalked our families property that backed onto mountainous National forest. I often sensed the indigenous ancestral spirits of our land watching attentively.

It is this deep connection that I have to the earth that not only leaves me feeling exultant, it leaves me troubled. I am troubled by the continuing problems caused to the environment. I admit to feeling quite disturbed recently when I read a number of reports about the persisting problems with the Fukushima Nuclear plant – radiated water still leaking into the ocean. Birdlife and ocean animals found suffering from radiation burns. Should we even be eating fish from the pacific? I can’t begin to fathom the enormity of the repercussions from this disaster that will be seen for many generations to come. My inner activist wants to be out there on the frontline, riding the waves on the Rainbow Warrior, tied to an ancient tree in protest of lopping; but I know my place is here, nurturing my little ones. So what can I do with these troubled feelings, with the frustration and with the love I have for Mother earth and all her beings? Action starts from home. So I let it fuel my fire and I get creative. I paint, I write, I garden; with intention. My intention is to play a role, no matter how small, that aids in the healing of the planet. I hold hope that it inspires other to do the same. Continue reading “Earth Connection & Healing the Bees by Jassy Watson”

Before the play begins, the audience is invited on stage; we walk around, not quite knowing what to do, gazing at the props, uncertain. A few chairs, scattered jars of honey, jugs of water beside a free-standing waist-high faucet, a tall ladder, a long table, a stripped tree trunk with a wooden wheel at the top suspended from the rafters, a menacing roll of barbed wire, and a live turkey vulture occasionally spreading wide its iridescent blue-black wings: such is the set for Deborah Warner’s searing production of Colm Toibin’s The Testament of Mary, a one-woman show currently in previews at the Walter Kerr Theater in New York. In a large open-sided box, stage left, the actress Fiona Shaw, draped in blue from head to toe, arranges herself, then sits perfectly still, holding a lily and an apple. We know this woman. The Virgin Mary. The Icon. Incarnate.

Fiona Shaw rehearses for her role as the Virgin Mary in The Testament of Mary. Irish novelist Colm Toibin's one-woman play opens April 22 at Broadway's Walter Kerr Theater. — Shaw in rehearsal. Photo by Hugo Glendinning

But when we are all back in our seats, Mary casts off her robe to stand before us in a simple black shift, flowing easily over narrow brown pants. Her hair is cropped, her face haunted; wearing short leather boots, she fumbles as she searches for a hand-rolled cigarette to steady herself. “I remember everything. Memory fills my body as much as blood and bones.” No longer an icon, hardly a virgin, this Mary addresses us with the piercing directness of the passion she has suffered: to have seen her only son crucified despite her efforts to save him. Now, interrogated by two unnamed apostles (John and Luke?) who want to fix the story of her son’s life and death and resurrection, Mary insists on reporting only what she knows: “I was there. I fled before it was over but if you want witnesses then I am one and I can tell you now, when you say that he redeemed the world, I will say that it was not worth it. It was not worth it.”

Continue reading “The Flesh Made Word: Colm Toibin’s “The Testament of Mary” on stage and in print By Joyce Zonana”