Marie Cartier – Page 6 – Feminism and Religion

From the Archives: And the Pies! Ongoing Grateful Thanks for Tradition by Marie Cartier

Moderator’s note: This marvelous FAR site has been running for 10 years and has had more than 3,500 posts in that time. There are so many treasures that have been posted in this decade that 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 November 24, 2018. You can visit it here to see the original comments.

In November 2017 I wrote about pie baking.

And in November 2015 I also wrote about pie baking.

Photo by Lisa Hartouni

Women’s March in Long Beach, CA by Marie Cartier

Hello FAR family! Here are photos from the October 2nd Women’s March in Long Beach, CA. The Women’s March began after the 2016 “election” and continued through the Trump years, and was not immediately active after Biden won. But after Texas passed it horrific ban on abortions with no exceptions, the Women’s March re-ignited across the nation… especially in response to the recent Supreme Court approval of the unconstitutional ruling on abortion in Texas which limits abortion access to 6 weeks of pregnancy – a time span that denies abortion completely as almost all women do not even know they are pregnant within this time, never mind having time to decide if an abortion is their choice.

Women’s March targets Supreme Court, with abortion on line – ABC News (go.com)

The Women’s March came together in October in a very short amount of time. For example the Long Beach rally came together in just 10 days. I attended and was one of 500+ (though reports said 200, I was there and we were more!

Click then scroll to see full image…

May the revolution continue! As Hillary Clinton said, “Women’s Rights are human rights.” And my favorite chant throughout the March was, “Who sent us? Ruth sent us!!”

Bio

Marie Cartier has a Ph.D. in Religion with an emphasis on Women and Religion from Claremont Graduate University. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book Baby, You Are My Religion: Women, Gay Bars, and Theology Before Stonewall (Routledge 2013). She is a senior lecturer in Gender and Women’s Studies and Queer Studies at California State University Northridge, and in Film Studies at Univ. of CA Irvine.

Class: What I Did with My One Wild Life by Marie Cartier

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

-Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day”

What did I do, the famous poet asks? Well, I survived, first of all, because that’s first.

Then, I got to ask the question and give an answer.

Then, I wanted to do so much– be a famous poet, too. But, really, so, few get to be that.

And after all, I needed money, so I was a waitress–breakfast, dinner, cocktails, diner, a short order cook, fry cook, prep cook, a janitor, a secretary, a saleswoman…and all that time I was a student. I did theater and one woman shows, and poetry slams and plays and I went to school and got degrees like other people get winter coats—just in case.

Suffrage is Unfinished Business—On The 101 Anniversary of the 19th Amendment by Marie Cartier

Dear FAR readers – please find photos from a celebration of the 101 anniversary of women’s suffrage, the 19^th Amendment, that I attended August 26, 2021. That day marks the end of the 100^th year of women having the right to vote.

I have been proud to be a part of, these past few years, a group calling themselves Suffrage in California – LBSuffrage100 Suffrage 100. We have met continuously in person and on line for two years now, stymied by the pandemic, but still pushing forward throughout this year with actions at the Democratic Convention, Long Beach Suffrage 100 celebrates in silence for centennial anniversary of the 19th Amendment – Press Telegram, standing in silence as the original suffragettes did outside the White House. We also of course marked the 100^th anniversary of suffrage, and at that time switched focus during the election to lobby for the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, part of the “unfinished business” of suffrage. Text – H.R.4 – 117th Congress (2021-2022): John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021 | Congress.gov | Library of Congress which seeks to expand federal ability to challenge discriminatory election rules.

Loving Venus, a poem by Marie Cartier

Dedicated to Carol Christ, 1945-2021, who taught so many of us how to love the Goddess

She is called “Nude Woman” and currently lives
in her natural museum house in Vienna.
Nude woman. She is art, but she is not in an art museum.
And there are questions:
why was she originally painted red? Why are her breasts so large?
Why is her stomach so large?
Why does she fit in a human hand?
What was her purpose?
Was it to entice men, or to comfort women?
Historians disagree.
Is her hair woven? Or is it a hat?
Why does she have no eyes? No feet? Why is she there?

Blue Is My Favorite Color by Marie Cartier

You can’t have the ocean without blue.

I walk at night, that’s the time of year

the grunion run, a silver school teaching us that it’s

work to populate –the small shimmer of a female screwing herself into

the sand. I wish her blue. She wooshes three thousand eggs

into the hole she’s made, her birthing room. The males circle her, and fertilize the eggs with a hug. The males leave and the female is quiet.

Then she flips and flops herself back and forth and forth and back,

side flopping to the ocean.

I wish her blue. I wish her free. I bless the eggs.

How I Learned to Make Maps by Marie Cartier

I went into the unknown world with glasses

that made everything so clear I could

move through this world into the next.

Before I got my glasses…I didn’t see the way I could step to the edge,

put out my hand, split the known world and

go through: into the unknown.

I became someone without history.

Those rooms with my father, those times, those days, then nights.

Those stories …

Incest really is not a word that describes anything.

It does not describe the way the body splinters and then the known world separates and

when the known world separates, when all you know is you splitting,

all you see is clouds.

So, I got glasses and I walked to the very edge of the flat world and stepped through.

Oh, I said, the world is round… is round is round. I started circling the round world

to find my hero, my Self.

I was alone, but my glasses were sparkling clean.

How I Learned to Grow Wings by Marie Cartier

April 2021, Poem

Visibility is

this body opening against itself over and over… an existence moving through fibers was

the one thing I had. When was the time…breathe in? Breathe out.

My existence to myself was the most political act. You can’t erase me. I exist for myself.

I am thirteen. I stand next to my father and say, “Don’t you touch me. Don’t you ever touch me again.” My mother stands by the sink, her hand reaches out and clutches its edge. My father sits and looks up

at me. He opens his mouth and closes it. I turn away, expecting his hand to land across my back.

I imagine me falling. But that doesn’t happen. Not that day.

That day I stood up. Said no, turned my back and walked away. I am a political act.

I am a body with a voice and I heard myself speaking for myself when no one else would, I said no.

No is the most beautiful word in the English language for a woman who learns its power.

The spell of no. I cast it when I was thirteen.

The gaze is

when they saw me. I started to erase myself, I was without fingers first. They kept finding me, so

I erased my hands. They kept seeing me, so I erased my arms. They kept locating me, so I erased my feet and my legs. But they kept finding me. I erased my secret places between my legs—what they most wanted. I erased my belly so I wouldn’t be seen eating, and my breasts so I would not be noticed as

a girl. But they found me anyway. I erased my neck and my head disappeared.

All that was left was my shoulders. I felt the weight of their gaze, and everything they wanted and took. And so, I lifted my shoulders, and I found my wings.

And I flew, and in flight, I let all of my parts come home.

A woman flying was the one thing they never thought to look for. But I found her. And she was me.

I Heard my Own Siren Song, and Followed It (a poem) by Marie Cartier

They didn’t know I was a mermaid.

That I had a siren song.

That I could lure, and I could kill.

And that I would eventually

because – I was a mermaid.

When my father tried to throw my brother

down a flight of stairs, I jumped on him.

Six feet tall. I was ten years old.

But I had the tail. He had

nothing. Against. All. I. was.

I was a sea creature. I was kind,

but I was still a sea creature. So, when another

brother asked, who do you think you are?

I hit him hard so he would know

he had to listen. If I told him to hide, he had to hide. I

was a mermaid. I had a tail.

I wouldn’t be there forever.

How I Learned to Love Snakes (a poem) by Marie Cartier

Can I recall a time when my resilience surprised me?

My mother always said, “If you feel bad, go out into the garden and eat worms.” Sigh. We didn’t have a garden. My resilience. My head hits the counter, as my father’s hand slams into the back of my head. I am locked in a closet. I am. That would be my mother as I grew up. Kicked up. Weeds grow. They do. What is surprising to me at sixty is not my resilience, but the fact that I never leaned back. Stopped. Being resilient is the inside and out of my blood type—moving through all of my veins. I am surprised if I cut myself there is blood left. But there is. I still bleed.

This is resilience.

Can I recall a time when resistance was the only option?

My father. I am twelve. My best friend is over. I go in the other room with him. I have to. She hears this, my best friend. I resist shame like a knife blade I hold. I leave the room with the blade held out. Shame then holds out a cloak promising me something. A space to hide maybe. I resist. I am in a cold fever. My best friend and I sit; we are watching a documentary on TV. My mother sits behind us. She says to no one, “Things happen at everyone’s house. I bet things happen at your house, too.” My best friend and I say nothing. I resist feeling. On the TV are flamingoes and I will hate flamingoes for the rest of my life.

This is resistance. Continue reading “How I Learned to Love Snakes (a poem) by Marie Cartier”