P A T R I A R C H Y I S C R U M B L I N G D O W N
S O C I E T I E S I N B A L A N C E
Societies In Balance
Gender Equality in Matrilineal, Matrifocal and Matriarchal Societies
By Leslene della-Madre
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Luxembourg was the site for the International World Congress on Matriarchal Studies, held in early September. Many people, most of them women, from the international global community gathered to explore the definition of matriarchy and to learn about matriarchies past and present, and to find inspiration for changing the current male-dominant ruling paradigm. The conference was held in a large circular room, with tiered seating allowing people to see the speakers and presentations from all angles. Microphones were available for the audience at their seats, giving easy access to group participation. The conference was presented in German, French and English. The front lobby was graced with nine life-sized paper and glue orange Matrones, the goddesses of the Rhine, sculpted by artist Marianne Pitzen. Placed in chairs in a semi-circle in council, they presided over the conference as representatives from the ancestral mother-realms.
Gracing a hallway in the lobby was a photo exhibit by Siegrun Claassen, an artist and photographer from Germany. Her artistic and sensitive display captured the beauty of the “Matriarchal Mystery Festivals”, created over the past twenty years by Academy HAGIA.
I must say now to be fair that I cannot report on this conference and leave out any of the presenters. The diversity of people, European, Asian, Middle Eastern, East Indian, North African, and American all had interesting views about matriarchy to share. Because I feel this event was a complete and total benefit for the world, especially at this time of need and collective global suffering, I feel it is in service of the Goddess to be complete and thorough in my recounting.
When I left my town of Sebastopol, California, to attend, I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t even know Luxembourg was its own country before attending this conference. Being a Goddess lover and devotee, a student and teacher of feminist spirituality for many years and a writer and author of radical feminist spiritual views, I felt I needed to be open and receptive and ready to learn. While I found the structure of the conference rather grueling–three days of presentation after presentation–and my posterior becoming quite numb and tired after all that time I spent sitting on it--I nevertheless felt hungry for the information. I, like many, long for the experience of woman-centered reality and community. Being together with women and a few men in an international setting sharing an interest in matriarchies gave me a sense that the tide is truly changing, and that patriarchy is on its last legs. While no one really knows how long it will take to crumble, it is crumbling, as evidenced by the increased insanity in the world.
The conference was two years in the making, organized by Heide Gottner- Abendroth, founder of the International Academy HAGIA for Modern Matriarchal Studies and Matriarchal Spirituality in Germany, where she teaches and continues as its director. In her own words, she explains the intention of the Congress, “The purpose of this World Congress is to initiate and encourage a multi-cultural scientific exchange, networking, and collaboration between scholars occupied with non-ideological research on what can be described as matrilineal, matrifocal, and matriarchal societies. A major intention of the Congress is to foster a world-wide awareness and appreciation of the many marginalized and threatened ethnic groups that have preserved matriarchal patterns to this present day. Women have always been creators of culture although this great history is often invisible. The Congress celebrates women’s multi-dimensional contributions to culture–past, present and future.” The motto of the conference was “a new millenium, a new science, and a new politics.”
Second presenter following Heide was Claudia von Werlhof, chairwoman for Women’s Studies at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Referring to herself as a matriarchal woman, she spoke on the insanity of patriarchy–“Patriarchy as the Negation of Matriarchy and Aspects of Cultural Madness.” She said, “The ‘genuine’ inventions of patriarchy consist mainly of different forms of violence. The antidote to this is the knowledge of the interrelationship of all beings that will once again become the bedrock of our feeling, thinking and acting in the face of the rampage and the predictable failure of this last phase of patriarchy: the introduction of world capitalism. This madness will fade away as matriarchal egalitarianism, subsistence, mutuality and love of life gain a foothold all over the world again as the true alternatives to globalization.” After hearing her present, I felt inspired to hear a professor at a university being passionate about the fall of patriarchy. I thought that her students were lucky to have such a teacher. We need more of her kind teaching in our colleges and universities.
Concluding the first part of the conference on theory and politics, Professor Annette Kuhn, Scientific Director of the Politeia-Project and Chairperson of the House of Women’s History Association, spoke about the origin and dynamics in history of “the matriarchal pattern.” She emphasized three points: 1) the innovative role of women in the history of humanity 2) the changing of the matriarchal pattern in the development of patriarchy and 3) the description of a general historical consciousness. While a scientific approach to discussing matriarchal reality is not my forte, I nevertheless appreciate all and any angles from which women (and those few men) come from in order to support a change in the current ruling paradigm. We need all the help we can get.
Part three through five of the conference focused on matriarchies, present and past. Peggy Reeves-Sanday, feminist anthropologist, author of the newly released Women at the Center and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, shared about her twenty years of field work with the matriarchal Sumatran Minangkabau. Her focus was on “Matriarchy and World Peace, Lessons from the Minangkabau.” She says, “Their culture is characterized by an ethic of gender balance and a dedication to negotiation and the peaceful resolution of conflict.” The cultural foundation of these amazing people is found in the deep respect of nurture as it is found in nature. Matriarchal customs include peaceful social values, and values are rooted in maternal meanings, as in those found in the mother-child bond. If these values ruled the world, as they did for millennia before the advent of patriarchy, how different things would be!
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The conference was indeed fortunate to host presenters from China on the matriarchal cultures of the Mosuo in China. Ruxian Yan, Professor of Ethnology at the Institute of Nationality Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Bejing, spoke on the kinship system of these very interesting people from southern China, who she says reside “between the female mountain and the mother water.” Some of the highlights from Ruxian’s presentation included such things as “if you don’t have a daughter, water doesn’t flow”, which I interpreted to mean that the life force of the community flows through the female. She said the mother-daughter relationship is the most stable. The primary deity of the Mosuo is the goddess Gumo and the essential “glue” of the family is the mother.
Arriving late all the way from China was Professor Lamu Ga tusa, himself a Mosuo. As Associate Professor of the Social Sciences Research Institute of Yunnan Province, he has been dedicated to preserving “the unique social and spiritual heritage’ of his people. He spoke about the matriarchal marriage patterns of his people, and emphasized that lovers experience a “pronouncedly equal relationship”. In this matriarchal system, partners experience personal and emotional, as well as “benefits” independence. The mother is considered as the origin of life and society, expressed both in “ethnic concepts and in the concepts of love.” Children are raised in the home of mother, and there is no concept of fatherhood as we know it in western society. The mother’s brother tends to the children, and “fathering” is accomplished through the blood lines. I was very curious about this and had an opportunity to ask Lamu Ga tusa, through an interpreter, Aileen Walsh, (who also presented on the Mosuo), how men felt about knowing they had a biological part in creating a child and not be considered that child’s father. It was an amazing experience to feel his simply not having a concept of this kind of fatherhood. He had the utmost respect that a child is of the mother. I did not feel any kind of ownership, possession or need to dominate or be in control, as is so prevalent in the west around the issue of fathering. He indicated that monogamy was instituted at some point from powers outside of the Mosuo. Also worth noting is his statement that there is no rape in their culture. From my perspective, I see that when women are held in deep respect by unbroken matrilineal lineages, boys are raised by the values of the mother and do not develop out-of-control compulsions to dominate and possess. I was very intrigued by his questions to the audience such as “Why do you have to get married to turn lovers into enemies?”and “Why do you have to love one person your whole life?” While the Mosuo have their problems, and are not an ideal culture, they nevertheless experience a measure of enlightened quality of life when placed next to the patriarchal confines and oppressive limitations of Western culture. I also found myself feeling saddened watching Lamu Ga tusa smoking constantly and wondered what was propelling him to cause harm to himself in that manner. I felt this way about watching many of the women smoking as well–there was something peculiar about attending a conference on matriarchies where love and nurturing were being discussed as the predominant values while watching people hurting themselves through serious addiction.
Aileen Walsh, an anthropologist who has studied the Mosuo, presented spontaneously in the original space slated for Lamu Ga tusa. I do not have notes on her presentation, but Vicki Noble has related in her previous article that Aileen focused on their consensus decision making and gender equality. Aileen also talked about how the media has distorted the “visiting marriage” and that because of this distortion, more outside people have come looking for the Mosuo’s way of life as some kind of expression of a new tantalizing sexuality, without regard for the longtime practices of these matriarchal people. At different times, questions were put to several of these presenters about the presence of same-sex relationships within the Mosuo. I cannot say that I ever heard a definitive answer, but it was alluded to that people were free to choose as they wished.
Shanshan Du, Professor of Anthropology at Tulane University and author of Chopsticks Only Work in Pairs: Gender Unity and Gender Equality among the Lahu of Southwest China, shared about her work with the Lahu people. Her focus was on discussing “Frameworks for Society in Balance, Gender Equality From a Cross-cultural Perspective.” A salient point of her presentation was the information on these frameworks that she says “foster balance, harmony, and equality between the sexes and among individuals in some non-industrial societies.”
The first day ended with a film in the evening by Uschi Madeiskyi, “The Daughters of the Seven Huts, A Clan Story of the Khasi/North-eastern India.” A very interesting film about Aileen, a young woman helping to establish the business of her clan to ensure the family stability in the face of her mother’s illness. In her tradition, responsibilities for clan family and land are passed on to the youngest daughter, but in Aileen’s situation, her younger sister was too young, so she had to step in and help. We were honored to have Aileen attend the conference where she was introduced and answered questions from the audience.
Moving from Asia, the next presenter opening the second day of the conference, Helene Claudot-Hawad, anthropologist and scientific director of the National Centre for Scientific Research at the Research Institute of the Arabic World in France, discussed the Tuareg people of the Central Sahara from Africa. The Tuareg are a matrilineal people, though affected by patrilineal influences. She emphasized that the centrality of life of these people is constituted by the mother as protector and stabilizer of the community. Woman is considered the primary force, reflected as “the first mythical step of cosmogony.” A film, “The Daughters of the Tents, Among the Tuareg in Mali.” was shown later in the conference.
By this time deep into the conference, I was feeling the need to assimilate what I had heard so far in some way that would help me not be so much in my head. But that was hard to do, and so I just continued on, taking notes and listening, simultaneously feeling overwhelmed and not wanting to miss anything. The translators, at times, especially the male translator, were very hard to follow–sometimes not even making sense. After sharing glances and looks of disbelief and frustration with those around me who felt the same way, I dealt the best way I could and grew determined to hang in there and learn. The next speaker really helped me focus, as her talk was about the amazing Berber people of North Africa.
Dr. Malika Grasshoff is an historian, author and indigenous ethnologist of Kabylia (Berber) lineage. She was raised in a village in the Kabylia until she was seventeen. The Berber people of North Africa, known as the oldest people of that region, live in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The mother is the “central post”–the spirit that guards the house, without whom the house breaks down. The spoken word is the carrier of their culture, and the Berbers speak an unwritten language, with the word for “woman” also meaning “language”. Pot-making by women is a holy activity, and a sacred magical script is inscribed on them. Pots are living–making pots during the time of the growth of the corn follows the order of nature and honors the fertility of the earth. Everything that women do from morning until night is done with magic ritual. So many of the things that Helene had to say about the Berbers were stunning. I feel the sacred and strong ties these people have with the earlier Goddess cultures appear to be quite intact, even with the influences of patriarchy. The entire birth process is seen as a totally female reality–it is completely linked to the moon. The mother “meets” the moon, prays to the moon and is washed in water that carries the sacred shimmering reflection of the moon. Men are not allowed to be a the birth, as it is a time for women only to experience the creation of life which “cannot be translated into a manly experience.” I thought, Wow! I gave birth in a community in Tennessse called The Farm where we prided ourselves on the fact that we had men there, participating. Helene reported that Berber women who had been in the U.S. were infuriated at Western birthing practices that included men. I am still pondering this complete and total difference from what I have known and experienced in my life, and how things would have been different for me had I had the Berber experience. Looking back, I think I would have much preferred it. Two other points by Helene, though there were many, stood out for me. The fact that there is no such thing as a single mother I found remarkable. The whole village is the family for any child. And, magically and beautifully, a child is adopted into the family by the act of being breastfed–milk is that which ensures life.
Listening to women speak about active matriarchies fed something deep within me. I felt I was taking in the milk of my long-lost mothers.
From North Africa, we were taken to Mexico by Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, ethnologist, sociologist and co-founder of International Women’s Studies. Reporting on an indigenous culture “in the midst of the machismo Mexican culture”, she says this culture in the town of Juchitan, in Southern Mexico, a city of 100,000, has “strong matriarchal characteristics.” They have a “mother-centered” genealogy. There are no isolated housewives and they experience a strong rootedness with the earth. She explained that the “whole community belongs to women” because the “mother’s house” is at the center. There is no “father’s house.” “Mothers and motherhood play a vital role.” Even though heterosexuality is prevalent, four different social genders are distinguished, defined through work and sexual preference. A film, “The Women of Juchitan”, was shown about these people, showing daily community life and celebration. One aspect disturbed me–the ubiquitous presence of beer, with women and men drinking copious amounts, equally. I can’t help but think that the dysfunctional effects of alcohol consumption are not matriarchal, but actually a disturbing influence from patriarchy, which we can certainly witness in our own indigenous peoples in the U.S.. Alcoholism is alcoholism wherever it is. A part of the film highlighted a young man who dressed as a woman and said he felt like a woman. He was completely and totally accepted by the community.
Moving into a look at past matriarchal consciousness, Riane Eisler, author of “The Chalice and the Blade” and President for the Center for Partnership Studies, was slated to open this topic. However, because she could not attend, her paper on “The Battle over Human Possibilities: Women, Men and Cultural Transformaion” was read. The points of clarity I heard were basic outlines of the differences of the two models Riane is well-known for discussing–that of the dominator model and the partnership model. She also emphasized cultural transformation theory saying “a central theme of cultural transformation theory is the centrality of the social construction of the roles and relations of the female and male halves of humanity to the construction of every social institution.” Her paper emphasized the necessity of overcoming polarized classifications found in patriarchy, and moving towards a partnership reality in which polarization is transformed. She also pointed out that the “ongoing battle over human cultural origins” is seriously overlooked as essentially important in understanding “views on human possibilities.”
Carola Meier-Seethaler,therapist and author, spoke on “Alternative to the Dualistic Concept of Culture and the Patriarchal Ban on Thinking”–a provocative subject. It was refreshing to hear a therapist discuss the “alleged ontological split between the male intellectual principle and the supposedly natural principle of female chaos” as absurd. She said “What becomes apparent are the parallels between mythological world views and structures of societies in the course of the violent superimposition of a peaceful Afro-Eurasian basic culture by warlike, marauding peoples between the 4th and 2nd millennia BC.” I felt she made an important point about the present policy of the gender mainstreaming she encounters, saying that the patriarchal scientific community is not willing to hear criticism because it cannot see its own presuppositions due to an unwillingness to self-reflect.
Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum, author, cultural historian and Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies program in Women’s Spirituality, spoke passionately about the origins of homo sapiens sapiens and our emergence from Africa. Lucia’s book, “dark mother” (non-caps are intentional) substantiates her theses that “the oldest deity worshipped by homo sapiens is that of a Dark M other from Central and Southern Africa. Prehistoric signs of this Dark Mother were carried by African migrants after 50,000 BCE to the caves and cliffs of all continents. Later, ca. 25,000 BCE, these signs were transmuted into venerated female images found all around the Mediterranean litoral, in West Asia, Outer Asia, and in North and South America. In the Christian epoch these became Black Madonnas, but the legacy of the African Dark Mother is evident in all dark women divinities on every continent.” Her work is deeply significant because she shows that there is only one race of human beings– African. With this understanding, the fiction/friction of racism is revealed for what it is–nothing more than a useless concept used to wage domination, subjugation and oppression of “other”.
Concluding the second day of presenters was Christa Mulack, writer, lecturer and ardent explorer of matriarchy for over twenty years. She lectured on the work of Gerda Weiler (1921-1994) who was “the first author who probed the Bible for its matriarchal implications.” Author of “Matriarchy in Old Israel”, Gerda discovered cultic passages in the Bible containing definite matriarchal contents. Gaerda’s work challenged the way people read the texts, saying she felt it was important to understand the texts the way they wanted to be read. For instance, she claims that “Lord” and “God” originally meant “Goddess” and “Lady”. Perhaps most importantly, especially for these times, Christa says, “the discovery of these textural treasures allowed her (Gerda) to identify a pre-Israel-ite Goddess culture in ancient Palestine which had a strong influence on the Israelite tribes immigrating into the area. As a consequence, the conviction that Israel began with a patriarchal culture and society possessing a primordial monotheism has to be abandoned.” In Gerda’s own visionary words, she said, “The freed consciousness of women is the power by which the leap into the meta-patriarchal future will be prepared and made easier.” I know Gerda must be thrilled wherever she is, that a conference on matriarchies is a step in the right direction of freeing women’s consciousness.
The final day of the conference was opened in the morning by Joan Marler talking on “The Iconography and Social Structure of Old Europe, The Archaeomythological Research of Marija Gimbutas. Joan, faculty member of the California Institute of Integral Studies and Director of the Institute of Archaeomythology, presented a beautiful and informative slide show of Goddess iconography. As someone who feels that the spiritual must inform the political, I was inspired by the Goddess imagery Joan presented because it allowed me to connect to the truth of the matriarchal reality in a non-intellectual manner, which I feel is of vital importance if we are to deeply understand the changes needed to shift the current dominator paradigm. Viewing ancient images stirs our cellular memory and helps us open to a remembrance we might not otherwise experience through words alone. Joan says of Marija’s work, “Dr. Gimbutas developed “archaeomythology” an interdisciplinary approach to scholarship that combines archaeology, mythology, ethnology, folklore, linguistic paleontology, and the study of historical documents. A vast body of Neolithic imagery rendered primarily in female forms indicates the centrality of women’s activities and their roles as creators of culture. Utilizing archaeomythological scholarship, she described these early Neolithic societies as non-Indo-European and ‘matristic’”.
The baton of Goddess-knowledge Joan introduced was then taken up by the next speaker, Michael Dames, author, artist and prehistorian, well-known for his books, “The Silbury Treasure”, “The Avebury Cycle” and “Mythic Ireland”. While I admittedly had some reservations about men presenting at a conference on matriarchies, I found Michael inspiring and very knowledgeable about pre-christian Goddess religion. Referring to himself as “a matriarchal man”, he revealed his deep reverence and love for the Goddess in his talk, “Footsteps of the Goddess in Britain and Ireland.” This talk was very timely for me, as I was journeying to Britain following the conference to visit with Monica Sjoo, and knowing about the sacred sites there beforehand enhanced my trip. I think it is rare for a man to see himself as a son of the Goddess and not have issues about control and power. Though I do not know Michael, I know many women who respect him, and I mused on how important and absolutely essential it is for men to really “get it”. In concert with Marija Gimbutas, Michael says, “if the original quality of the goddess mythology is sought, a poetic synthesis of all these strands (folklore, folk customs, place names and medieval writings) should be attempted. Instead of the modern cult of Objectivity, a pre-Socratic empathy is required. The archaic offers a new methodology, with which to mend a torn world.”
I was very pleasantly surprised by the next speaker, another man, Kurt Derungs, who also seems devoted to the Goddess. His forte is the mythology of landscape and has developed his field to include research on matriarchy. I found much of his information in his talk, “Landscapes of the Ancestress, Principles of the Matriarchal Philosophy of Nature and the Mythology of Landscape”, simply put, stunning. He says, “The ‘landscape of the ancestress’ is the primary key for the recognition of many cultic sites and sacred places which would otherwise be overlooked or destroyed by the isolating patriarchal viewpoint.” He pointed out that the “divine ancestress” of different cultures he has studied is the land herself, and that people had to be on the land to experience direct connection with the “landscape ancestress”. One of the examples he mentioned was the landscape ancestress of Viet Nam, Baden, the black woman, a holy mountain in the Mekong Delta, originally holy to the matriarchal Chan people. Upon hearing this I reflected on Lucia Birnbaum’s thesis of the dark mother and the diaspora out of Africa. Near Hanoi, there is a large delta split into three rivers–the white, red and black rivers, colors of the triple goddess. The red river leads to a cave with stalactites referred to as “milk breast of the mother”. Another example he spoke of was Langkawe Island in an island
group in Maylasia, called “island of the pregnant woman.” On the island is a holy vulva-like lake where women who want to conceive visit and drink from her waters. He also spoke of Lensburg, middle Europe’s Silbury Hill, dated about 6000 BCE a burial mound where the dead were placed inside the earth as embryos in the womb for rebirth.
The next presentation “The Origins of Patriarchy in Ancient Desertification: Saharasia” by James DeMeo, Director of the Orgone Biophysical Research Lab, was controversial. I felt his focus on looking at origins of violence and child abuse to be an important one. He mapped and correlated behavioral variables such as infant neglect, child abuse and obedience training, adolescent sexual repression, female subordination and tendencies towards social violence, hierarchical structures, high-god religioin and warfare using the data of George Murdock, an anthropologist and ethnographer who collected material from around the world.. Following his presentation, Peggy Reeves-Sanday, a colleague who had lectured on the matriarchal culture of the Minangkabau/Sumatra and their peaceful resolution to conflict, very sharply and angrily criticized James’ presentatioin, calling him “reductionist” and then walked out of the conference. She said Murdock’s data were flawed. Ok, I thought, she doesn’t agree with James deMeo. But does she have to be so shaming and angry? This incident brought up a lot of questions for me. For someone who had studied peaceful resolution to conflict, she didn’t appear to know how to implement this knowledge in a challenging situation. I don’t usually defend men, and I am more often than not outraged at their ignorance, privilege and entitlement, but I was taken aback by her anger towards him and wondered what would be a matriarchal way to disagree. I have not read James’ book, “Saharasia”, so I cannot comment on the validity of his data. Maybe he was assumptive and ignorant–I don’t know. He was, however, invited to the conference as a presenter, so there must have been some respect for his work. I have felt for a long time that we cannot divorce the intellectual from the spiritual. We must walk the talk. It is much easier to talk the talk, but that isn’t enough. I felt James on some level to be an ally. I wasn’t sure about Peggy Sanday after her display of anger and contempt. While I understand the need for fierce truth-telling, I am not supportive of a lack of compassion. To me, the much-needed mother-reality is about how to be truthful, compassionate, fierce, strong and just. Pulling rank or status is not acceptable. In the end, a conference organizer recognized this unfortunate polarization and asked James to present a bouquet of flowers to Heide (who had also questioned his presentation, but in a more respectful manner). She responded with a gentle hug of acceptance and he was able to offer his thankfulness to her and for being at the conference.
Part six of the conference was devoted to matriarchal politics, spirituality, aesthetics and medicine. Heide commented that the interrelationship among all the above-mentioned topics “is in contrast to the situation in patriarchal societies in which these areas have been torn apart and made into separate spheres of power.” Ingrid Olbricht, a specialist in neurology, psychiatry, psychotherapeutic medicine and psychotherapy, spoke on “Women’s Health in Male Biased Societies”. Her important contribution included a look at examples of “structural violence” in the entire system of medicine in regard to women and the deficiency of care for women, which she says negatively influences women’s self-esteem and self-awareness, contributing to illness and the reduction of a quality of life. She says, “women experience their health very subjectively. In a male-dominated health system, the seemingly objective view in definition, research and treatment is still not sensitive to the female gender; it is androcentric and in psychotherapy, even paternalistic.”. Such wisdom! I have a great deal of respect for women in “the system” who courageously speak the truth.
Cecile Keller, a medical doctor most recently practicing in the field of gynecology, and student of shamanism and matriarchal spirituality, spoke on “Medicine in Matriarchal Societies”. It was a pleasure to hear her speak about this subject, because as she did so, I could feel in my bones a longing to return to this kind of heart-caring that women create together. A system of healthcare based on love as opposed to greed and control would lessen the actual occurance of disease and illness because people would feel safe and nurtured. Cecile says, “In matriarchal societies medicine is holistic and is based on experiential knowledge. The methods include both the treatments of the body and the guidance of the soul and consciousness. Within the context of a healing ritual, medical substances and physiological techniques find application. On the other hand self-healing processes of psycho-somatic and spirit-soul based orders are being stimulated through the medium of the “soul-search.” In this process the whole mythology and cosmology of the prevailing matriarchal culture is being activated which will reconnect persons seeking healing positively to their own world view.”
Vibrant and enlivening Ceylan Orhun, passionate activist in national and international women’s human rights gave a talk with slides on ”Aesthetic and Politics from Neolithic Visions”. A profound sharing included slides showing the site of a so-called “honor murder” where a young woman, accused of adultery, was put to death in the streets of Southeastern Anatolia. I was outraged by this wanton act of violence. How is it that men’s reality is allowed to pervade the world with such violence and cruelty and uncontrolled, raging misogyny? Any religion allowing such an act is no religion at all. The very word means “return to law”. The only real law I know of is women’s law–“all things are born of woman and do nothing to harm the children.” I know such killings happen around the world on a daily basis, not to mention rape, Ceylan shared her inspiration from Neolithic symbols of women’s presence and power and feels that women today can re-connect with these symbols to find empowerment. She said that the ancient cultic site of Catal Huyuk is next to small villages where the women of those villages have never ventured out to see this sacred site “because the feminine spirit is denied the right to live there.” She related that the women are “under the strictest control of patriarchy” i.e., “honor murders” being one example. But, she created celebrations using artistic symbolic rituals, bringing the women out of their houses and “enticed them into a feminised public zone, which was a very political act in these regions.” Right on, Ceylan!
Concluding this herstorical conference, Erika A. Lindauer, a woman who “wilfully terminated her secondary educational process at a boys’ school at sixteen” in Germany and identifying herself as a “self-determined person” seeking self-education, gave a talk on “The Topic of Fairy Melusina in the History of Luxemburg.” She recounted an amazing story of the “water fairy” Melusina, the ancestress of the people of Luxemburg. Connecting Melusina to her ancient roots, Erika says, “She was a woman of the ancient culture who was still venerated one thousand years ago. Melusina conceals a Goddess, and the first city was built on her ancient cultic site, the “Bockfelsen”. A church is situated at the foot of the Bockfelsen with a widely known black Madonna. Both these facts indicate that the history of Luxemburg has its roots in the matriarchal culture of Old Europe.” A very nice way, indeed, to finish the thought-provoking and inspiring gathering of wise women and a few men from around the globe, sharing in a deep spiritual, herstorical, political and scientific endeavor to change the world.
I know the ripples from this conference will reverberate for a long time to come. There was an idea discussed at my lunch table that perhaps we could bring a similar conference to America. We all toasted the idea, and the seed was planted. May it be so.
From Monica in the hospital
Monica had this to say:
"I feel very frustrated being stuck here in the hospital and the future looks very uncertain about what I will be able to do and not do. I’ve always been an activist, and I am frustrated in these dangerous times to not be able to be out there."
We sat around and listened to Monica tell stories. One of the most well-known was the time when she and 15 women crashed a mass at the Bristol Cathedral. For thirty years or so she had a vision of wanting to stand up in a cathedral or church during mass and confront the bishop or priest and say you are blaspheming against the mother but I never did it because I was too afraid of being put in prison or in the hospital. I had this vision before the women’s movement really began, so there was no support for it at the time. We were planning a conference in Bristol in 1992 which we called “Breaking the Taboos” and was very much a conference around anti-racism. Thre were a lot of African Caribbean women doing workshops. Thre were women there who were really keen on doing this acion in the cathedral and we met in the evening but I was feeling quite nervous because the cathedral was just up the road from where I live. The women who gathered were fearless-anarchist, anti-road, anti-motor-way activists. When the women started singing Buring Times, I realized this was the group ofwomen I had been waiting for all my life. So we decided to go ahead and meet at 10 Sunday morning which is mass and do an action. Much to her amazement, all the women turned up She put her God Giving Birth on a piece of cardboard and she held it in front of her. Some of the women painted their faces with butterflies. One woman had a baby on her back. We made a circle around a tree outside and then went inside the cathedral and walked in the dark until we were lined up right in front of the high altar. She was standing in the middle. The Dean of Bristol was leading the mass. We found out later that he was in support of women priests. The next year the first 30 women priests were ordained in that cathedral on Internaltional womens day. The dean saw Monica as the leader of the pack... if young women do this they are charming, if you are older you are not likely to ever change. He went for her. He said what are you doing here, we are having amass in here. She said well we want to do something in here. He said it is our cathedral. She said all churchs and cathedrals are built on ancient sacred sites of the goddess. He then gave up after a woman working in the church asked if he should call the police.... he said no. He asked us whatwe wanted to do. We were all scared... we thought the roof was going to cave in... we thought we were breaking one of the greatest taboos of all time... breaking a mass. We said we wanted to sing a song. WE saind all the verses of Burning Times. And then the women wanted to do a dance. For a minute it looked like the Dean was holding two women’s hands... but then he pulled back. She had given her word that they were just going to sing a song. They went out thru the center and as they walked out, she said “Glad tidings end of the Godfathers. When she looked back, she saw one of the women standing on the pulpit with her butterfly wings paintead on her eyes looking as if she was preaching to the congregation. When we were going out there was an old man standing at the door who said to Monica You are old enough to know better, and she it is precisely that I am old enough that I am doing this. We went back to the conference... there were 9women drumming, and we danced ecstatically for the next 3 hours... The energy was incredible. WE felt had done something for all women’s consciousness around the earth. AT the confrence we set the date for the end of patriarchy to be celebrated on Silbury Hill in August at the Lammas full moon.
Oh our mother earth
Bringer into birth
Sweet Creatrix of the night and day
Bring our spirits thru
Rest our thoughts in you
Guide our feet in a natural way....